Nicholas Aloysious Adamshock was born in Pennsylvania oil-mining country in 1931. After his resident uncle was killed in a mining accident, the dirt-poor family piled their belongings in and on the car and headed out. When money and gas ran out, they were in New Jersey and that's where they stayed. While young Nicholas lived with them, their station in life never improved.
He felt so sorry for his mother and what she had to go through as a result of their hardscrabble life that he vowed to one day make a lot of money and buy her a house. He was never into academia and had his bouts with delinquency but he was keen on sports and saw them as his ticket to fame. While still in high school he was offered a position in the St. Louis Cardinals minor league but turned it down due to the low pay.
When he was 16 he read that actor Guy Madison had hitchhiked to Hollywood and was making $2000 a week as an actor. He would tuck away the information for the moment. We can presume the newspaper article didn't elaborate on how Madison helped achieve his stardom. He was an extraordinarily handsome young man willing to do anything that was required to get where he wanted to go. Maybe Adams read the tea leaves or simply understood such things because it would be widely speculated that he did what he needed to do to realize his dream.
One day while in Manhattan, Adams, by an off chance, met Jack Palance and the two soon realized they were both Ukranians from Pennsylvania. Palance, who was Brando's understudy in A Streetcar Named Desire, asked Adams why he wanted to be an actor and the reply came for the dough. Palance asked if he knew how many starving actors there were.
Adams got a job at Carnegie Hall's little theater in Tom Sawyer. He told everyone far and wide that he was an actor but puffed it up some. On the walls at Carnegie Hall were framed photographs of famous actors. Adams slipped John Barrymore's picture out of the frame and substituted his own. He thought his blond, masculine looks would attract much attention and he'd be the toast of Broadway. All he managed was getting himself canned.
Guy Madison again came to mind. Adams told his family he was taking the bus to California while knowing he would hitchhike. He had $80, a stack of movie magazines and no luggage (his brother would mail it later). He found getting rides very easy and within 10 days he was in Los Angeles. He was gonna be the biggest movie star that town had ever seen.
He loved L.A. from the moment he saw it... the sunshine, the smell of orange blossoms, the constant buzz. Unfortunately he didn't have much of a clue, other than the aforementioned, as to how to proceed with his dream. He did manage to get a job at a movie theater and coaxed the marquee guy to add with Nick Adams under the title of the movie. Again he was fired.
Four years seemed to go by in a blur and he had about as much money as his father had in Pennsylvania. Adams was a born hustler and braggart. He went to studios, tryouts and agents and regaled them all with tall tales but nothing happened. Eventually he would lapse into a lifetime of rather shameless self-promotion.
While living in some flea-trap, he got his draft notice. He decided the army wasn't for him so he joined the Coast Guard. He served for three years with a break here and there for making some movies.
He was good at impressions and one day while slinging burgers, he impressed character actress Virginia Grey. Soon he was in the office of her agent and he got a bit part as a Western Union guy in a Betty Hutton movie, Somebody Loves Me (1952). Of course, he thought it was Gone With the Wind and told everyone the big time had arrived. Fortunately, to help pay the bills, he got some work in commercials.
At one of them Adams met James Dean. Though Dean had yet to make a film himself, he talked the same language that Adams did and they became fast friends. Well, actually, they became more than that. They hustled together, they became roommates and lovers. Some would say Adams was absolutely whacked-out over Dean.
Adams suffered from rampant jealousy most of his life, some of which lead to bad behavior. He must have had a flash of it when Dean got the coveted lead in East of Eden (1954). Dean was surely responsible for getting Adams a small role in 1955's Rebel Without a Cause. Few could have guessed about the so-called curse that would surround the three stars of the film which would ultimately include Adams.
He acquired small but shiny parts in two superb films, the 1955 naval comedy, Mister Roberts, and the romantic Picnic in 1956. That same year he caused Richard Widmark much grief in a good western, The Last Wagon. His résumé was looking more impressive although the bank account was not exactly soaring.
