There's tremendous danger in Bob's face and physical presence there is a unpredictability There's a don't mess with me and you never never know which part of that personality is going to surface Before I met mitch I thought you cared to have a very gruff exterior That covered this poetic heart and then of [course] I met him and that is exactly who he is my fascination with him come from the tension between his own sensitivity and delicacy And his cultural Sense of what is Macho because you can feel these two elements of war [hade] it was with this left hand that old brother came struck the blow that laid his brother low L.o.v.e the right hand friends the hand of love now watch and I'll show you the story of life Get up in the morning Go to work, and they paint a face on your [ague] a mustache on you Tell you what jokes the same you're saying that's it. You know turn around and come home at night When mitch came along a lot of producers didn't really know what [to] do with a guy that was [just] all man He was always strong and women liked his looks a lot Glad you don't suffer from those handicaps. No, I don't You know why you missed me because I hate you. So my hand shook your hand shook Not because you hate me put the gun down Women liked him because he was vulnerable, and he showed his vulnerability by keeping himself in all the time Every woman that I know is always saying I'm the one that can get it out of them they love to see that thing buried in somebody because they say they're the ones that can bring him out of [himself] and As a result feel that they've conquered something putting together. What happened what I guess must have happened [doors] all coming back strong and clear, and there's an answer it something about me [that] explains everything I Remember the [rail] [Walsh] used to get a scene set up. You know interiors that is And we'd walk through it or talk through it and where I'll say okay, you got it right? He'd say okay? Roll him when he turn around I'll walk away, and he rolled up bull Durham cigarette on the blind side I guess all the tobacco would fall off. He lighted him Paper due up. He roll another one the same thing roll another one keep firing off these pieces of paper Finally there's a silence, and he'd turn around say is it over I'll cut it say How'd it go the same [with] [Al] and fell off that they would look natural you put it back see ya, okay rip out? The phase that's one from Macros for Academy awards never watched the scene I've worked with Bob known for films He was always contained that was he was born. I [think] with what we call film style acting a really fine film actor as opposed to a to a stage actor does not give a performance he creates a person and Is that person? Mitchum was one of the very best at that He gave everything. He said it as though it had just come out of his mind at that time exactly [the] way he felt He makes acting seem Like it's absolutely real. There's no acting to it at all. It's like falling off a log for him Bob would never be caught acting he just is He's playing men very close to his parent So he knows who he is and then when it's a wonderful role, and he gets to relax Out come these goodies that keep you always wondering what he's gonna. Do next It's a job you know I've said it before and I repeated one of the greatest movie stars that ever lived was rent antenna I was a mother dog So it can't be too much of a trick to it Mention like a lot of guys that grew up at the time that he grew up Have certain ideas of what masculinity is and what you know what's appropriate for a behavior [furfle] for a man and acting like I don't know dancing or certain areas of the arts seemed inappropriate to certain men it seemed to them [like] a slightly sissified profession it certainly always seemed that way to mention a Sort of He-man quality of [mitches] which is real and which is there and he's very much a man's man is certainly a part of his personality But it covers. I think a lot of [anxiety] and a certain amount of fear and terror from his top [two] My father was from South Carolina. He was killed when it was [2] years old a railroad accident I never saw my father but Robert had just enough time little over two years to Feel his presence to know him and of course when he was killed he was left with a great sense of loneliness That I think still pervades the inner Robert mitchum my mother she was a norwegian Immigrant which would work as a lion type operator for the Bridgeport post and wound up in the editorial room She was a self-taught musician. She could read and write music. She played the piano. She wrote [she] [wrote] very well even at the Early ages he showed a great great punching power, and he got into trouble in school, and it was expelled Tighter pretty hard then he lived with relatives mostly because they were poor We were shipped down to my grandmother's farm in Delaware now. This was a double abandonment in Bob's lives My father was 12 years old he left home and hit the rails mainly because he was the depression 1929 and Was one less mouth to feed