The Styrous® Viewfinder: Richard Egan & Demetrius and the Gladiators in CinemaScope

July 29, 2020

Today is the birthday of Hollywood actor, Richard Egan, a San Francisco, California homeboy born on July 29, 1921.

Richard Egan - 1949

photographer unknown

My first recollection of Egan is in a minor role he had in Demetrius and the Gladiators as the gladiator who sends Lucia (Debra Paget) into a coma after making sexual advances on her.

Gladiators is one of several films in CinemaScope, an anamorphic lens series used from 1953 to 1967; I dearly loved the process.

Demetrius and the Gladiators is a 1954 Biblical drama film and a sequel to The Robe. The picture was made by 20th Century Fox, directed by Delmer Daves and produced by Frank Ross. The screenplay was written by Philip Dunne based on characters created by Lloyd C. Douglas in The Robe. Franz Waxman

Franz Waxman composed the score for Demetrius and the Gladiators. He also composed scores for Sunset Boulevard which starred Gloria Swanson and William Holden, Bride of Frankenstein which starred Boris Karloff as the Monster and Elsa Lanchester as his bride, A Place in the Sun with Elizabeth Taylor at her most beautiful and Montgomery Clift at the height of his pulchritude and the list goes on and on (link below).

I remember seeing the The Robe which featured Richard Burton and Jean Simmons; Gladiators is the sequel to it. The Robe was the very first CinemaScope film.

The career of Richard Egan received a boost, according to Egan, when a casting director said "Take off your shirt!"

Then cast him in the small role of a gladiator who fights Victor Mature in Demetrius and the Gladiators (1954).

The movie presents Victor Mature as Demetrius, a Christian slave made to fight in the Roman arena as a gladiator, and Susan Hayward as Messalina, a reprobate who is the wife of Claudius, the uncle of the depraved emperor Caligula.

Jay Robinson was stunning in the role of Caligula, the mad emperor who ruled the Roman Empire for only four years (link below).

The cast also features William Marshall, Michael Rennie, Debra Paget, Anne Bancroft in one of her earlier roles, and Ernest Borgnine.

Julie Newmar has a very small part and can barely be seen in a group of entertainers dancing for Demetrius (Mature) and Messalina (Hayward).

Egan won a Golden Globe Award for his performances in the films The Glory Brigade (1953) and The Kid from Left Field (1953). He went on to star in many films such as Underwater! with Jane Russell (1955).

Seven Cities of Gold with Anthony Quinn and Michael Rennie (1955), The Revolt of Mamie Stover with Jane Russell and Agnes Moorehead, (1956),

Richard Egan & Jane Russell

The Revolt of Mamie Stover - 1956

Egan appeared in Love Me Tender with Debra Paget and Elvis Presley in Presley's acting debut (1956), A Summer Place with Dorothy McGuire and Troy Donahue (1959), Esther and the King with Joan Collins (1960) and The 300 Spartans with Sir Ralph Richardson; it is another CinemaScope epic film depicting the Battle of Thermopylae (1962).

Richard Egan - 1962

The 300 Spartans

In 1958 Egan appeared in a film with Julie London, Voice In the Mirror; after the death of his young daughter, he becomes a chronic alcoholic who is cared for by his hard-working wife (London). He begins saving not only himself but others, eventually creating Alcoholics Anonymous.