Trivia of Joel McCrea

 Trivia of Joel McCrea (5 November 1905 - 20 October 1990)

*As a little boy, he had a paper route delivering the Los Angeles Times to Cecil B. DeMille and other people in the film industry. He also had the opportunity to watch D. W. Griffith filming Intolerance (1916), and was an extra in a serial starring Ruth Roland.

*Worked as a stunt double and held horses for Hollywood cowboy stars since high school, made McCrea had a love and understanding of horses from an early age, and later he was considered one of the best riders in Western films.He was regarded as one of the two best riders in Western films along with Ben Johnson, who had been a real cowboy.

*He soon realized after losing the lead in The Real Glory (1939) to Gary Cooper that as long as Samuel Goldwyn had both he and Cooper under contract, he would always come out second in the studio's choice roles. When he refused to re-sign with Goldwyn, the producer warned him that he'd "never work in this town again!" After that, Goldwyn always referred to the actor as "Joel McCreal."

*In 1940, Sir Alfred Hitchcock wanted Gary Cooper for the lead of his thriller movie Foreign Correspondent, instead of Joel McCrea.But Cooper wasn't interested in doing a thriller. He later regretted turning down the movie.This movie serves as a perfect example of why Joel McCrea's nickname at the time was "The Poor Man's Gary Cooper," since Cooper had been Hitchcock's first choice for the title role, and McCrea's performance was widely regarded as "Cooper-esque."

*One of his famous movie was Sullivan's Travel (1940). He play as John L. Sullivan, a successful, spoiled, naive director of fluffy films with a heart of gold. Behind the scene, Joel McCrea and his co-star Veronica Lake did not get along during filming. Later, McCrea subsequently turned down the lead role in I Married a Witch (1942) because he did not want to work with Lake again. However, they did appear together again later in Ramrod (1947).

*After 1946 McCrea acted almost exclusively in westerns, chief among which were The Virginian (1946), Colorado Territory (1949), The Outriders (1950), and Stranger on Horseback (1955). His last major film appearance was in the classic western Ride the High Country (1962).

*Bette Davis liked McCrea very much and pressed him to co-star with her in an adaptation of Edith Wharton's "Ethan Frome." McCrea thought it too downbeat to be successful. A disappointed Davis called him "a cowboy psychiatrist" and referred to him as that from then on.