Robert Mitchum is The Man from Rising Sun (1946) đşđ¸

The Man from Rising Sun
Itâs a town in Delaware, Rising Sun, and it saw the beginning of Bob Mitchum, the guy behind the cocked eyebrow
by Diane Scott
A quizzical eyebrow, coupled with his aversion to âstanding in line,â has been miscasting Robert Mitchum since childhood.
Even today in Hollywood, where he is one of the most talked-of personalities of the year, the popular impression of Mitchum slants towards the cynical. The unconventional. One slightly off-beat.
You read a lot about the more colorful chapters in his life. Riding the rods, sipping java with hoboes beside campfires, the occasions when heâs been detained as the overnight guest of a city â at the request of the city, that is. Yes, youâve heard all this. For Bob brings out all the family skeletons and shakes them a little defiantly in your face.
Actually these were but brief stopovers â in his life travelogue. And just as he himself loves to stick pins in false balloons, weâd like to stick a big one in the common conception of one of the most fabulous fellows in Hollywood.
In some respects Mitchum is a little like his four-year-old son Josh, who tells you that he shot a âhuge wildcat up at my house,â and then adds hurriedly that he buried it, before you can ask to see it. So does his famous dad say, âIâm a cynic,â then sits back daring you to question it.
But any real cynic would curl his lip at making a fraternity brother out of him. He despises regulations, yet lives by his own abridged version of the Golden Rule. He has at times been called a âtrouble-maker,â because he refuses to kow-tow to anything he doesnât believe. But he carries on his shoulder not only his own chips, but all of his fellowmanâs. That quizzical business is part of the Mitchum smoke-screen hiding the sensitive, vulnerable guy whoâs seen life smack him down too often and too hard. The trick is to make him turn the other cheek, the one without the tongue in it.
In the little strait-laced crossroads community of Rising Sun, Delaware, he was always considered a worldly character. Born with great imagination and creative ability, he was writing poetry at the age of six. At seven when other kids were out playing Cowboy-and-Indian, Bob was putting out a little ânewspaper,â writing and peddling it to neighbors who stood back and looked askance at the âpeculiar Mitchum boy.â They couldnât understand any of Bobâs highly individualistic family who took their poverty so lightly, just going along in their own informal way. One of them singing, one dancing, one writing and disappearing from town to learn about life for months at a time, then just as suddenly checking back in.
Bob early outgrew Rising Sun. If the world was going to be his oyster... he wanted to start opening it. To meet interesting people. See what they thought and why. He came back to talk of these things when the others were still sipping a wicked soda down at the corner drugstore. None of them understood the sensitive adventure-loving Bob, who seemed much too old for his years. Nobody, that is, except a pretty brown-eyed girl named Dorothy, who respected his intelligence, loved to listen to his experiences and eventually married him. It was only through her insistence that he was invited to any of the local affairs. So far as they were concerned, he just didnât belong.
And it was the same wherever he went.
He was just a little on the outside. Never quite fitting in. Which was okay by the individualist who wanted to find out his own answers anyway... but not so fortunate for the other one, the lonely super-conventional guy, who envied others their security in being liked and wanted. Gradually he began casting himself as âMitchum the Misfitâ... built a wall inside... and affected the semi-smirk and raised eyebrow to show that he didnât care.
Itâs no wonder that after many years of bad luck Mitchum can hardly believe all the sevens that are coming up now. Regardless of fame and fans, he canât realize his stardom or take it for granted. Heâs still a little surprised when heâs invited to Hollywoodâs swankiest soirĂŠes. He feels somewhat uncomfortable and usually heads quickly for the first familiar face he sees.
Actually, he doesnât care much for parties. Unless itâs a poker session with some pals, or having friends drop by the house and join him in a plate of sandwiches, a beer or so and some eloquent floor-side chats in the living room. Floorside, until the rest of the furniture theyâve ordered gets here. Which may not make any noticeable difference to Bob, who usually offers his few thousand words while lying flat on his back on the rug anyway.
Heâs a home-lovinâ man, and thatâs where youâll usually find him when he isnât working. In the white house on the Hollywood hilltop with his attractive wife and two sons â Josh, a miniature of Mitchum, and Chris, aged two. Theyâre a winning combination â four of a kind.
Though he probably would tell you that he rules his house with an iron hand, Mitchum is the kind of father who, when baby Chris does anything wrong, says severely, âChristopher! Go into the other room!â Then immediately weakens into, âWell â are you sorry?â Finally gives him a cookie, kisses him and then kicks himself the rest of the day for being such a cad.
Not long ago Bob and Dorothy were speeding down a lonely stretch of highway in the desert when they passed a covered wagon, drawn by an old horse, with an elderly man at the reins and a little boy about four years old walking along beside the wagon, kicking his bare heels into the sand. Miles on down the road, Bob broke the desert stillness abruptly, saying, âJust imagine that little boy going through towns, seeing other children playing together, but he canât stop. He has to go on with his grandfather. The loneliness of it.â
Two weeks later he was watching Josh and Chris playing in the living room and said, out of the blue, âImagine Josh following that wagon on through life down a road. Never being able to stop and play with other kids.â
âMaybe the little boy likes it,â said Dorothy, trying to lighten his mood. âHe probably has fun moving around, going through different towns...â
âNo, he doesnât!â said Bob decisively.