I? remember times of intense loans and Was far from Hearth and home friends for some reason or other enjoyed that used to Cruise along on a [flatcar] [a] boxcar [and] look on the Lighted windows of all the houses and [envied] feel comfort people had there And of course you had a lot of blue jawed characters with wanted stamped all over them, too my sister was living in New York, and so we moved up to New [York] I Had to go back to high school. [so] [I] went to school for one season at the Herron High school and It was at that time when I took off and wound up the same things again I was 15 and they picked me up in Georgia and hauled me and of the dangerous in suspicious character with over little means of support And that was the answer to homelessness in those days, they gave you a job Custom [thirty-eight] cents of Data Fijian they loan they rented out to the county for 2.5 a day and I Got time on the Georgia chain Gang and [if] so in a particular future on that so [I] ambled off the Chain had worn a hole in his leg, and that's when he went through the swamps and into, South Carolina and The infection said in and that's what almost cost him [his] leg my mother was in Delaware so I got came back after Savannah to Delaware and That year went down 18 below zero and the outhouse [door] was frozen shut and I said I got to find a better place So I came to California Bob and I wrote freight trains out here, and we live with my sister Julie who was a nightclub entertainer? [Bob] Was what I would call a beach bum at one time He had a physique [that] wouldn't stop till he had shoulders that were bigger than anybody's I ever knew We're relying on the beach When my sister Julie came down and said hey guys why don't you join the long beach players, gil? [oh]? No way, and she said you know we have 60 girls and only four guys in the guild while we joined mediate The next thing I know Bob is acting as Duke mantee in petrified Forest, [and] he was just a natural an absolute natural All of a sudden Bob disappeared again, and when he came back he was married to dorothy They met dorothy She was 14. I was 16 I was fresh out of a chain gang which was some cause for concern for Mother and friends, and I said I'd be back and I came back and eventually we came on out to California my all-American bus When Bob and I started working at lockheed aircraft? We were not trained Factory workers. He knew very little about it, and it certainly didn't suit his temperament if anyone blind And they put me in the hospital and checked me out and the doctor said there's nothing wrong [with] you And I argued I said you don't go blind for nothing wrong, and so you saw him He said you just don't like the job. This was your choice and here it was your minor quit your job So I put the [sign] became a movie actress instead I Think that all buttons before [and] the one that took our gun yeah, I can't remember where June 1942 it so bill Boyd and he said he's kind of mean around the eyes Not the carnival Californian sort of falling off horses Playing Cowboys, and then he was riding around all that he get in the free lunch So that was it They played heavies and Westerns, and I had a bass Baritone voice You don't know what it's like to [be] hunted and hounded with never a minutes rest My face is plastered on every post office in [the] livery stable weapons impatient I Think in one year somebody told me I did 17 pictures, but I was just [jumping] from one place to another Sit down that year Hey, what's this thing for take your picture front and profile? Yeah But what for we said one day every sheriff or law agency in the country just [to] make sure we don't get any ringers. Oh what if I gonna have my picture taken I better get a shave [a] Close shave with that Work a day or two days [you] couple days ooh, I think I did for a bit k 2 to 5 Girl Johnny doesn't live here anymore Doughboys in Ireland and Gung-ho [with] universal great epics like that Why did he call you pig? I i have to go around collecting garbage and the kids started calling me piggy Well, you're pretty strong even those cans around so after a while. I started to beat the town kids up finally they stopped calling me Now when I started fighting they call me pig iron, which I didn't mind I see you've been in the brig four times and always for the same thing fighting Well it gotta be tough to be a [marine] sir Why'd you guys know we have to do? I'll make me a thot. You cover me. My luck is bad Kurtz You're next then larry Frankie and said [Row] So long fella, they goes nothing then I went to Rko and did the westerns the vain great Masters and [then] call me over to the old selmak studio to test on Gi Joe And of course bill wah was a mighty name of the business Bill set it up as though. They were actually you know filming [within] the picture you got everything all arranged I couldn't I did the scene with burgess Meredith and Bill so that's it Haven't I just corporated the test right into the picture? Dear Mrs.. Smith son died Bravely today and It's like you like a murderer. The only we could create