Broderick Crawford

 "My trademarks are a hoarse, grating voice and the face of a retired pugilist: small narrowed eyes set in puffy features which look as though they might, years ago, have lost on points."

After many supporting roles (including a memorable turn as a big but kind-hearted lug in the comedy "A Night Before Christmas" (1942)) and a stint in the military during World War II, Broderick Crawford had his breakthrough role in Robert Rossen's adaptation of Robert Penn Warren's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, "All the King's Men." Crawford gave a masterful performance as the Southern politician modeled on Louisiana's Huey Long.

Rossen offered the role of Willie Stark to John Wayne. Rossen sent a copy of the script to Wayne's agent, Charles K. Feldman, who forwarded it to Wayne. After reading the script, Wayne sent it back with an angry letter attached. In it, he told Feldman that before he sent the script to any of his other clients, he should ask them if they wanted to star in a film that "smears the machinery of government for no purpose of humor or enlightenment," that "degrades all relationships," and that is populated by "drunken mothers; conniving fathers; double-crossing sweethearts; bad, bad, rich people; and bad, bad poor people if they want to get ahead." He accused Rossen of wanting to make a movie that threw acid on "the American way of life." If Feldman had such clients, Wayne wrote that the agent should "rush this script... to them." Wayne, however, said to the agent that "You can take this script and shove it up Robert Rossen's derrière . . . " Wayne later remarked that "To make Huey Long a wonderful, rough pirate was great . . . but, according to this picture, everybody was sh!t--except for this weakling intern doctor who was trying to find a place in the world." Crawford, who had played a supporting role in Wayne's Seven Sinners (1940), eventually received the part of Stark. In a bit of irony, Crawford was Oscar-nominated for the part of Stark and found himself competing against Wayne, who was nominated the same year for "Sands of Iwo Jima" (1949). Crawford won the Best Actor Oscar, giving Rossen the last laugh.

To prepare for the role of Stark, Crawford watched newsreels of Huey Long, the former Louisiana senator and governor on whose life the novel was loosely based.

According to Crawford, "During the filming, we never mentioned the name of Huey Long on the set. That was the unspoken law at the studio."

According to Don Siegel in his memoirs, Crawford was drunk on most scenes of the film. But he was ready and brilliant for each of the performances he finally pulled.

Happy Birthday, Broderick Crawford!