Michael Madsen called Mitchum his "role model" and inspiration to take up acting as a profession.
5 Card Stud (1968), the showdown between Hollywood's two deities of indifference, produced no sparks on or off the screen. Dean Martin remained in his trailer watching television after filming was completed, and delivered his lines as though he had memorized them phonetically. The only excitement came when a massive camera collapsed and nearly hammered Mitchum into the ground. Instead, the star moved casually aside while thousands of dollars worth of equipment smashed around him.
According to Mitchum biographer John Belton, during the shooting of Undercurrent (1946) Katharine Hepburn told Mitchum, "You know you can't act, and if you hadn't been good-looking, you would have never gotten a picture. I'm tired of playing with people who have nothing to offer.".
Addressed the Republican National Convention in 1992.
After two weeks of shooting on the movie _Tombstone(1993)_, the studio fired writer (director)Kevin Jarre and hired George P. Cosmatos. He, with Kurt Russell's input, cut a number of scenes (for actors) and changed them to new action scenes, weakening a beautifully written script. Part of what was cut was the old man Ike's character. As Mitchum had already signed the contract, they had him do the voice-over instead.
Although he had numerous affairs throughout his marriage, he remained with wife Dorothy Mitchum for nearly 60 years.
As a teenager, Mitchum was sentenced to a Georgia chain gang on a charge of vagrancy.
Biography in: "American National Biography." Supplement 1, pp. 414-416. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Briefly served in the US Army during World War II, with service number 39 744 068, from April 12 to October 11, 1945, after he was drafted. According to Lee Server's 2001 biography, "Robert Mitchum: Baby I Don't Care," Mitchum said he served as a medic at an induction department, checking recruits' genitals for venereal disease (a "pecker checker"). Always the iconoclast, although he did not want to join the military, he served honorably and was discharged as a Private First Class and received the World War II Victory Medal.
Brother of John Mitchum and Julie Mitchum.
Carefully maintained a facade of indifference, always lazily insisting that he made movies just so he could get laid, score some pot, and make money, and cared nothing about art. This is surely true of some films, which he likely picked to make money, but certain directors and films seemed to secretly pique his interest, including his work with Charles Laughton, John Huston, and Howard Hawks.
Died one day before his The Big Sleep (1978) co-star James Stewart.
During a break in filming "War and Remembrance" (1988) in August 1987, Mitchum replaced his friend John Huston as an aging millionaire in Mr. North (1988) after Huston, who suffered from emphysema, was hospitalized with pneumonia. In October 1987, Mitchum filled in for Edward Woodward, who was recovering from a heart attack, in a special two-part episode of "The Equalizer" (1985).
Dwight Whitney wrote in "TV Guide" on June 7, 1969 about Mitchum that there is the "suggestion, implicit in every utterance , that within the body of this 'movie-star'" lies imprisoned the soul of a poet.".
Early in his career many newspapers and fan magazines promoted him as a "new" Clark Gable, perhaps because both actors had strongly masculine images and powerful, distinctive voices. With Out of the Past (1947) however, Mitchum proved that he was a great star in his own right.
Grandfather of actors Bentley Mitchum and Price Mitchum, actress Carrie Mitchum and male model Kian Mitchum.
Great-grandfather of Cappy Van Dien and Grace Van Dien. Ex-grandfather-in-law of their father, Casper Van Dien.
He claimed his famous eyes were the result of a combination of injuries from his boxing days and chronic insomnia, which he suffered from throughout his life.
He got into trouble for some anti-Semitic remarks he made in an interview promoting "The Winds of War" (1983) at his home in 1983. Although these were apparently in jest, as he had close Jewish friends, he refused to apologize, undoubtedly because that would spoil his "bad boy" image.