something good all this energy all these men and the best Ernie this Bill said cut and I looked over [Viana] cameron. He was sitting there crying so I figured It was very very bad or else. He was very moved mitch was not someone prepared to become a star mitch was only prepared to be Whoever it was he was and if that was acceptable That was okay, [and] if it wasn't that was okay, too You know dondo it had give me a great deal of personal pleasure to break every bone in your body Goofing off down there was one thing up here is another I'll get out of here before I kicked it wait Report the sight of Warneke telling you gonna Dig latrines for every man in this company from here to rome Nice, Deeply. He has none [of] [the] Nonsense of Having to feel his part and go around doing exactly what that person would be doing in stay mood and everything He can just turn it on [I] know a lot of people who spend a lot [of] time in training, but My feeling is that it's like going [to] school to learn to be tall. I think it's possible when I was given out of the past It was such a marvelous role, and I was surprised that the studio gave it to me because I was not that experienced So when [I] first worked with Bob the first day he said to me Are you are you on your marks, and I said I think so you know and I looked down and he said I Know you're not on your marks. You're supposed to be straddling it. I didn't know and and he would he was so helpful to me You remember [Cathy] don't you? Yeah, I remember ken Shut up Cathy's back in the fool bear your heart to him Cathy I Couldn't help it you Well it settled things does it Working for me their first day together Kirk was a method actor from New York and Bob was an actor. You know kick around actor for many years here and Bob was very underplayed Kirk decided that he would under play Bob which is impossible of course and by the end of the rehearsal they were both on the floor and so eventually gave up and they worked so beautifully together because their styles were so different Wait a minute I'm not framing any woman, when did you were fall? I wouldn't try it what you're out of shape Besides, it's not a frame She shot him he was gonna kill you [you] see wit self-defense a sense to beat she might not even have to do time How say you killed him they'll believe [me]. [do] you believe it? He has empathy for [people] and yet. He is never a crybaby And he won't let you really be a crybaby either an average guy No with Robert Mitchum its dorothy They have family family you I Had no [idea] at all what he did for a living You're such a separation and our home life was so normally the people came to our house who were actors you know? monroe and Russell and [Grant] these various people They were friends of the family The first time I guess I really realized what it was all about was in 1956 wouldn't I was a a young teenager and There was Elvis presley at her house having roast beef and playing the piano and singing songs and my dad and and that To me was a star Howard hughes the own Rko and but rko. We had a lot of fun We didn't have a caste system there like they had at metro for instance it was rather like a club, and you saw the same people all the time there was a great camaraderie and you had basically the same crew all the time and you knew pretty much everybody on the lot and You knew where you stood and you knew? Fairly well what your future was and what your present conditions were? My place in the business was I call it pounded to death by gorillaz And it's [illustrated] like this I'm alone on the stage and suddenly an enormous gorilla looms up behind me and Foam pounds me on top of the head like this And he repeats this any pounds and pounds and pounds until I finally just and pound it onto the floor And the gorilla by this time in exhaustion at his efforts collapses on top of me now little girl [in] a pinafore comes in from stage left and She says he's around here somewhere. [I] know I can smell [coz] I haven't shaved they haven't bathed through the whole ordeal And she looks around she finally sees the gorilla and she peels him back and then lifts me up To the center of the stage and there I am battered and beaten And she throws her arms around me and [looked] straight in the camera sees, I don't care what you say. I like him That's what I did for a living Anytime the writers were stuck for another [turnaround] [the] hit mention sometimes he gets a little testy with the High-minded Producers or directors and especially if they're trying to push the other actors around or the crew He will very calmly go out of his way to plan something to make them fall on their face I Made a picture his kind of woman with Bob Bob wanted coffee on the set and they [would] bring coffee for him, and he says no, I want it for everybody and they say well everybody's not going to have a producer, whoever it might be and this was a huge picture as a matter of fact and Probably get in his car. He says I'm gonna go for a cup of coffee [now] They said we have coffee on the cities, and no, I don't like this