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| Hassling prisoner Richard Widmark in The Last Wagon |
The bottom fell out of Adams' life when Dean was killed in a 1955 car crash. To say that he was inconsolable is quite the understatement. There were those who wondered if he was going to pull through. With his passion for self-promotion, he had a photograph taken of him putting flowers on Dean's grave (in Indiana).
The doldrums faded when he met Elvis. It was set-up by the singer's manipulative manager, Col. Tom Parker, who paid young Hollywood wannabees of both sexes to be Presley's friends when he first swiveled to Hollywood. Adams apparently was thrilled with the gig and managed to quickly establish himself as Numero Uno Amigo. They had lots of things in common, certainly a bond with mischief, and motorcycle riding was a highlight. Adams spent many a night at Graceland... drinking, horsing around, gossiping about Hollywood. They were great buds until Parker got wind of how Hollywood really felt about Adams and he was soon persona non grata.
Let's not fail to mention that Adams dated women but given his courting of publicity, we won't go too overboard with the women angle. Much was made of his dating Natalie Wood during Rebel but she was as much of a publicity hound as he was. Nonetheless, Adams dated starlets from nearly all of his films and we'd see them in photos sharing a popsicle, rowing on a lake or having their picture taken at a nightclub... imagine, a picture of another photographer taking their picture. Adams swooned with happiness seeing his photo constantly in those movie magazines he always cherished.
Work certainly wasn't panning out, the focus here being money rather than art. Of course, he lived far beyond his means. He would appear in the occasional play at some small Hollywood Theater and realized he needed to open things up to television. In those days it still meant the semi-death of a movie career, but it was that or return to hustling which he couldn't afford to do.
In all this mess, he shocked some, certainly the gay community, when he married actress Carol Nugent. I thought they were a cute couple and Adams, of course, saw to it that they were photographed at every opportunity. She gave him the most normal-appearing years he would ever know. They would have two children. But it was an acrimonious union and as was his wont, he shared much of their troubles with the press. He needed the public and Hollywood on his side but it devastated him when it worked out the other way.
He announced on a TV talk show that he was leaving her. He had not told her although she couldn't have been surprised. Their marriage lasted for nine years on paper, less in reality. He couldn't have been marriage material in the best of times but his inability to focus on others, his drug-taking and a hidden life moved things along a little quicker.
He had brief, comical roles in two Doris Day movies... Teacher's Pet (1958) and Pillow Talk (1959). In the latter, he and Rock Hudson's characters poked fun at the gay scene. Also in 1958 he had one of his best and funniest roles as Andy Griffith's army pal in No Time for Sergeants.
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| As Johnny Yuma in TV's The Rebel |
In 1959 a producer friend asked him to accept the title role in the television western, The Rebel, which became, by far, the part for which Adams gained his most enduring fame. For two years he was Johnny Yuma, a rogue Civil War soldier who now roams the west looking to do good. Johnny was rebellious, sometimes obnoxious, stubborn, opinionated, smart-mouthed and full of himself... no wonder they thought of Adams for the role. I'd like to see it again.
He scored a second TV series in 1962, Saints and Sinners, but it was cancelled after one season.
His best movie years were unquestionably 1962-63. Director Don Siegel's anti-war film Hell Is for Heroes (1962) was better than many said it was. It concerned WWII GI's who have to hold off Germans. The plot was not new but gritty performances from edgy actors like Steve McQueen and Bobby Darin (who hated one another), Harry Guardino and Adams raised the stakes a bit. Adams was seventh billed and not happy about it.
I always had a fondness for the medical soaper The Interns (1962). Sharing the limelight with Adams were Cliff Robertson, Michael Callan and James MacArthur. It was an unusual performance for Adams who showed a softer, sincere side.
Not only did his streak of luck continue with The Hook (1963) but I think it's his best performance and he acted circles around the star, Kirk Douglas. It's a psychological look at war concerning three American soldiers (Robert Walker Jr. completes the trio) who have difficulty following orders to kill a captive. Funny, just thought of something... with respect to acting and temperament, Adams reminds me of Douglas but with a whole lot less success.
