Fred MacMurray: The Guy Next Door | The Hollywood Collection

right straight down the line for both of us remember there was a kind of purity he was at home being an actor he didn't take it too seriously though there was a great deal of Fred and his persona in each of the characters he played and I think that's why he was so attractive to people on the screen and why he was able to play with so many of the top leading ladies over a period of decades my three sons came on there was nothing like Fred MacMurray on TV you compared it to today would be like somebody saying oh cus well we got a serious season and it's a starring Robert Redford the main thing about McMurray was that he never considered himself a star he didn't have to put that on and that's what made him a wonderful character every part he played he played the guy next door you he was easy he was friendly but he was not intimate he did not let you come this close just this close nice friendly small-town boy if there was pain in his life if there was tragedy he didn't ever reveal that my grandfather was visiting Beaver Dam Wisconsin he was doing a concert there he was a very fine concert violinist and he fell in love with she was the most popular girl in Beaver Dam Malita Martin she was beautiful stunningly beautiful they were immediately attracted to one another they weren't allowed to see each other because my grandmother's family very opposed to her seeing a musician but they eventually did he lope and were married and she traveled with him all during her pregnancy and ended up in Kankakee Illinois my father was born on August 30th 1908 there came a time I think when they were having some financial difficulty so it was easier for my grandmother to take my father back home to Beaver Dam where she had a very good support system and she stayed with her mother and her sister those first few years my grandfather was on the road he traveled and wrote the level of disapproval that my grandmother's family had I think ultimately is what separate them and pulled them apart my father heard from his father occasionally but he died when my father was five years old he never really spoke too much about his father because he didn't know that much about him except was so interesting one time we were sitting here and watching a concert on television and this marvelous violinist came and he had this dreamy look in his eyes and I looked at him and he had a tear there and he said he looks like my dad he said he's playing the same tune but I remember my father rehearsing I said you miss him he said I miss being at Sun I really didn't know what a father was he never had an affinity to the violin much I think to his father's dismay but he did love music and he grew up around music and his family was very very musical so he started out playing a saxophone he loved the sax it love the sound of it and you have to remember the era in which he grew up to it was you know the jazz bands and the jazz music and they had the speakeasies and all that kind of thing so dad started out playing a musical instrument in his high school band and then later on he played in the college band at Carroll College and supported himself that first year by playing in local bands nightclubs much to I think his mother's car he loved it and he loved playing the saxophone and that's actually how he got started in the entertainment field all the odd jobs that he had when he worked his way across the country working in a department store and selling electrical appliances and taking the paint off old cars he used to do that Fred MacMurray never took acting lessons he was in a band a performing band in those days it was called the California collegians none of whom was from California they did like vaudeville acts and skits and he burned his timing that way he actually was the only one in that band that knew how to read music and he would play it once for them and they learned by ear how to follow along all the songs and and his musical career led him eventually to Broadway he was a musician in two different shows three's a crowd and Roberta and in Roberta he actually had a line they needed a tall guy to walk across the stage and to listen to a living Holmen song and his response to her song was how you doing baby or come on home baby or something like that he would do the shtick and then go back in the pit that was his first experience as an entertainer you oddly enough he was brought to Paramount and his first picture was not here RKO borrowed him immediately for picture and it was called grand old girl and he had a scene in the football stadium in the stands where he had to eat popcorn and Wesley Ruggles was looking for a new leading man for Claudette Colbert in her new picture called the gilded Lily and they needed a leading man that could eat popcorn so they took a look at the rushes and they agreed that he was the guy for them so he got the part actually because he ate popcorn very nicely the popcorn popcorn was made for watching the world go by look I stick my hand on the bag without taking my eyes off the street I throw some popcorn in my craw IQ and I'm still looking that's what I call class fewer peanut he does don't know how to live fred was that natural with it and when that picture came out Claudette had already been it was already a big start and he just exploded on the screen he just was himself and I think that's why people liked him so much because he was himself and that came through we could go away someplace to the mountains maybe where you could get some rest and then well Oh Lynne I know I'm just a mug no class not even a crease in my pants but you know what I'm trying to say how do you feel about it he brought a naturalness and a charm and a unique kind of sophistication I think made that whole picture come alive and from that day on when that film was released he was an instant star and then when he did Alice Adams with Katharine Hepburn he showed that he could hold hold the screen