coffee. [I'm] gonna go for a cup of coffee two hours later he would come back and he didn't he didn't say I demand you you have coffee on a set for everybody, but Every morning. He did that for about three or four days. They finally got the message and they had coffee on the set for everybody It's very difficult to get him angry. He doesn't like to get angry because If and when he ever does get angry it's going to be terrible Mitch never holds back he always says exactly what he thinks and he always pretty much does what he wants [and] by and large Does it without hurting other people if he hurts anybody it's perhaps himself [frankly] in the marijuana situation where he was caught and Jay when Bob was arrested he was a surprise as the police at least were after someone else and they all but said run you know and he wouldn't leave his friends and so he was arrested he understood the irony of the whole thing of his being picked out when Everybody around him including probably half the guys that arrested him, we're smoking marijuana Mr.. Hughes wanted to fight it and because he knew [a] great deal more about it than I did And I said it's too late howard. You know it's already in the papers therefore. It's true, so if I Beat it that's gonna cause it's gonna embarrass a lot of people is [gonna] hurt a lot of people and I said Nothing to me. He had served 54 days or something and He asked them please I will pose for you. I will swab the floors You know we can stage anything you want at the jail? But I don't want any you know like my children to see it you know and and and they were good about that Let people [forget]. You know is that The whole thing was thrown [out]. It was resubmitted and it was stricken from the record because it was not a true case a Lot of people thought it was going [to] you know be his ruination, but everybody that knew him Loved him and stuck by him and when he came out the audience loved him just as much if not more When he flashed on the screen and Rachel the stranger The audience did stand up and say problem merely because he was the kind of a guy that he was There is no, persona to Mitch Mitch doesn't put on Another person that so many of us do when we're in the public eye. He's the real thing this is no guy pretending to be a tough guy or playing intelligent or smoldering to indicate sexuality I think he's whole he's whole he reads constantly and Not only reads, but he quotes which I can't do I read it in two weeks later You tell me the name of the book [nothing], huh? But but he is he has her mind. He's a very bright [man] Which has a photographic memory? takes him one second to memorize something he'd say Give me those three pages and a guy would turn him out of the script and give him three pages And this is what he'd do. He'd look at the thing And he had it He plays the kind of a guy that's so cool that Nothing could rattle him and he probably never really read a novel and I think Robert mitchum could write novels Enjoy the view but it's not the taj mahal, or the hanging gardens of Babylon, [but] it's not bad. My name is trouble, Mr. [rutte] I think that actors and principal principally entertained and I remember as a child going to the movies and Coming out and find out was still day, or it was night, or it was raining, and I had been totally transported it's an escape and If people are good in their craft they can aid in that escape they can create that illusion Julie Look I know this is a little abrupt [I] don't carry a lot of credentials around me, but I Fairly Honest I've got a lot of things in my life Running a [plantations] hard work. I'm not afraid of hard work You're not kidding Howard hughes as far as scripts were concerned He cared more about the clothes you were going to wear or the kind of publicity? Campaign it was going to have howard actually would say Listen Bob. I want you to wear brown suit in this picture because the girls got green eyes and In that next picture. He said you wear a blue suit because the girls got red hair Things like that But I pretty much play the same character, and they just switch leading ladies I never found a disadvantage isn't working with Howard hughes we were I regarded him as a friend [and] I trusted him The one thing if he said it that was it it was true. His word was solid I was there ten years and the contract was up and [went] [on] to do other [things] Leaving this kid running around a crummy place like this kind of father. Are you anyway the worst? Nice, you admitted I? knew Maryland as a person as a friend and I learned that in working with each of the women with whom I have worked and they have the common problems that everyone has and they're far more vulnerable because they don't protect themselves with a a That sort of shield of which distances you from them He does carry with him extra knowledge Because of his sensitivity and his perception It's that getting away from the the outside and really piercing at the center Therefore he is able to - no woman - no woman better than most men I think Just how many kinds of fool are you? I'm not