The child made an indelible impression on him. Possibly struck too near Mitchumâs own memories of an exciting but lonely boyhood. And thatâs what success means chiefly to him. That Josh and Chris will be set. That thereâll be no wandering around through life for them, either behind wagons or otherwise.
Heâs an ardent champion of individual rights. Either yours or his own. Heâs been known to challenge any director or assistant who yells at movie extras or shoves them around. âIt just does something to me,â he used to say to actor friends who were cautioning him. âIâm not afraid of my job. What can they do? Shoot me maybe,â heâd say, cocking an eyebrow and giving his shoulders a size forty-six shrug.
By nature heâs amiable and dislikes trouble of any kind. âWonât ever hurt anybodyâs feelings if he can help it,â his friends say. By the time Bobâs been provoked far enough to fight anybody, heâs so mad he says he gets âa vicious satisfaction out of it. And thatâs no good.â So he ducks whenever he can.
Friends have heard him actually begging somebody not to fight him. For some | reason his quizzical face seems to invite trouble. Maybe in a bar or night club. On a train. Just anywhere. Soon somebodyâs saying, âI donât like you... I donât like your face,â... etc... etc... and Bobâs trying to talk them out of it, saying, âJust stay where you are. Donât say anything more. Donât come near me...â he warns. Until finally itâs forced on him. Then he brings one right up from the basement. Nobody has ever seen him lose a bout.
He seldom loses a listener either. For he talks in Technicolor. With his vivid imagination and rich vocabulary he loves to weave words and build up paragraphs just to see how they sound. You might call him a climactic conversationalist because he leaves you right in the middle of I a climax while he goes on ahead to something else thatâs occurred to him.
One night he awakened his wife in the middle of the night with, âIâve got it, honey!â
âGot what?â she said sleepily, but unsurprised.
What heâd âgottenâ there around 2:00 A.M., was his own theory of Atomic life. He went into great detail about the beginning and the end of life... and all the big things turning into little things... finally getting down to where everything is nothing. Then stopped abruptly. âWhat happens when thereâs nothing left?â said Dorothy, by now fully awake. He turned over and went back to sleep. Heâs never discussed it again.
He can digress immediately from the subject of atom bombs to that of achievement. Goals. How to accomplish them. âThereâs no limit to what people can do, if they just go about doing it right.â
âMe?â he says, dropping the enthusiasm and hoisting the eyebrow. âI donât want to do anything. I just want to watch.â
But by now he hasnât a chance of getting away with one like that. Youâre not fooled. You just file it along with the âwildcatsâ his imaginative son Josh kills, knowing only too well how highly ambitious he is. That heâs one of the smartest actors in the business.
Acting is his lifeâs blood. He loves it. For acting means portraying people â most of whom heâs met personally during his schooling, the ten-minute stops along the line, when he was working on his Ph.D., as a doctor of the philosophy of his fellow-man.
He has no temperament, makes no demands for the fat starring roles, the best lighting, any of the breaks. âDoesnât need âem,â his friends say. âHeâs too good. Just watch him in any picture. Heâll break their backs.â
The only demand Bob makes is that a part be believable to him. He liked the role of the returning Marine in âTill the End of Time,â because he could believe it. Heâs met many Macs like him. On the other hand he turned down a much larger starring role in another film because he felt he couldnât sincerely do it. âI couldnât be a piano player,â he told the producer. âIâd be laughing at myself all the time. Iâd ruin your picture for you.â
Mitchum has great admiration for Burgess Meredith, Michael Chekhov, J. Carrol Naish, for Betty Fieldâs versatility, among the actresses, and an almost reverence for Robert Montgomeryâs remembered performance in âNight Must Fall.â
He has always refused to take any credit for his own performance in âG.I. Joe,â saying, âI had all the breaks. The flash. The show. They had me coming over the hilltops with a light in my face. How could I have missed?â He couldnât. But thatâs not the reason.
Part of his refusal to claim credit is his distrust of success. Success draws lines between people and Bob doesnât believe in lines between people. He works overtime rubbing them out. Though heâd deny it, heâs been known to park his car and stand aimlessly in front of his old hangout, Schwabâs Drugstore, for thirty minutes, whether thereâs anybody else standing there he knows or not, lest somebody think heâs gone Hollywood.
Even a pseudo-cynic wouldnât do a trick like that. It defeats any raised eyebrow. And itâs indicative of why Robert Mitchum gets top billing among all the Joes around the studio lots, whoâll tell you readily that Bobâs the biggest Joe of them all. Which, for our money, is the best kind of living cornerstone.
The End
Robert Mitchum, amiable star of M-G-Mâs âUndercurrentâ
Source: Photoplay November 1946