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| With Joey Heatherton in Twilight of Honor |
For Adams, his career had been a race to make Twilight of Honor (1963) in which he plays a murder suspect being defended by young attorney Richard Chamberlain. It felt like a cheesy TV movie but Adams thought it was his best work to date and began the most embarrassing of all his self-promotions to get an Oscar nomination. Hollywood may have covered its face but the ploy worked and Adams got a supporting nomination. Then he unleashed his entire arsenal to secure the win with shameless ads and TV appearances.
He and Carol were the first to enter the auditorium where he practiced how he would get out of his seat (?) and the facial expression he would have. But the expression registered deep hurt when Melvyn Douglas's name was called for Hud, a richly-deserved award. Not only was Adams never the same but Hollywood was never the same about him.
He was the best thing about The Young Lovers (1964) with the fairly boring Peter Fonda and Sharon (Parrish) Hugueny as the leads and gooey Deborah Walley as Adams' on-again, off-again girlfriend. It went nowhere.
When his career seemed to stall for the umpteenth time, Adams told everyone, including the press, that Hollywood bigwigs were ignoring him because they all disliked Carol. It was a lie and he knew it but he was desperate.
He was quite good, in a role he seemed destined to play, in Young Dillinger (1965) where he got his first top billing. It has always had somewhat of a following but is so obviously low-budget that no one in the industry gave it a moment's notice.
The Adamses fought like mortal enemies and much of it was public and messy. They had child custody issues that ultimately wound up with Adams being awarded custody and the children moved in with him. Ultimately he returned them to their mother as being a single parent was a little too much for the unprepared and busy Mr. Adams.
Working in movies with titles like Frankenstein Conquers the World, Monster of Terror and Godzilla v.s. Monster Zero did little to snap him out of his deepening depression, which he was aware of and knew it could be traced back to those Pennsylvania coal mining days. His depression didn't lift when he spent his own money to wind his way to Rome to make a movie with Aldo Ray to find out no one told him the project had been cancelled.
On February 7, 1968, his depression ended. He was to meet his attorney for dinner and when he didn't show up, the attorney went to Adams's home and broke in when no one came to the door. He found Adams fully dressed and sitting upright on his bedroom floor with his back against the wall. Nick Adams was dead at 36.
The press had a field day. I remember it well. It was decided that it was accidental suicide (he took some powerful drugs for a nervous disorder) and then it was whispered it was just plain suicide. There was even talk of murder. Some suggested the lawyer had been misappropriating Adams's funds and perhaps that led to the final night. There was, of course, chatter about a trick murdering him. He knew some unsavory types. And truth be told, Adams had a lot of enemies. All that remained certain was that Adams was dead.
There are countess stories of Hollywood turning its back on its denizens. They knew early on something that many in Adams's life knew... he was insecure, brash, boastful, hyper, pushy, had a penchant for shocking, and was a liar, smartass and braggart. In this regard, there were others like that. Some names have appeared in this piece. But they got the breaks and Adams never really did.
He was just 5'7" and I think he had a small man complex of always feeling he had something to prove and his method for getting there was too irritating for others to contemplate.
Bad press certainly did him no good. Perhaps due to the Dean influence, Adams was always getting arrested for his driving stunts. And of course he was an incorrigible name-dropper and ultimately Hollywood referred to him not so much as an actor as a friend to the stars which never got him the recognition he so desperately wanted. I wonder if he ever bought his mother that house.
The real sadness is that he was a good actor, perhaps even a very good actor. One would like to think he would have gotten better and better. I saw all of his commercial films and always found him to be riveting, one of those you couldn't stop staring at. He had that anger thing, like two of his costars and buddies, Dean and Robert Conrad, and often played troubled characters, which made him rather dazzling to me. I own those four films from 1962-63 and when I watch them, it is Nick Adams who commands my attention. He would have liked that.
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a good 50's movie
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