with her but I think that's what immediately showed the people at Paramount that this man had potential he was used to being with gentle people mostly women in the formative years he became very attuned to how important it was to be gentle with women and he was a very tender kind person uh when he started working with Carole Lombard and some of the big stars that women that were great stars and aggressive and career women not only the fact that he was a good actor that they wanted but they want him because it was natural just he put them at ease appearing in scenes with him they loved working with with with Fred MacMurray they did the big actresses at the time because they knew he wouldn't try to take over they knew that he would be sort of in second place and be in second place very very well without without thinking he was in second place he didn't in any way try to outdo anybody else ever in his life because what he did was simple and straightforward and good enough to to shine the whole of women in Hollywood want to be his leading lady Claudette Corbett dear pictures with him Madeline Carroll get three or four pictures with him Paulette Goddard did pictures with him all these gorgeous girls he used to say to me he said I don't want to get in trouble with my leading ladies but he said the one that was the most fun to work with was Carol I said why Carol um were and he said well you just never knew what she was gonna do or say hello hey yo I said along they would think you'd be by any chance know my purpose you know soldiers are technically answers at all what can they do to me they can fire me all right I've already quit I'm all washed up for the army it's my last day there's an idea we ought to celebrate yeah the army will probably do the celebrating hey the recipe has beautifully debate no one way to Anna pons and I and I don't wear shoes car perfect what do we do man how about meet me on the dark under the mall what if there isn't a balloon coming Jenna the dock no kidding how about you and me go places man when your boat gets here okay no kidding how about you slamming so I can see some of the scenery down here I am the Tina down here I'm good job for one man army ask anybody been delightful mr. Johnson I go away you bother me thank you so much ha ha honey I didn't to get admitted I'll meet you on the dock it down boy hey I'll be wearing white Saudis my work honey that my button also you know it I would know you throw behind your ear that's an idea with Carole Lombard Fred was the perfect kind of sounding board for her amazing comic abilities she was always the wacky though beautiful kind of woman and he was also quite funny in those roles what's the matter don't you like music music applause I like you but that is the music it's so sweet romance there's no romance my trumpet romance in a trumpet and what you mean is you don't like trumpet this was during the era of the depression so people really wanted to be entertained and taken away from the problems and misfortunes that they were dealing with the other Rondon are shocking he doesn't have a nickel in his pocket but they merrily put their trust in a generous bounty of Lady Luck in the dream city of the world New York Tom if you just go to the libraries all you have to worry about her she's used to rough stuff after six months with me why you hound you don't believe that do you he does believe it did a thought between tanks you'd be a comedian everything but he was he was very serious but he had the timing the timing it was so great he was a very expert musician and sax player I wonder if that kind of inner sense of rhythm and sense of evident of the cadence of language and especially comedy was somewhere just built within him and long about order we can begin to figure out more important officer Holly maybe five or six hundred dollars Isaac I read one or check the course he kept himself to a great deal without seeming to be out of it he just well he was like that but he was always friend but he never held you off at arm's length but at the same time you couldn't get to him because of his he had protective quality like a layer of varnish all over him that kept people from from boring in he was a very kind person not only to his co-stars and his co-workers but to the people outside I've seen him leave the studio they take their turn coming up and he autograph whatever it was for them I think he was always appreciative of the fact that what good fortune had happened to him I at one time I guess he thought he was going to be a musician all of his life and then suddenly he's brought to a major studio and becomes a major of a major leading man while the biggest in and the business I remember once I said Fred I said what do you think that you would have happened to you if you hadn't become an actor and gone to Hollywood and become such a success and he said um I always said I'd still be I'd be selling shoes back there he's a Dobby seem I might even own my own shoe store in 1936 Fred MacMurray Mary Lillian Lamont she was a model and an actress and he had first met her in the Broadway musical Roberta she was just the opposite Amith she was tall brunette very elegant in time they would adopt two children Susan and Robert and Fred MacMurray had what he had always sought a family of his own in which there was an ever-present father I understand him to do a little flying for you gentlemen he's gonna pay the pilot you can't feel any worse about at night Oh lieutenant she's sluggish on the controls too much ice give me a key during the warriors Fred I think very well took care of a big problem that Hollywood had which was that a number of the leading men had gone into the service so there was a paucity of the leading men of Fred MacMurray stature he made Americans again I think feel good about the masculine figures that they they valued so much during that time many of you out there are strangers to one another but we all have one thing in common we invested our money