Mitchum was born in
Bridgeport, Connecticut into a
Methodist family. His mother, Ann Harriet Gunderson, was a Norwegian immigrant and daughter of a
sea captain; his father, James Thomas Mitchum, of
Scottish-Ulster and
Blackfoot Indian descent, was a shipyard and railroad worker. His father was crushed to death in a
railyard accident in
Charleston, South Carolina, in February 1919, when he was less than two years old.
date & photographer unknown
Throughout his childhood, he was known as a prankster, often
involved in fistfights and mischief. When he was 12, his mother sent him to live with his grandparents in
Felton, Delaware, where he was promptly expelled from his middle school for scuffling with the principal. A year later, in 1930, he moved in with his older sister, to
New York's
Hell's Kitchen. After being expelled from
Haaren High School,
he left his sister and traveled throughout the country on railroad
cars, taking a number of jobs including ditch-digging for the
Civilian Conservation Corps and professional boxing.
photographer unknown
Mitchum moved to
Long Beach, California
in 1936 and worked as
a
ghostwriter for astrologer
Carroll Righter.
His sister Julie convinced him to join the local theater guild with
her. In his years with the Players Guild of Long Beach, he made a living
as a stagehand and occasional bit-player in company productions. He
also wrote several short pieces which were performed by the guild.
According to
Lee Server's biography (
Robert Mitchum: Baby, I Don't Care) (
link below), Mitchum put his talent for poetry to work writing song lyrics and monologues for Julie's nightclub performances.
In the early forties, he had a nervous breakdown (which resulted in temporary blindness), apparently
from job-related stress, and led Mitchum to look for work as an actor or
extra in films. An agent he had met got him an interview with the
producer of the
Hopalong Cassidy series of
B-Westerns in 1942 and 1943.
Robert Mitchum - 1947
On September 1, 1948, after a string of successful films for RKO, Mitchum and actress
Lila Leeds were arrested for possession of
marijuana. The arrest was the result of a
sting operation
designed to capture other Hollywood partiers, as well, but Mitchum and
Leeds did not receive the tipoff. After serving a week at the county
jail, (he described the experience to a reporter as being "like Palm
Springs, but without the riff-raff") Mitchum spent 43 days (February 16
to March 30) at a
Castaic, California,
prison farm, with
Life photographers right there taking photos of him mopping up in his prison uniform. The arrest became the inspiration for the exploitation film
She Shoulda Said No! (1949), which starred Leeds.
The conviction was later overturned by the Los Angeles court and
district attorney's office on January 31, 1951, with the following
statement, after it was exposed as a setup:
"After an exhaustive investigation of the evidence and testimony
presented at the trial, the court orders that the verdict of guilty be
set aside and that a plea of not guilty be entered and that the
information or complaint be dismissed."
Whether despite, or because of, his troubles with the law and his
studio, the films released immediately after his arrest were box-office
hits.
Robert Mitchum - 1949
Castaic, California,
prison farm
Mitchum was expelled from
Blood Alley
(1955), purportedly due to his conduct, especially his reportedly
having thrown the film's transportation manager into San Francisco Bay.
According to the
Sam O'Steen memoir,
Cut to the Chase,
Mitchum showed up on-set after a night of drinking and tore apart a
studio office when they did not have a car ready for him. Mitchum walked
off the set of the third day of filming
Blood Alley, claiming he could not work with the director. Because Mitchum was showing up late and behaving erratically, producer
John Wayne, after failing to obtain
Humphrey Bogart as a replacement, took over the role himself.
In 1954, Mitchum starred in the
Marilyn Monroe vehicle,
River of No Return, an American
Western film directed by
Otto Preminger. The screenplay by
Frank Fenton is based on a story by Louis Lantz, who borrowed his premise from the 1948 Italian film
The Bicycle Thief. It was made in
Technicolor and
CinemaScope and released by
20th Century Fox.
Monroe was accompanied by
Natasha Lytess,
her acting coach. Preminger clashed with the woman from the very start.
She insisted on taking her client aside and giving her direction
contrary to that of Preminger, and she had the actress enunciating each
syllable of every word of dialogue with exaggerated emphasis.
Preminger called Rubin in Los Angeles and insisted Lytess be banned
from the set, but when the producer complied with his demand, Monroe
called Zanuck directly and asserted she couldn't continue unless Lytess
returned. Zanuck commiserated with Preminger but, feeling Monroe was a
major box office draw he couldn't afford to upset, he reinstated Lytess.
Angered by the decision, Preminger directed his rage at Monroe for the
rest of the production.
During the difficult shoot, Preminger also had to contend with frequent
rain, Mitchum's heavy drinking, and an injury to Monroe's ankle that
kept her off the set for several days.
Monroe nearly drowned while filming. She had donned
chest high hip waders during rehearsal to protect her costume. She
slipped on a rock, the waders filled with water, and she was unable to
rise. Mitchum and others jumped in the river to rescue her but her ankle
was sprained as a result and ultimately put her in a cast.
publicity photo
Following a series of conventional Westerns and films noir as well as the
River of No Return in1954, in 1955, he appeared in the only film directed by
Charles Laughton,
The Night of the Hunter (
link below).
Mitchum's performance as the menacingly vengeful rapist
Max Cady in
Cape Fear (1962) brought him even more attention and furthered his renown for playing cool, predatory characters.
He starred in many war movies: The
John Huston war drama
Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison, with
Deborah Kerr, the WWII submarine classic
The Enemy Below (1956), etc.
One of the lesser-known aspects of Mitchum's career was his forays into
music, both as singer and composer. Critic Greg Adams writes, "Unlike
most celebrity vocalists, Robert Mitchum actually had musical talent."
Mitchum's voice was often used instead of that of a professional singer
when his character sang in his films. Notable productions featuring
Mitchum's own singing voice included
Rachel and the Stranger,
River of No Return, and
The Night of the Hunter.
A lifelong heavy smoker, Mitchum died on July 1, 1997, in
Santa Barbara, California, due to complications of
lung cancer and
emphysema. He was about five weeks short of his 80th birthday. His body was cremated and his ashes scattered at sea.
Mitchum is regarded by some critics as one of the finest actors of the Golden Age of Hollywood.
Roger Ebert called him "the soul of
film noir." Mitchum, however, was self-effacing; in an interview with
Barry Norman for the
BBC
about his contribution to cinema, Mitchum stopped Norman in mid flow
and in his typical nonchalant style, said, "Look, I have two kinds of
acting. One on a horse and one off a horse. That's it."
Mitchum is rated number 23 on the
American Film Institute list of the greatest male stars of Classic American Cinema.
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