Known as the King of Hollywood, Gable will undoubtedly forever be associated with Gone With the Wind. The death of his wife, Carole Lombard, during a plane crash shortly after Pearl Harbor caused him to plunge into a grief that lasted for years. He worked for MGM for over 20 years but he never forged a close relationship with any one specific director nor did he ever initiate projects, which may explain why his legacy is not as rich as it could have been. Read More…
Most people associate Charlton Heston with either his controversial presidency of the National Rifle Association or his performance as Ben-Hur. An early civil rights advocate, he eventually left the Democrats to become a strong supporter of Ronald Reagan but his politics did not influence his choice of roles. Blockbusters like El Cid and 55 Days at Peking were balanced with smaller films, such as The Agony and the Ecstasy and Major Dundee. Read More…
Gregory Peck’s most famous movies are probably Roman Holiday (1953), Moby Dick (1956) and To Kill a Mockingbird (1962). While his persona throughout the majority of his career was that of a decent man, he increasingly stretched his range in the 1950s and 1960s with mixed results. Read More…
It may sound cliché but Robert Mitchum (August 6, 1917-July 1, 1997) was the original bad boy, who even served two months in jail for possession of marijuana. The Story of GI Joe (1945) made him a star but he rarely played establishment heroes. Instead, his career was dominated by roles in dark Westerns and darker detective stories. Despite a well-earned reputation as one of Hollywood’s greatest carousers, he was a consummate professional, who unfortunately rarely challenged himself and described his acting range as with or without horse. Read More…
John Wayne’s popularity is reflected in his record of being among the top ten box office draws for twenty-five years in a row. His on-screen image was the ideal independent man and he symbolized America, especially since the majority of his films were Westerns or war movies. Famous for his conservative political beliefs and passionate anti-communism, he had failed to serve his country during WWII. Although he worked with several of Hollywood’s best directors, including Howard Hawks and Henry Hathaway, he is so associated with John Ford that he seems to have been Ford’s alter ego. Read More…
Gary Cooper (May 7, 1901-May 13, 1961) routinely played heores, either in Westerns or war movies. He developed an image as a stoic, dependable man of the people, which suited his relaxed yet powerful screen presence. Several of Cooper’s most famous movies include Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936), Sergeant York (1941) and High Noon (1952). A natural, rather than trained actor, Cooper always felt uncomfortable in costume dramas, and avoided them. Read More…
Lancaster strived throughout his career to avoid being typecast as an action hero, so he was constantly trying to stretch his acting range further and further by experimenting with different film images, although not always with success. From Here To Eternity (1953) made him a megastar and he used his fame to gain backing for his pet projects, such as The Sweet Smell of Success (1957), which only received critical acclaim a generation later. Read More…
The star of films like Grapes of Wrath (1940), My Darling Clementine (1946) and 12 Angry Men (1957), Henry Fonda (May 16, 1905-August 12, 1982) was one of the great Hollywood icons but his greatest love was the theater. It is impossible to look at Henry Fonda and not think of integrity, therefore his image as a strong, silent hero was so entrenched in the minds of American moviegoers that that they rejected him as a cold-blooded killer in Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), and the movie had to be withdrawn. Read More…