Letters to the Dead: Things I Wish I'd Said. Ann Palmer
for attracting married men – when you began paying attention to her that was all she needed to go “over board!” She was in “Seventh Heaven.” Since neither she nor you were my concern, I really don’t recall much about it. My memory is of my own experience while there. Knowing Joyce, she managed to get together with you. “God – another married man” I thought!
On that or the next evening we were having our gathering in a booth when James Caan slipped into the booth next to me. At the time he was virtually unknown. He had been working in New York and unheard of on the West Coast. I am not sure how Howard cast him in the picture but it was his first real break into films. I didn’t think he was particularly good looking but sort of cute. There was another actor, John Gabriel, working on the picture that I had known for several years that I thought was more interesting, however, unfortunately, his interest in me was not the same as mine for him. Jimmy began rubbing his leg against mine. Hum, I wondered what was going on.
One night we piled into several cars and headed for Nogales to imbibe in $1. or 50 cent margaritas! Several of the stunt men were in the group and quite funny. It seems when locals find out the stunt guys are working in a movie, it becomes a challenge to attempt to pick a fight. These guys were willing and able, fortunately no real fracas broke out. It was just an interesting observation of human nature. It doesn’t matter that the stunt men are working husbands; fathers just like those picking the fights and aren’t necessarily interested in “performing” without pay since that is what the do all day and to earn their livelihood.
Quite soon, Jimmy and I became involved and spending time together. He seemed very sweet, fun and interesting. A vivid memory of you and your very out spoken say-what-you-think manner is still with me. I was a bit intimidated when around you for fear you might jump on something I said and embarrass me. I think you probably sensed that the night you and your wife gave a party for the cast and crew in the large lovely adobe style home you rented while in Tucson. You invited everyone over for an outdoor barbecue and party. It was a warm evening with the stars brightly shinning and a fun evening. I went with Jimmy. By then, we had spent several nights together. While we were enjoying a slow, romantic dance, I died inside when you yelled out “Hey, Jimmy you guys stop that floor fucking!” I felt like falling through the floor in embarrassment. It was funny for everyone but not me! Now that I have matured a great deal since then, I realize that the embarrassment was created inside me not you, Robert Mitchum. It was a funny statement and it shouldn’t have bothered me. The custom of humor around film people was simply being expressed. It took me many years to understand why on movie sets all four letter words are used, jokes are constantly being told, very casual clothing is worn – all to relax the cast and crew – to put everyone at ease. Only a couple of movies I worked on were the exception to the loose, casual attitudes and that was when Vincent Minnelli was directing – what a perfectionist he was!
Joyce proved again that considering going into any kind of business with her was a mistake. As I approached the day to leave on my second trip to Tucson, this time I decided to head home to Texas. Before heading East, I asked for autographed photos that I sometimes collected for my daughter. Everyone I asked willingly gave me an autographed photograph, including John Wayne. When I asked you, Chris George was standing nearby talking to you. He blurted out “Robert Mitchum is a STAR, you DON’T ask HIM for AN autograph!!” Again, I was so embarrassed at Chris’ rudeness! You never said a thing nor did you give me a photograph. Today, John Wayne’s autographed photo, along with many others, hangs on my wall.
When I did return to Los Angeles after attempting to live in Texas, Jimmy and I would see each other from time to time. Once was when he was laid up in a small hospital with a baseball injury. We both worked in Howard Hawk’s film “Redline 7000.” I honestly don’t remember Jimmy’s reaction toward me when we worked together in that picture. By that time, I think he was dating one of the actresses from “El Dorado.” I never ran into him as he grew more and more famous for many years. He certainly did make a successful acting career. He was a cute young cocky guy in both of those parts but his roles as Mafia or bad guy parts catapulted him to success. Then there was all the publicity about his drug use. His personal life seem to take a bad boy imagine. I heard that producers would not hire him for a while because he seemed to fall into the trap of so many in Hollywood of using substances for his security.
Once actors are forced to delve deeply into their own psyche, without a strong foundation or some sort of spiritual connection, they seek inner security in all the wrong places. Many of us raised in an earlier era seemed to have more of a foundation to build upon and not fall into that terrible drug obsession. When I did see Jimmy, one night at a private party in a restaurant on La Cienega, surrounded by young women, he didn’t recognize me as we met on the stairway. I read an article that James Caan’s oldest child was nineteen that didn’t make sense because “El Dorado” was shot in the mid 60ies, over thirty years ago and he had two children back east when I dated him. He had more from later marriages.
Several years ago I was invited to tape my TV show at a Celebrity function in Ixtapa, Mexico. Jimmy was one of the honorees at this affair. We spoke only briefly. He had no problem remembering me at that time. I recall hoping for his sake that his bout with drugs had ended. It’s amusing how we change our taste in our attraction to the opposite sex - in youth, Jimmy was cute and appealing but today, I wouldn’t look twice at him. I guess I’ve grown up.
In the mid 1950s my ex-husband, stage name of Mark Houston, worked at 20th in one of your films “The Enemy Below.”
You deserve credit for a lasting marriage that are so rare in Hollywood.
BOB MITCHUM’S WIFE AND CHILDREN:
Dorothy Mitchum (15 March 15th 1940 - 1 July 1st, 1997) (his death)
3 children - actors James Mitchum and Christopher Mitchum.
GENERAL INFORMATION:
As a youth Mitchum wandered around the country, sometimes traveled like a hobo or taking odd jobs. His youthful disdain for authority created discipline problems. His teen years were spent good deal of the time out on the open road. When he was only 14, in Georgia, he was charged with vagrancy and was sentenced to a chain gang, from which he managed to escape. His mother and stepfather who was a British army major raised him and his siblings. They lived in Connecticut, New York, and Delaware. By 1940, at age 23, the roaming Mitchum settled down to marry his high-school sweetheart that he remained with all of his life. He took a job at Lockheed Aircraft in southern California. He discovered acting in a Long Beach, California amateur theatre company. He joined the local theater group and by 1943 gradually got into film jobs. He worked a variety of jobs. One was a ghostwriter for astrologist Carroll Righter. Small roles in films began to come his way. He appeared in dozens of films within a brief time. Cast in The Story of G.I. Joe in 1945, he received an Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actor. After that his career advanced rapidly. In 1948 he was arrest for marijuana possession. He and others thought his career was over but amazingly the public took it in stride. His brief prison term for marijuana usage in 1949 seemed to only enhance his “bad boy” appeal. His apparently lazy style and seen-it-all demeanor proved highly attractive to men and women, and by the 1950s he was a true superstar. Mitchum co-wrote and composed an oratorio produced at the Hollywood Bowl by Orson Welles. A master of accents and seemingly unconcerned about his star image, he played in both forgettable and unforgettable films with unswerving nonchalance, leading many to overlook the prodigious talent he can bring to a project which he finds compelling. He moved into television in the Eighties as his film opportunities diminished, winning new fans with “The Winds of War” and “War and Remembrance”. Mitchum’s general physique, tall, broad chest, sleepy eyes, devil may care attitude and moving with leisurely, catlike grace and delivering his dialogue in deep voice with careful deliberation was a mode of acting that endeared him to audiences. There was always more to Mitchum than the obvious and that quality kept him in stardom’s top rank for many years. Whether he was in westerns, war movies, a detective or lover, he fit the character perfectly. In a TV version of William Randolph Hearst love affair with Marion Davies, Mitchum played