in America my father had tried to get into the service but a punctured eardrum had kept him out so he remained in Hollywood but he did what it could to help the war effort even after the war together with other members of the Hollywood community he did his part in helping in the process of rebuilding today victory bars must play their part in peace and bringing our boys home and rehabilitating the disabled hospitalizing the wounded in giving all the veterans a break and we must invest in our own tomorrow by buying victory bonds today he never got caught up in the trappings of Hollywood and I think all of that came from the Midwestern beginnings and you know the solid input that he had from his family and I think he just he didn't get caught up with all of that that wasn't important to him family was important to him doing a good job was important to him I think a lot of actors actresses too who are shall I uh get really turned on when they can become somebody else use their imagination and an act he was a very shy person personally my father never took an acting class but he believed if you believed who you were the character you were playing if you knew your lines and you listened to what the other person was saying - you and responded that was it he always could say things say lines as though they were absolutely spontaneous he's oh he just thought of them and that of course is a great trick in if you can manage it he was one of those what I call an honest actor he was a self-contained person that's highly unusual for an actor usually actors are far more vulnerable they want to know what do you think of me well what do you think of that scene did you really laugh did you really think it was that funny he had inner strength he was very strong he was silent he didn't want to let people in on what he was thinking all the time and I think definitely that came across on screen Fred did have some things in common with the Gary Cooper's the John Wayne's the Randolph Scott he had the physicality he was a big man a strapping strong man he also had that kind of reserved that laid-back quality about him what he did have that that many of them didn't have was a range you can't truly imagine John Wayne or Gary Cooper doing Walter Neff in double indemnity we were making a picture a very daring picture where a leading man and comedic lady a murderess I showed the script to stabbing and she immediately said yes she wanted to do it because she knew that wasn't Susie Bartlett she didn't want to pay goody-goody parts but that difficulties with leading man the leading man in those days they did not want to play a murderer I went all the way down to George Raft and I said I can't play it because when you were eating me there's everything to that script to me this is not that I'm an FBI man listen no that's not the kind of picture that so I had nobody until I found on the list of the contractually obligated actors and at life I I started thinking about Fred MacMurray who was a paramount actor and I let him read the script at he society I can't do it is it that beautiful Alice's this requires acting I suggest it will and you will be wonderful in it he says look for god sake i know how to play the saxophone tough shot that's all about me and i'm doing those little comedies with Claudette Colbert and turn please don't do it to me I did it to him he played it and he was wonderful I killed dietrichson me Walter Neff insurance agent 35 years old unmarried no visible scars till a while ago that is yeah I killed kill them for money and for a woman how do you do miss dietrichson I'm all in that Pacific all-risk if you will I put something on I'll be right down the insurance ran out on the 15th I'd hate to think of your having a smashed fender or something while you're not fully come by do you want to knock him off don't you that's a horrible thing to say what do you think I was anyway the guy that walks into a good-looking Dame's front parlor and says good afternoon I sell accident insurance on husbands you got one that's been around too long when you'd like to turn into a little hard cash just give me a smile and I'll help you collect why what a dope you must think I am I think you're rotten double indemnity was a real leap of faith for Fred MacMurray it was a dangerous dangerous decision on his part to take that role because he was already very well-established as the solid heroic leading man tight at that point he had never played a villain before I can't stand it anymore what if they do hang me they're not gonna hang you baby it's better than going on this way they're not going to hang because you're gonna do it and I'm gonna help you no I you couldn't figure this one Keyes attend you because the guy you were looking for was too close head across the best for me closer than that woman I love you too it was a wonderful boost to him to know that he could betray that kind of character and to portray it beautifully and having accomplished it I think he actually felt better about himself as a performer now he could do anything Fred MacMurray was devastated when his first wife died of cancer and those of us who knew him tried to comfort him as much as we could but actually the most comforting thing that Fred had was himself he was a very strong person and although he grieved and was devastated by this loss he managed to control himself and to continue his work as anything I think he worked harder he didn't want to do it in a way but we talked him into it because we told him it would be better for him you know the old thing if he worked that if he worked it would it would help him to to to ease the pain queeg is a paranoid or there's no such thing as paranoia I'm I warned you you see what he's doing queeg was sick he couldn't help himself but you you're real healthy well you didn't have one-tenth the guts that he had except I never fooled myself mr. Greenwald I can see six sides to every risk and twelve reasons why I shouldn't take it cut the