Robert Mitchum
Robert Charles Durman Mitchum (August 6, 1917 – July 1, 1997) was an American actor. He is known for his antihero roles and film noir appearances. He received nominations for an Academy Award and a BAFTA Award. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1984 and the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award in 1992. Mitchum is rated number 23 on the American Film Institute's list of the greatest male stars of classic American cinema.[1]
Robert Mitchum
July 1, 1997 (aged 79)
Cremated; Ashes scattered in the Pacific Ocean
- Actor
- singer
1942–1997
3, including James and Christopher Mitchum
- Julie Mitchum (sister)
- John Mitchum (brother)
- Bentley Mitchum (grandson)
- Casper Van Dien (grandson-in-law)
- Grace Van Dien (great-granddaughter)
Mitchum rose to prominence with an Academy Award nomination for the Best Supporting Actor for The Story of G.I. Joe (1945). His best-known films include Out of the Past (1947), Angel Face (1953), River of No Return (1954), The Night of the Hunter (1955), Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (1957),Thunder Road (1958), The Sundowners (1960), Cape Fear (1962), El Dorado, (1966), Ryan's Daughter (1970), The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973), and Farewell, My Lovely (1975). He is also known for his television role as U.S. Navy Captain Victor "Pug" Henry in the epic miniseries The Winds of War (1983) and sequel War and Remembrance (1988).
Film critic Roger Ebert called Mitchum his favorite movie star and the soul of film noir: "With his deep, laconic voice and his long face and those famous weary eyes, he was the kind of guy you'd picture in a saloon at closing time, waiting for someone to walk in through the door and break his heart."[2] David Thomson wrote: "Since the war, no American actor has made more first-class films, in so many different moods."[3]
Personal life[edit]
Marriage and family[edit]
Mitchum married his childhood sweetheart, Dorothy Spence, whom he met when he was 16 and she was 14, in Dover, Delaware, on March 16, 1940.[156][38] The couple had three children: sons, James (born May 8, 1941)[157] and Christopher (born October 16, 1943),[158] both actors; and a daughter, Petrine (born March 3, 1952),[159][160] a writer.[156][38]
Despite his reported affairs with other women, including actresses Lucille Ball,[161] Ava Gardner,[162] Jean Simmons,[163] Shirley MacLaine,[164] and Sarah Miles,[165] Mitchum and wife Dorothy remained together until his death in 1997.[156][38] He told journalist Don Short in a 1977 interview: "Not as though there has been anyone else in my life except Dorothy. There's not one of 'em—and I've met the best of 'em—worth lighting a candle for alongside her."[166]
Mitchum's grandson Bentley Mitchum is an actor.[167] His great-granddaughter Grace Van Dien is an actress.[167][168]
Friendships[edit]
Mitchum's close friends included Jane Russell, his neighbor in Santa Barbara, California;[169] and Deborah Kerr, his favorite costar.[170]
Political views[edit]
Mitchum was a Republican who campaigned for Barry Goldwater in the 1964 United States presidential election,[171][172] and considered him to be the only honest politician. According to a 2012 interview with his son Chris, conducted by Breitbart News, Mitchum also supported Ronald Reagan in 1980 and George H. W. Bush in 1988.[173]
Death[edit]
A lifelong heavy smoker, Mitchum died in his sleep at 5 a.m. on July 1, 1997, at his home in Santa Barbara, California, from complications of lung cancer and emphysema.[10][156][174] His wife of 57 years, Dorothy, was by his side.[174][175]
Mitchum's body was cremated and, on July 6, his ashes were scattered into the Pacific Ocean off the coast near his home.[176][177] The private ceremony was attended by only his family members and his longtime friend Jane Russell.[177][169] There is a cenotaph to him in his wife's family plot at the Odd Fellows Cemetery in Camden, Delaware.[178] Dorothy died in 2014 (May 2, 1919, Camden, Delaware – April 12, 2014, Santa Barbara, California), aged 94.[38][179] In accordance with their wishes, her ashes were also scattered at sea so that they could be symbolically reunited at Easter Island.[179][180]
Controversies[edit]
At the 1982 premiere for That Championship Season, an intoxicated Mitchum assaulted a female reporter and threw a basketball that he was holding (a prop from the film) at a female photographer from Time magazine, causing a neck injury and knocking out two of her teeth.[181][182] She sued him for $30 million in damages.[182] The suit eventually "cost him his salary from the film".[181]
Mitchum's role in That Championship Season may have indirectly contributed to another incident several months later. In a February 1983 Esquire interview, he made statements that some construed as racist, antisemitic, and sexist. When asked if the Holocaust had occurred, Mitchum responded, "so the Jews say."[181][183] Following the widespread negative response, he apologized a month later, saying that his statements were "prankish" and "foreign to my principle." He claimed that the problem had begun when he recited a purportedly racist monologue from his role in That Championship Season and the reporter believed that the words were Mitchum's. He claimed that he had only reluctantly agreed to the interview and then proceeded to "string... along" the reporter with his statements.[183]