you a kind What I weston's kind, I just don't see it Treating her the way he did He didn't treat me like a tramp. He treated me like a woman So he made a mistake. Maybe you do a foolish thing yourself [I]? Wouldn't leave a kid to die a real woman Even if she wasn't there [I] suppose that that mitch is somewhat of a chauvinist I think that he thinks that you know the man's places at the head of the table and the head of the family and he says what happens and and Everybody else kind of toes the Mark The underside of that is I think that that [mitch] is also the protector always there to guide To make sure that the woman is safe Where you taking home? he's among a very small handful of particularly men actors who project intelligence tremendous sexuality Danger vulnerability hidden except for grief Chosen moments and an mystery this is one of the few Romantic leading men whose Most memorable I think and greatest films have been when he has played a despicable character The heaviest most enjoyable because you would inspire reactions and people this is concrete John made you see it John Told alive The Lord's are talking to me now. He's are saying alive is an abomination before mine eyes Speak boy. Where's it here? I just enjoyed the experience of working with Charles Lawton at my [tell] Hunter I Like these sort of stylization. [I] wanted to take it right straight down the road as the book was Michelle's wouldn't have that. He said he didn't want to women snatching that children off the street at my appearance Be really, [too] [too] compelling [if] I you know played it as it was written right straight down the line I've had other directors who? Could tell you what to think he said now. He's thinking of rather boring, you know it's a in that case you're playing that the director these are directors [who] in in the principal or frustrated actors and they Impart their interpretation to you and expect you to do that complete complete with their Mannerisms I suppose and their speech impediments and whatever I think that he did a lot of pictures Directing himself, but when he had a director who cared enough Not to be intimidated with Bob and to say come out and show the emotions that you have He was delighted with the director like that. I Know they've [been] working with [Johnny] hughes That you always felt very comfortable because you know whatever the situation was John had [been] there He was a great appreciator I Think the only time that John ever said anything to me was once I looked Beyond the camera after he cut I Looked Beyond the camera usually. He was like that He said I think even more I said really giant shit I think even more and I know exactly what he meant so we did it again even more [I] Knew I was going to do heaven knows Mr.. Allison with Bob. I was a bit intimidated by the Reputations [had] gone before him. I thought whoa I wonder what I'm in for here, and of course the unexpected Happened we were absolutely got on like a house on fire and I found myself sitting on the pink sands of the beautiful little island of tobago and We were watching the phosphorescence in waves And he was so poetic and so appreciative of the beauty of it all So such a wrap for we could phone it in actually you know she could be in Switzerland I could be here and we could read back and forth of each other each knowing exactly how they other is going to respond in [the] sundowners He was marvelous. He was really wonderful. [you] know something I You're built the way a woman ought to be built Just find it out. No, I knows that a couple of times before was memorable scene when He comes home late at night rather drunk And she's been saving money and putting them in a glass job putting it in a glass jar because all she wanted in life was a Roof over a hit instead of a canvas Truck and he has to own up to her that he's lost all the savings at the turn of a coin I Don't know what to say I [I]? look at your both you and [sean] you were just like strangers, [and] I wanted you to have what you wanted but God forgive me. [I] musta [hated] you both me just one to get away from to get drunk get [the] taste out of your mouth That's all I meant [to] do now [was] just get drunk get so that's all I meant to do as technically brilliant as he is and there's a Tremendous amount of work involved being a technically perfect actor hitting your mark knowing where the light is all that stuff is Second Nature to him. He knows exactly what he's doing as a film actor and He's not self-involved they got on extremely well, but Whereas Cary grant he was very vain about his appearance and his clothes and so on and [so] [Bob] [was] never like that He says do I wear this Okay, what do I wear with it? Okay? You know appearing to be Uninterested whereas he of course he was extremely interested in what he was wearing, but he never showed [it] he was But he was the most unveil man. I think I've ever met [I] Don't think there is a self involved bone in Mitch's body. I don't think he cares. How you shoot him I don't [think] he cares where the camera is I don't think he cares