kidding Tom look from this behind this smiling brilliant eloquent exterior I've got a yellow street 15 miles wide I'm too smart to be brave you'll publish your novel you'll make a million bucks you marry a big movie star and for the rest of your life you live with your conscience if you have any I here's to the real author of the Caine Mutiny here's to you mr. Keefer I never believed in having heavies who play heavies they don't think they're heavy they think there's nice and decent said anybody else except they have a different way of looking at life the first time I met Fred MacMurray I was 18 years old and he was 36 and we were appearing in a film together called prophetically where do we go from here my lucky star all at once I'm you I met my ones Lucilla Lucilla dolly speak to me all my life I wanted you to sit on my lap it's no fun if you're not conscious I used to come home and tell my mother gosh it's too bad he's taken he's happily married that's the kind of man I would like to have and she said why I said well he's he's so real he's kind he's so not full of himself brings his lunch in a paper bag eats my himself he's kind of a loner but very sweet and kind and you know mom every day he calls home and talks to his wife and his two children and why can't I find somebody like that June Haven her own right was a big star big star at Fox a lot of important pictures I worked in films for about 10 years in life Golden Age of musicals and having lots of fun growing up sounds like a bird on the beam in the air she goes there she goes a better wedding Oh with all this stardom and edge elation she had she decided to give it all up and go into a convent I went into the convent for very personal reasons and I came out a year later for very personal reasons when Lilian died and left him with his son daughter he was like a lost soul and it was only about I was 6 or 8 months after the Caine Mutiny that he went to the party that John Wayne gave John Wayne called he said Junie I've got to get you out the public again you've been in the convent and I want you to come to a costume party I'm having I said Oh Duke I I'm I'm not up to it he said well I'm not asking you to come as a nun just go and ran a costume so I talked it over with my mother and she said go so I did walked in the room and there he was Fred MacMurray up on the bandstand sitting at the band playing a saxophone somebody brought him over he sat down he took my hand and we both knew it was just to be was a wonderful wonderful marriage and it it took a little doing to get him to teach me things that he knew how to do because he was an expert golfer a fisherman fred was the best thing that ever happened to June haver and I must say probably the reverse is true too best thing that happened to Fred was June she was very vivacious love songs love dancing and that all you had to is look at that beautiful face of her and you'd break into a smile and she'd smile right right back at you we were at a party and there were lots of doctors I cornered one and I said I cannot have children but is there any possibility that we could adopt one and they said how does Fred feel about it so Fred said fine if that's what you want so I went home that night I prayed I call the sister none that I know and I said would you make a novena with me novena is a Catholic prayer which takes nine days in a row I like to be a mother the sister said certainly it was May the 1st May the 7th I got a call from Fred and I was at the hairdresser he said what are you doing I said I'm just ready to go under the dryer he said sit down what are we gonna do with twin girls that were born this morning and it was like it didn't even take nine days of Prayer in seven days they were to be hours as an actor grows older he kind of loses his place he can't play a young dashing sophisticated person at cocktail parties and you know wearing the tails and all that all of a sudden he finds these scripts being sent to him where he's playing western leads Gentry Fred MacMurray a killer who had vowed never to kill again back in town and back in town what's the chance of a bullet my back who are you Gentry to beg for die in this way am I just tell you never had the chance to choose me and he'd say the darn door says never hit their marks he was an outdoors man but not a western cowboy type man dad actually had thought of retiring in the 50s we have a ranch in Northern California and when he wanted to get away he really got away he loved to fly fish he was a watercolor artist he loved to paint he had a workshop in our house where he did a lot of wood crafting Walt Disney approached him and he said you know I kind of like to do a film with you he said I've got an idea he had seen a scientific display by this sort of kooky professor that blew things up and had balloons and fires and he said I'd like to have as a writer write something about this and call it the absent-minded professor present when did we start we were both cast in a picture called the absent-minded professor he knew exactly what he was doing all the time and he did it so easily so effortlessly therefore a lot of times I think people didn't take him seriously they thought oh well he's that's Fred being Fred we got to give it a name Johnny let's see substance X we dub thee what was so truly funny about this absent-minded professor and his being so involved with this new substance this antigravity stuff called flubber I mean you know it's a little hard to take that too seriously but he made it absolutely real and again with extraordinary humor actually I shall make myself available at any time you should care today stopper since IV stoppers matter of the greatest importance somebody said that the cameras ready he got up took his mark and did something magical he made all that flubber the most delightful thing that anybody's ever known um he got into the car and started driving through the sky was as natural as anything he'd ever done before I was preparing a