Robert Mitchum: A Biography - Paperback

Filled out with not-very-revealing quotes from Mitchum's siblings and colleagues, this is a routine, competent runthrough of the sleepy-eyed film star's career - heavy on anecdotes (largely familiar) about the actor's brawling, boozing, rebellious ways. Raised at first by his determined, plucky widowed mother (a Norwegian immigrant), Bob was later sent - with sister Julie - to his grandfather's farm in Delaware. . . while mother Ann worked and remarried. Here, he "began to exhibit an antisocial strain of behavior. How deeply he was affected by his father's death. . . and by the exile forced on him by his mother's having to work, only Bob knows. . . . But some of his family and friends feel these traumas produced a feeling of abandonment and loneliness that has haunted him all his life." Thus, hiding his "more fragile, vulnerable side," Mitchum adopted a crude, insolent stance, became a "part-time hobo" and freewheeling rover - but did wed quiet, lovely young Dorothy, whom he's been married to ever since. ("The years of adversity may have forged an unbreakable bond between them.") A variety of Hollywood jobs led to small parts in Hopalong Cassidy films, then on to The Story of G.I. Joe. His snow-bailing career was threatened, but not really impeded, by his arrest and conviction on a 1948 pot-smoking charge. ("The industry had adopted what he considered a galling explanation that he was 'a sick man' - but he was willing to tolerate it. . . in accepting his punishment he had emerged a new kind of hero" for his fans.) After feuding with and leaving RKO, his stardom soared in the 1950s, with a few offbeat winners (Night of the Hunter); wife Dorothy's solid loyalty outlasted a serious affair with Shirley MacLaine; Ryan's Daughter paved the way for his middle-aged career; and "only a fool would predict what the future holds for this complicated, lovable, rebellious, infuriating, totally original man." Poorly written, adequately researched: standard celeb-bio fare. (Kirkus Reviews)