where the lights are I Think he only cares at that very moment of actually doing the scene and allowing it to To be an experience that he's going through Maybe you can get away with dog poisoning beating up on a little drifter like diane Taylor. Don't push your luck with me Say she's getting to be [a] getting to be almost as juicy as your wife [benji] You enjoyed it actually? and I remember I try to get out of it and Talking to Greg in the [provoke] [Greg] was a producer, too and I said [I] You know you can't find anybody else [I] saw but I really wish you would hope did you find someone else. They said like who and I was stuck? The biggest scene in the film was our rape scene that took place on a houseboat In the dead of [night] and mitch of course played a part that he was spectacular at which was the smiling heavy It was the last scene shot in the film and it was a scene [that] was very very difficult really to Rehearse because there was no way you could really do it you had to kind of know what the scene was about and then Shoot it and hopefully shoot it once because it was so physically violent [I'll] not come on You ain't that scared? You come right down to it. What is there to be scared of Look, you're not a foolish man. You're very clever. You never make mistakes. You don't take chances If you touch me you'll go back to prison for life You wanna make a little [bet] on that, but you will I'm not like nancy. I'm not afraid to testify I swear, oh, you gotta believe [in] your lawyers wife don't you understand? that with consent They no charges against me as the scene progressed, and he grabbed me and [we] started and we hit the door For him to push me [through] the door into the hallway the door was supposed to be preset so that it would you know unlatch and accidentally of course someone had Had shut it all away Which of course did not stop mitch because we were supposed to go through the door. So he my body became the battery room? Whence room door? prior to that he hit his fist through the kitchen cabinet and one of the [Cabinets] had been Reset so that it would shatter and of course he didn't hit that cabinet at all he had a cabinet that was not preset So that his hand was already covered with blood by the time he used my body to get through the door My back was covered with blood and as we got into the [stateroom] And I was crying and pleading with him And he started to hit me [I] think [that] mitch just lost it the scene was over the director said cut and We just both kept going We were kind of caught up in the scene and the director said cut again and and we just kept going and finally they literally came over and physically stopped mitch and it was as though both of us woke up and mitch realized that I was really hurt and Took me in his arms and started to rock me and say I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry for me I thought he was always rather than embarrassed actor He always seemed to me to be doing it out of not Sideways if you see what I mean, it was a sideways oblique Way he he approached his word one of his very best performances was Ryan's daughter the picture he made with David Lee. He did a beautiful job of playing an Irish care there's a beautiful job of the dialect [they] accent a beautiful job of being a suppressed individual I get a call from David Lean and Robert bolt and about Ryan's daughter And I thought well surely there must be some Irish actors out of work. You know they could pick one of those and I told him that David said no no we would be rather you know decided to [he] [said] do you have any any other plans? He said which would preclude your appearing and I said as a matter of fact Yes, I had planned suicide And he said well, he said if you would go first. He said do this wretched film of ours He said I'd be happy to stand the expense of your burial. I said okay. I'll be there okay David is quite daring often in his casting and quite likes to cast against type One of the points that perhaps David wanted to make was [that] you can have the physical Cannon Wherewithal to to look like you're a great he-man, but when it comes to the crunch [or] the silk or the linen? [you're] not quite as cracking as you were made out to be I Think the David wasn't very comfortable Directing the love scene he used to get his Cigarette in his hold a very tense and tight and he used to wiggle his foot she's always an English sign of stiff upper lip and tenseness if you wiggle your foot and smoke jaggedly like that and Now in this particular scene Robert call me Bob a bob and what I want you to do is to make love to to Sara here, and then I want you to to I want you to relate and What do you want me to do David come? But like I'd like you to do that I'd like you to come Quite um you want me to come fast? Yes, I'd like you to come Fast if that's at all possible all right and action are we are we rolling right and action and Robert Would would you [earn] Sara and Mitchum would would Kind of do what he was told you know and then just before he came he say honey, honey. You've creased