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Date of Birth: August 6, 1917 Date of Death: July 1, 1997 Education: High school dropout At 14 he was charged with vagrancy and ended up on a chain gang in Georgia. He eventually escaped. As a young man, Mitchum held many different jobs, including a professional boxer (27 fights) and a stint as a ghostwriter for an astrologer. He was also a drifter, a boxer, a shoe salesman, a ditch digger, a coal miner and a poet. He wrote a play optioned by the Theater Guild and an oratorio that Orson Welles produced and directed in the Hollywood Bowl in 1938.In 1945, he received an Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actor for the role of Lt. Walker in The Story of G.I. Joe. Mitchum was romantically linked to such co-stars as Ava Gardner, Shirley MacLaine and Marilyn Monroe He released a calypso album in 1957. It was a moderate success, both critically and commercially. Director Howard Hawks phoned to offer him the role opposite John Wayne in the western El Dorado. "'What's the story?' I asked. (A deep-voiced impression of Hawks) 'No story, Bob. It's just character.' I said swell." A Los Angeles TV stations, in presenting the news of Mitchum's death, recalled his comment after being released from prison in 1948 for "conspiring to possess marijuana." Asked by a reporter what the 60 days incarceration had been like, Mitchum answered, "Like Palm Springs without the riff-raff." He once said that he drank as a preparation for death. "When that great day comes, I will be completely inured to it. It will be just one more hangover." |
"Somebody says, 'We really want you to do this script.' And I say, 'I'd need an awful lot of money in front to do that one.' And that never seems to be a problem. The less I like the script, the higher my price. And they pay. They may pay in yen, but they pay. Not that I'm a complete whore, understand. There are movies I won't do for any amount. I turned down Patton and I turned down Dirty Harry. Movies that piss on the world. If I've got $5 in my pocket, I don't need to make money that fucking way, daddy." |
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