Trivia of Robert Mitchum

Trivia of Robert Mitchum

*Once in Hollywood, he worked as a ghost writer for astrologer Carroll Righter. He also wrote poetry, short plays and song lyrics.Mitchum had a good singing voice and even released a record in 1957, “Calypso — is like so....” He also recorded “The Ballad of Thunder Road,” which he wrote for the film “Thunder Road.” It hit No. 69 on the Billboard Pop charts. He recorded a country album in 1967, “The Man, Robert Mitchum Sings.” The single, “Little Old Wine Drinker Me” reached No. 9 on the country charts.

* In 1948, Mitchum was arrested for possession of marijuana along with actress Lila Leeds. It was part of a sting operation designed to trap a lot of big stars. The others had been tipped off. Mitchum spent a week in the county jail and another 43 days at a California prison farm. Life Magazine sent a photographer to take pictures of him doing his prison chores. The conviction was later overturned when the set up was exposed.

*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.

*Turned down the role that eventually went to Tony Curtis in The Defiant Ones (1958). Mitchum, a real-life veteran of a Southern chain gang, did not believe the premise that a black man and a white man would be chained together and said that such a thing would never happen in the South. Over the years, this reason was corrupted to the point where many people now believe Mitchum turned down the role because he did not want to be chained to a black man, an absolute falsehood. Curtis repeated the inaccurate story in his autobiography, but later recanted after Mitchum's real reason was explained to him.

*He was a one-woman man.Mitchum married Dorothy Spence for 57 years, till he passed at 1997.Though his proposal was legendarily bad. According to the actor himself, the night he asked her to marry him, “I took one look at her and said, ‘This is it. I’ll be back for you. Stick with me, kid, and you’ll be farting through silk.’"

*Had a longstanding dislike of fellow tough guy actors Steve McQueen and Charles Bronson.

*Robert DeNiro, his co-star in The Last Tycoon (1976), has named Mitchum as one of his favorite actors.