picture called the apartment at cast called Douglas they're very very fat acted for days before we start shooting poor Douglas has a heart attack and dies we have nobody but they again is now the image of Fred MacMurray he could play it I go to him on a set like sick don't do it again not not again ik i cannot play that i cannot play it because you see i have a deal with with Disney and Disney I'm playing here a professor who's got that they're at floating Volkswagen Day in the air and and I am I am the hero of young people of kids of five eight ten years old and now if I suddenly play partly I have a an affair with did elevate the girl in my building I can't do it I just cannot do it came Monday he did it you don't know what it's like standing next to you in that elevated air today good morning was Cuba late good night mr. Sheldrake I'm so crazy about Ukraine let's not start on that again Jeff please I'm just beginning to get over it I don't believe you ingredient number one a very warm very wonderful story about a boy a girl and a very special kind of problem Jack Lemmon Shirley MacLaine the Fred MacMurray this is a Fred MacMurray you've never seen before you know you see a girl a couple of times a week just for laughs and by the way they think you're gonna divorce your wife I ask you that does that fan Oh sir it's very unfair especially to your wife yeah I felt that he knew precisely what he was doing but he was injecting a great deal of his own persona into the part and that that was the correct thing to do and it certainly was what Billy wanted because he wanted him to be attractive on the surface when you're in love with a married man you shouldn't mascara it's Christmassy you Fran let's not fight huh Merry Christmas what is it Oh our friend of the Chinese rescue thanks right three we better keep it here oh I have a present for you I I didn't quite know what to get you besides it's kind of awkward for me shopping so here's $100 you're gonna buy yourself something Billy was criticizing a certain level a certain strata of behavior in big business today and with the love story of Shirley and me he was growing a rose in a garbage pail is what he was really doing and a lot of that garbage was Fred's behavior as the character Fred did play the part and I thought he was wonderful he had done two or three films with Disney and he had quite a reputation list the absent-minded professor the dad image Cate and Laurie were about five or six years old and Fred and I took them out to Disneyland and they were other very good huh and this lady came up to Fred with her little girl and said here Fred MacMurray aren't you and he said yes he was ready to sign the autograph and he said she said you know I've always loved you and all those disney pictures and because of that great reputation I took my daughter to see the apartment shame on you no I just hate you and she hit him with her pocketbook I guess he was in shock but a lot of the fans in those days couldn't separate the real person from the character that probably still goes on and I heard it said that from that time on he decided he would never play a heavy again he was about fifty got a phone call from uh Don Fenderson TV producer and he said how would you feel about doing a TV series where you play the father we've got bill Frawley signed up you'd have three centons a woman less household and Fred said well that's wonderful and I would I think it'd be great if you do the show but I'm not gonna do the show he said well why is it because I don't want to work that much I love to go camping and I love to go you know I'm a sports man so I don't want to come to work every day for six to seven to eight months and so Don said well let me ask you a question Fred if if we could do this series in three months would you do that I said you can't do that but if you can't do that I'm your man sorry fellas I'm so beat I can hardly think let alone talk okay we understand only have so many words to say everyday and I've already said mine I'm talked down sure dad but think of all the and fauna what if I need an poop top but Dad all the trouble with what why aren't you guys can't you see dad's bushed dad if you could just set a time for us to talk about pretty soon please dad because I'm broken about we're on April we kill I need some more not so loud jumble dance tired pipe down Robbie quiet all the producers had figured out a way to do a lot of his scenes right up front and he would come in maybe for the first month six weeks of the show we would do scenes with him and they constructed a lot of scenes that he would enter into or walk out of on purpose we would cut then a cameraman would step in take a picture and we would come back the other actors without Fred and maybe pick up that scene if he had walked out of it maybe two three months later and by then Fred would be out fly-fishing somewhere because Fred wasn't there they would pick up our close-ups a lot of the times like I said we would be talking to Fred and he would be off-camera and we'd be looking up wasn't really Fred would it be a an assistant standing on an Apple box a dialogue coach or a lot of times they had a mop and because he was so tall they'd have to hold it up we should call it Fred MCMAP my three sons was a very unique show at that time in the 60s and early 70s a show had never been done like that where you had a father figure a single parent running a household and raising three boys alone with a with a dog and with his father-in-law it wasn't a show that was very preaching was interesting because the sons would always get involved in something where they were gonna make a horrendous mistake with their lives but because of Steve's great upbringing and the the manners and I suppose the skills he had given us as as people you know we would always disengage ourselves out of a situation before he would really need to step in and he would always smile and look at his sons and say I've taught them they've grown up with my