my nightie. Yeah just to Tell David that he's behaving rather silly over this David Spends a lot of time staring into space And I imagine if you should ask him what the pictures may look like it'd be like asking the kleins What was the ceiling gonna look like when you're [finished] with him? because he Has a vision [he] is a great visionary but it's very difficult to explain and he Puts it all together With this ring. I thee every day actually the name of the father the son The holy ghost [um] You'd never be unfaithful to me would you? I'm sorry, [Investor] [Jonah] this is rotten question from anta's complain What is this? What do you want not you really get out? Get out - shut up shaughnessy fuck You you've been tried and found guilty you're the informer Take my Arm. I Saw a certain wisdom and a certain compassion That he often managed to hide very well, but nevertheless it was looming and luminous within his performances an extraordinary quality that sets aside acting and Brings out something quite Quite magical he knew people the common, people uh And I think that's one thing that endeared some tumulty because he gives that he gives that feeling Sheila look it's gonna be all right up there in the hampshire the fella. I'm seeing today He told me he could square it for me now. We'll get the hell out of here, okay I'm not complaining Eddie, hey It's Norman we had a British director doing a typically I mean American American picture about the Boston underworld you know the Boston mob as it were And I found a very enjoyable we had a lot [of] technical assistance on the picture a lot of Boston Hooligans who were? with us on the show Well, I come [on] it went fine. Just fine. He had five. I'm [cystines]. Just like he said how that [doesn't] That's not you know. You said you wanted a reason [thing] we talked about that thing [left] new hampshire. They she said you needed a reason that You making any money not exactly you were to ask me. I have to tell you. I'm [not] having a very good day He used to drink Scotch in a water glass with no ice [with] just a little plain Tap water as a chaser, and he drank it like you drink coffee [he] just stood sip slowly on it all day, and he would just you know he never pass out or he never got? Falling down drunk. He just reached this certain level and he'd sit talk all day And you would be fascinated he could tell the most incredible range of stories he comes from that That kind of good old boy the environment to know all the big I mean the John Huston's and the John Wayne's and the you know the guard they were all these two fisted guys That really didn't have anything to do with acting or anything else. It's a it's a you know What guys did then whatever he drinks as in my own particular case, and we're both from the same genetic structure comes from a desperation a desperation of wanting to achieve a calm and peaceful stream Mitchum was always tired You always felt that mitchum. [it] [seemed] all there was a cynicism in Mitchum's Performances as a private eye, [but] you knew that wasn't the whole story I think you knew there was more going on than what he was letting you see the Detective Genre Humphrey Bogart Dick Powell Several others Bob seemed to care more The life that he had in the picture seemed to mean more He was more more vulnerable as a person He showed emotion more he He was hurt war, and he really he really hurt when he heard you were surrounded by people who were? Pretty much had run out of hope and the character fits right into that particular [median]. I liked it I Want you to find my Velma I? seen her in seven years I'm looking for a girl velma. She was the only tramp that ever worked for Mike, but it didn't use like a mattress her, too My place, what food? You got everything we need with you - slap scratch Punched knocked unconscious drugged and shot at looking for your [bubbles] [for] [quick] trying to make a milkshake out of my insides will you? [do] everything you know about him is that he he attracts violence a little bit even in his Total Passive Behavior He will attract violence like bees to honey pot [mitchum] never liked to fight. He was capable of it. He could take care of him He's like John Wayne he could take care of himself against anybody he was solid very solidly built But he didn't want to get mixed up with anybody the end of the day had come and we were all in the bar of the hotel where Bob was living and There were pretty tough looking characters in the bar And one of them said I could knock you fly so bob presented his chin [as] her gone hit it Okay, and he hit him Bob just blink [and] the fellow said, I'm gonna hit you again Bob said wall there my friend. Just a minute. Do you mind if I defend myself this time? Now go ahead so They fellows swung and before he knew where he was Bobert hit him on the chin. He slithered across the floor through a glass door down a flight of steps and into the garden Bob turned to the Barman who was bug-eyed at this and said Drinks all [round] on me and a drink especially for the gentleman who seems to have Fallen