RIP John Saxon

Since Portrait in Black was published here earlier in the month, I have been thinking of John Saxon and had planned to write a piece on him early next month.  It freaks me out when I have someone in my consciousness and then he passes away.  And it's happened before in these pages... with Maureen O'Hara and someone else whom I can't recall at the moment.

Saxon passed away on Saturday from pneumonia at his home in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.  He was 83.

He made movies (100 of them) for seven decades and appeared in many TV shows.  A great many of his films were westerns, which, of course, I saw and horror movies, most of which I didn't see.  As devoted as I was to his early work, I am sorry to say I missed a lot of what he did in later years.  In fact, I hadn't seen him in anything since he ended his run on TV's Falcon Crest in 1988.  So it's been a long time but that doesn't mean I haven't re-watched many things he did in the first 25 years.

While his career fell short of outright stardom, most everyone from those days knew who he was because he appeared in several good films, worked with some of Hollywood's best directors and actors and was himself a good and reliable, if low-key, actor.  He won a Golden Globe for most promising newcomer in 1958 and was sold to the public as a pretty boy.  He later became quite the hunk but he never traded on his looks as many of his contemporaries did.  He just wanted to be known as a good actor.

In his early career he made three movies with Sandra Dee and a lot of publicity was generated as a result.  I expect it kind of embarrassed him and he never again had or courted that kind of attention.  He didn't play the Hollywood publicity game for long and his preference for privacy may have kept him from reaching the top.

While he played a great many ethnic roles, he was Italian... born Carmine Orrico in 1935 in Brooklyn.  He wanted to give acting a try from his early teens but it wasn't until he graduated from high school that he did something about it.  He was thrilled to be accepted as part of Stella Adler's classes.  He was also thrilled that she saw some raw talent that she liked.

Someone across the country also saw something he liked.  Notorious Hollywood smooth-talking agent Henry Willson, discoverer of people named Rock, Tab, Rory, Guy and Troy, asked 17-year old Carmine to come visit.  The kid beat a path to Willson's office and before he left, he had a new name.  Did he realize he got off easy?  Willson didn't get everything he wanted but he did get Saxon's gratitude for the contract at Universal-International.  

I suppose one can't fault the studio I love to fault for making every effort to turn the actor into the newest teen dream because... now hold on there, you're gonna love this... he WAS the teen dream.  And rare though it may be, the kid could act.

With George Nader & Esther Williams in The Unguarded Moment

His first screen credit came from playing a juvenile delinquent trying to get as close as possible to Mamie Van Doren in 1955s Running Wild (1955). Then came a good role in The Unguarded Moment (1956) with an oddity in the credits... and costarring the exciting new personality John Saxon.  He is a high school student who sexually harasses his teacher, played by Esther Williams in her first dry role after foregoing MGM's Olympic-sized pool.  She takes pity on him at the same time he's accused of murder.  Damn, I said, he is an exciting new personality.

Universal was not about to let Saxon out of teen flicks.  The fan mail was already increasing and after Rock, Pretty Baby (1956) and Summer Love (1957), it increased even more.

In 1957 Sandra Dee joined the studio and it was decided that she and Saxon would be an ideal pair.  They were teamed in back-to-back movies, both of which were released in December, 1958.  The Restless Years is a soaper about moral values in a small town surrounding an illegitimate girl and her unstable mother.

Sipping champagne with Sandra Dee

The Reluctant Debutante (1958), which was reviewed earlier, is an A film starring Rex Harrison and his wife Kay Kendall as Brits who want to give a coming-out ball for his American daughter with unexpected consequences.  Vincente Minnelli directed and it is a rare comedy for Saxon.  

Cry Tough (1959) has Saxon as a Puerto Rican ex-con trying to go straight but who's lured into his old ways by a former gang.  He and comely Linda Cristal are a steamy duo but the picture failed to grab a large audience.

He had a small role (actually I think it was chopped up considerably in the editing process) in The Unforgiven (1960) but he wanted the chance to work for director John Huston and with stars Audrey Hepburn and Burt Lancaster.  He plays an Indian friend of a pioneer family in a good western with a racial backdrop.

As mentioned in the opening he made his third and final film with Dee in the mediocre murder story, Portrait in Black (1960).  Also in 1960 was another western, The Plunderers, with Jeff Chandler, and another villain role.

He had the lead of a serial killer soldier in War Hunt (1962) but the film is more noted for being the first movie role for Robert Redford.  Saxon followed it up with the James Stewart-Maureen O'Hara comedy, Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation, the same year.

His turn as a brutal Mexican bandit opposite Marlon Brando in a good western, The Appaloosa (1966), warranted all the applause he got.  Working opposite The Formidable One must have kept most actors on their toes and it worked here... it's one of my favorite Saxon performances.

I think The Appaloosa is the end of the best part of Saxon's career and in large part the end of his A films.  He would at this point often play villains in westerns and he was a menacing fellow.  His tough guys said little but that handsome face could look downright fearsome. 

He also forged a career in horror films, often as an investigative cop.  For awhile there was a second career in Italy.  He said he wanted to experience the famous film industry of his Italian roots.  Then, of course, came martial arts, something Saxon was trained for.  Television provided most of the groceries and included a three-year role in The Bold Ones.

He treated every role as the professional he was but he had to know the good films, by and large, were slipping by.  I don't know why.  I wish I did.  What I do know is that something happened.  For a still-young, handsome, damn good actor with lots of proof, what the hell happened?  For years I'd hoped he'd write an autobiography and tell us all about the highs and lows of his interesting career.  But I guess not.

Joe Kidd (1972) has Saxon as a Mexican revolutionary leader who is at odds with landowner Robert Duvall.  He, in turn, hires a former bounty hunter, Clint Eastwood, to help him wipe out Saxon and his band.  It was not as popular as some of Eastwood's other films around the time but I liked it.

With good buddy, Bruce Lee

He joined Bruce Lee in Lee's only mainstream movie, Enter the Dragon (1973), after Lee nixed Rod Taylor as being too tall to play a degenerate gambler who participates in a martial arts tournament.  It was a popular movie that introduced him to a whole new and younger audience but it failed to have any long-term effect on a starring career.

Black Christmas (1974) is a horror flick with Saxon as a police lieutenant who makes a fatal mistake.  He played the head of a breakfast cereal conglomerate in the Robert Redford-Jane Fonda comedy, The Electric Horseman (1976), about a washed-up rodeo performer.

It was around eight years before Saxon made a film that caused any chatter. Then director Wes Craven gave the actor a part in his Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) and a sequel in 1987 as a cop and the heroine's father.

In the early 90s he appeared on the stage in Los Angeles with his former costar, Dee, in the two-person play Love Letters. It was a loving tribute to his former costar who for years as a recluse was suffering from anorexia, alcoholism and depression.  She had hoped the play (and a Sally Jessy Raphael TV segment in which Saxon also participated) would lead to new offers but it didn't happen.

This man worked nonstop since he started in 1955.  He was even making a film at the time of his death.  He might have been okay knowing he would be best remembered for Game of Death and the Nightmare on Elm Street flicks but I unfortunately am not.  He was a much better actor than to have those (highly profitable) films as his acting legacy.

He was married three times.  His handsome son, Antonio Saxon, from his first marriage, is an actor.  His third wife was with him at the time of his passing.


Next posting:
A glittering cast