values those parts were written for him and for his persona which was very fatherly had a very communicative father which my father at home was the only thing that was different was all the physical comedy there he didn't fall around the house a lot when Fred was shooting my three sons it was on every Thursday night our daughters they would be on either side of Fred on the couch and when the music started the theme song they would run to the set and kiss him then they would run back and kiss him every week this went on for years they had no idea the show was gonna go this long finally there in about their ninth year they decided that they would have fremming Murray get married and have a wife I walked in the first day panicked because everybody had worked together for nine years and they treated me like I was just I'd been there forever when I got the part of Barbara on my three sons I just was so excited because Mary Tyler Moore was doing her show she had a feistiness about her she had a wait a minute let me tell you what I think she became the new woman in a sense in sitcoms and I thought you know now MacMurray's going to get a wife I can do that instead of all this sweet apron uh-huh whatever you say daddy dear first day friend MacMurray's teaching me how to play golf on the lawn and I don't do it right and he tells me and I don't finally I say but you said didn't you say didn't you tell me that if I might not on act I mean come on I mean is that what you told me they printed it next day income five men gray suits ties they walk over to me Beverly yes you have to understand something that a Barbara is always sweet always nice always with a smile never raises her voice she is the wonderful sweet charming lovely wife okay well that was the end of that wonderful idea ha ha dad was very involved in the substance of the shows and he really did want the series to be about a father raising sons I guess also he wasn't too eager for a TV wife to boss him around on a regular basis my three sons was a kind of projection of Fred at his best because this was a man who had a great sense of humor and who loved being a father and of course those were comedies and yet there was always a little message to them about the kind of values that a family man should have sure why aren't you in bed why are drinking water well go in the bathroom and get one and then get to bed when you please yeah how can you get the first base by striking out when the catcher drops the ball on the third strike how come Robbie says you're out on the first strike well I don't know what he meant by that chip but I guess none of us know quite what we're saying tonight maybe we'll all feel better in the morning huh tonight I guess Oh chip don't forget your drinking water oh yeah he left a kind of legacy with those television shows the roles that he took on by and large throughout his film career and his television career was that of a father figure he was a very caring and very loving father and he didn't have that growing up it's remarkable to me that he grew into such a wonderful father personally and of course everyone remembers him professionally as America's durable and lovable father they felt that they had been raised by him he was in their household once a week for 12 years consecutively and his fatherly advice was very pertinent to a whole generation of young people my dad acted well into his 60s he looked years younger than he actually was and even as he got older his interests and his hobbies never diminished he loved paint he worked in his workshop and he loved going up to our ranch in Northern California he loved it there I think Fred MacMurray was the total professional he was the kind of actor who could fit very well in the studio system context where the studio expected you to be versatile I think Fred would have had some problems in the Hollywood of today I think that today you expect actors who are incredibly intense emotionally the Robert De Niro's the Dustin Hoffman's and others and Fred was not that kind of actor he made movies at a time when audience is truly valued the kind of stolidity the kind of coolness that he had in front of a camera Fred in a way was overlooked he never got a Kadim e-word nomination let alone the Academy Award members and people that belong to thee to the Academy where the Oscar comes from will pick on on a part that is a dynamic part an outstanding part which is usually the best easiest kind of play he never played dynamic parts because he wasn't a dynamic kind of person however if you gave an award just for doing a part beautifully I think he would have gotten a few Awards there is something mysterious about a movie star it's not something you can learn it's not something that you can borrow or watch somebody else and imitate it is simply something there and Fred was comfortable with it he knew it was there he knew that he could tap into it at any moment he wanted and that's what made him so so truly extraordinary this man was a trooper he was a real professional in every possible sense of the word for a guy who went out there for that long and just went through it and carved out such a marvelous niche for himself and did it in such a wonderful way I think says something about the man happily television has given an immortality to film stars I remember when he was sick when he took ill and he felt himself going downhill and it's sad but I can sit here and watch him right there in the tube young and healthy gosh it's marvelous you

Channel: The Hollywood Collection

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Keywords: cinema, star, lassie, audrey hepburn, shirley temple, bio, biography, film, free, director, michael caine, hollywood, filmmaker, theatre, charlton heston, documentary, actor, hollywood collection, actress, clint eastwood, biopic, theater, stage, marilyn monroe, movie, steve mcqueen

Id: WoASQV-_OMc

Length: 50min 11sec (3011 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 23 2016