Charles Bickford
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He of the crinkled locks, gruff voice and granite-like features made him a natural for both playing villains and those in authority. No matter what he played he was generally tough, durable and stubborn. Oddly, he preferred playing nice guys with a nod toward priests and kindly fathers but didn't get the chance as much as he would have liked. Whatever he played, he did so with a minimum of words, choosing wisely to let his expressive face with its furrowed brow and squinty eyes say it all.
Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, his press people liked to point out that he was born in the first minute of 1891. One of seven children, he was a bright but unruly child. At age nine (!) he was charged with the attempted murder of a trolley conductor who had cruelly run over the boy's dog, but the youngster was acquitted.
Though working in scores of blue-collar jobs, it was after a stint as an impresario in a burlesque show that Bickford got drawn into performing. Soon he was in a number of Broadway productions and one of them led him to being cast in Cecil B. DeMille's first sound picture, Dynamite (1929). The two got into it and Bickford socked DeMille. It's a wonder he ever worked again. He even worked for DeMille again. I've never seen any of his first crop of films although he had the male leads opposite such powerful leading ladies as Garbo and Bankhead.
The earliest Bickford film I would have seen was Little Miss Marker in 1934 (though years after it was first released, thank you very much), as a thug trying to upend little Shirley Temple's life.
The following year he was top-billed in East of Java, a film he probably wished he had passed on. While rehearsing a jungle scene, he was seriously injured by a 400-pound lion. Bickford's throat was torn close to the jugular vein and there was extensive damage to his neck and shoulders. Is this how he got that gravelly voice?
By this time, he was coming to terms with a decision to do mainly character parts. The studios, public and even he agreed he was not the leading man type. For over 10 years most of those character parts landed him in B films, too many for his tastes. His most famous films truly began in the 1940's and he landed some good roles in the 1950's as well. His fortunes changed to a degree when his begging for the priest role in 1943's The Song of Bernadette paid off.
It paid off in a couple of other ways as well. He formed a life-long friendship with Jennifer Jones, with whom he also appeared in Duel in the Sun (1946). It was not romantic although they loved one another. She tended to count too much on certain people and he was of them. The other interesting fact is that Bickford was nominated for three Oscars and although he didn't win, in each case his leading lady did... Jones/Bernadette, Loretta Young/The Farmer's Daughter (1947) and Jane Wyman/Johnny Belinda (1948).
He was highly-watchable as the killer-cop in the 1945 noir, Fallen Angel, and he made a kindly impression as Pop Warner in Jim Thorpe, All American (1948). Unusual for him was a comedy role sparring with Clifton Webb in Elopement (1951) and authoritative as the studio head in A Star Is Born (1954). I loved the meaty role he had opposite Tony Curtis in the B gambling flick, Mister Cory (1957). Probably my favorite of all of his roles was as the quietly ruthless rancher in The Big Country (1958). He also shone as a racist father in another western, The Unforgiven (1960).
Bickford was married to his only wife, a non-professional, for 51 years and they had two children. He had been hospitalized for several months with emphysema but died of pneumonia and a blood infection at age 78 on November 9, 1967. On that same day his pal Jennifer Jones made one of her attempts at suicide.
Thomas Mitchell
He was a bit of a squat, fleshy-faced, often befuddled, elfish character actor who gave richly thoughtful performances, often with a nod to his Irish roots, in some of Hollywood's greatest films. He almost never had leading man roles but he certainly stole scenes from quite a number of them. His presence in any film made it better.
Born in New Jersey in 1892 to Irish immigrants, his family seemed to always find themselves in the newspaper business. It was inevitable that young Tom would find initial employment as a reporter. He realized he loved writing but not the breaking news stuff. He would write all his life, including plays, but he acquired a new interest when he began writing comedy skits for the theater. That opened up his eyes to acting.
Another wonderful character actor, Charles Coburn, along with his wife, ran a Shakespearean company and they put Mitchell under their wings. They were smart enough to know he had something special. He parlayed that into numerous appearances on Broadway and in a number of lead roles. Somehow he managed to get a role in a 1923 silent film but returned to Broadway and would not make another movie for 13 years.
His Hollywood years effectively began in 1936 with five films that didn't particularly cause a ripple in Mitchell's movie actor standing. But that changed in 1937 when director Frank Capra hired him to play an embezzler in Lost Horizon. It was a memorable role for which Mitchell would nab an Oscar nomination. Actor and director were a perfect match... joined at the hip, blood brothers. Mitchell's forte was selling the ordinary guy and Capra told ordinary guy stories. They would work together five times, including the last film either of them would make.
Character actors are a little ahead of the game when they have something about them that audiences are going to notice and remember. For some, it's looks alone or voice. (Remember, Bickford had those squinty eyes.) Mitchell, in the middle of a scene, dramatic or comedy, was likely to break into a conversation with some off-the-hip sarcastic comment. He did it to perfection.
We know that 1939 is considered the greatest year for the movies and it was Mitchell's greatest as well given that he was in five big movies, three of which were nominated for best picture. He would win a supporting Oscar for one of them, Stagecoach, as the drunken doctor. He stayed on the sauce to play a newspaperman in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and was Clopin, king of the beggars, in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Cary Grant's best friend in Only Angels Have Wings. And of course he was Scarlett O'Hara's fussbudgety father in Gone with the Wind, which would be the year's Oscar-winning best picture. Mighty impressive.
Mitchell made too many movies to contemplate here, but I couldn't pass over his comical pirate opposite Tyrone Power in The Black Swan (1942). The following year he became lawman Pat Garrett in Howard Hughes' overblown The Outlaw. He had a rare leading man role in the touching war drama The Sullivans (1944), based on the real-life story of five brothers all of whom died in WWII. The same year he was Gregory Peck's good doctor friend in The Keys of the Kingdom.
Capra hired him again, this time to play Uncle Billy in It's a Wonderful Life (1946). You've heard of it? It should be on the tube sometime this week. He was on such a movie roll when television arrived and for the most part he switched to that medium. He returned to films to be the sheriff in 1952's High Noon and played Rags in the good B-remake of Destry Rides Again, simply called Destry in 1954. He had a good role as a newspaperman editor in the all-star While the City Sleeps (1961) and ended his distinguished career as a judge in Pocketful of Miracles (1961).
Mitchell was married three times although his first and third wives were the same woman. He was 70 years old when he passed away in Beverly Hills of bone cancer in 1962.
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