down the stairs [I]? think the ideal would be to Be very successful at your job and be totally unrecognizable on the street. I think that's the ultimate I should think playing midgets or Mushrooms or you know anything [that] is? different than this far [apart] from your personal and physical being as possible mitch just simply never played the movie Star game I Mean can you picture the head of some studio saying to mitchum? Okay? Now look kid? I want you to go to this premiere tonight you go and pick up so and so on you take her and dress up and Try to look good and act. You know like a movie star. I mean Mitch would probably either politely say no or punch him out it would be one of the other if anybody tried to get pretentious with him a Reporter an interviewer he would really put him down and and very hard he didn't give a damn about their feelings [I] tell you I got off a plane one time in London, and you know the British press and I wound up at the in the dorchester hotel with one of the British journalists And he said he and he night london nice. I love it. You know Enjoy it very much Well, we should devote don't you lie about it? I saw there's nothing in the particular I just [liked] is that if they put parking meters on the grosvenor square it watts me, not you know and I said I'm Coming from someplace that I like less usually and I've got the best of it here. I'm in the west end I got a lot [of] friends here. They're good restaurants. I enjoy working here. I enjoy the people And it didn't set well. He said well if you change anything about it. What would you change? [I] thought I might suggest that you move it a bit closer to the airport Scribbles that time he said was that And I said well, I I told you you know, I'm rather I well I enjoy the refresher course driving in from Heathrow I'm rather anxious to get in to get in and get on with it because I like [it] here The next day somebody showed me the copy and the precedences. How do you like london we respectfully inquired of Mr. mitchum do goddamn far from the airport growled the Burly yank What do you do? when I started to work with Bob on the picture I was Concerned with trying to get on film this sense of a character, who'd been sort of marinated my life? Feeling you get when you look at [Mitchell's] face now the sense of a man who's seen it all and been through it all and That's kind of character he played [Mitchum] in Japan is probably one of the great comedies of all time and he first of all he's 14 times the size of any Japanese Eddie and and he would bang into the doors and ceilings of all of the rooms you have to walk in a crouch because you keep banging your head all the [time] and you know there the rooms are measured by [to] Tommy's you know like a tenth of Tommy room or a 6 mm, and In the lot of the old buildings [because] the doorways were relatively low-tech Acorah Ken with whom I worked mostly there was a great gentleman, and I never sat down on the set How's your brother? my brother Yeah Ken your brother. How is he why do you ask? Because I had to see him Can I do foot I? Need to ask you a favor It was not consistent. She's his wife [I] Found him to be like a very very Powerful and lazy horse that wants to walk as slow as [possible] and will get away with doing as Little as possible I used to really have to push him He won't offer The full emotional nature performance not at least he didn't for me until you went after a little bit If you can forgive me, then surely you can forgive a [go] You are greatly loved and respected by all your family he's full of feeling which she just Keeps at Bay most of the time and and every once in a while. There's an opportunity in the acting for it to come out This sort of Macho thing. You know about him being so so tough ah Well, it's partly [true], but [underneath] all that is a gentleness to him that you would never expect You ready to marry then some strong healthy man with nothing to be ashamed of [I] Want to marry? my [son], Eva Let me kiss you Just that once before you become my daughter when you start with nothing and you prepare to end up with a nothing you have nothing to lose and It's it gives you a basis to be true to yourself, and that's the way he is he is true to themself [I] Guess I see myself sitting back in some hobo jungle and Anniston Alabama Sandy let me tell you about I used to be a movie actor whenever I say yeah, yeah public knowledge of him may think of him Sleepy-eyed creature who really didn't care about anything All untrue he cares tremendously it can be very subtle to a point of And I think that as the years pass people clearly that invisible listened he gets on screen I don't know how to analyze what bitches peel is it's just it's there. It's immediate you can feel it. It's palpable I think he just is I think that's his power as an actor and I think that's his power as a person [when] I think about The films I have seen in my whole lifetime and my sense of who's really gonna count they're gonna be a half That they're in that time capsule [and] for my money Mitchum was gone you oh
