Robert Mitchum: Baby, I Don't Care (34 page)

It was like one of those Charlie Chan mysteries, Giesler thought. Everybody in the room was a suspect. The attorney didn’t know what to make of Mitchum, an intelligent man, a great success in his field, idol of millions. He could be sitting on a yacht with liveried retainers feeding him lobster and champagne, but he preferred the company of lowlifes and police informers. Giesler had gotten to know many movie stars in his career and they never ceased to amuse him, although right now, with his ribcage broken and bandaged, it hurt to laugh.

His enthusiasm for a courtroom battle began to dissolve when he learned of some potential ammunition the prosecution team had been gathering, evidence of Mitchum’s uninhibited lifestyle. The DA’s office had a lot of dirt on the boy. Giesler realized he could very possibly win a not guilty verdict and yet prosecution evidence and witnesses might still damage Mitchum “beyond hope of rehabilitation.” Reva Frederick remembered a conversation with Giesler. “He said to me, ‘The reason I’m so good is that I always prepare the opposition’s case first. I don’t even think about what I’m going to do until I know what the other side is planning.’” RKO execs agreed that although the actor’s current notoriety had not so far lessened his popularity—quite the opposite—a long trial filled with scandalous revelations making headlines every day would be likely finally to turn the public against him and destroy his movie stardom for good. Giesler and the studio also agreed—possibly without any input from Mitchum—that if the actor were to get off scot-free it might look like “special justice” for a celebrity and cause a renewed backlash against the movie industry.

Giesler’s plan: “I proposed simply to ask the court to decide his innocence or guilt on the conspiracy-to-possess-marijuana count on the basis only of the transcript of the testimony before the grand jury.”

In essence, Mitchum’s attorney had decided to offer no defense and throw him on the mercy of the court.

Hughes did not want to lose Robert Mitchum’s services if he could help it. He was a big Robert Mitchum fan. Since taking over RKO, Hughes had privately fixated on Mitchum as a kind of fantasy alter ego. He spent many a predawn hour in his personal screening room watching the actor’s pictures, particularly
Out of the Past,
studying the clinches of Bob and ex-girlfriend Jane Greer with feverish interest. Hughes’s position in life would seem to have placed him beyond
envy or hero worship; but to the scrawny, hard-of-hearing, whiny-voiced, and paranoid Texan who felt compelled to offer money, fame, wedding rings, or threats to desired females, Mitchum’s brawn, bourbon voice, imperturbable cool, and natural allure to women represented his ideal masculine image. (Hughes biographer Charles Higham posited the millionaire as an active bisexual; for what it’s worth, both Mitchum and Hughes’s second-favorite male star, Victor Mature, had certain physical characteristics in common with Howard’s favorite female type—dark eyes, thick hair, and a big chest.)

Regardless of Hughes’s personal enthusiasm, from a business point of view Mitchum was currently RKO’s most valuable asset. The scandal publicity had made him more famous than ever. Aware of Jerry Giesler’s intended trial tactic, Hughes and his new production head, Sid Rogell, now came up with a scheme they hoped—if their star was found guilty—might influence the judge to offer probation or—if it came to a jail term—allow them to have another Mitchum picture to exhibit while he was otherwise engaged. They determined to get a film into production immediately. With only a matter of days to prepare something, various remakes were considered, but Hughes finally settled on a pulp story by Richard Wormser (”The Road to Carmichael’s”) that had once been intended for George Raft. A script was already partially written, and
Out of the Past
scribe Dan Mainwaring was assigned to finish it in record time. It was a simple cops ‘n’ robbers chase set in rural Mexico. For the female lead the studio quickly negotiated to borrow Lizabeth Scott from Hal Wallis. Hughes personally picked a little-known outsider to direct, Don Siegel. A Warner Bros, staffer for fourteen years, doing montage and second-unit work before directing two features, Siegel had then been fired and found himself unemployed for months, reluctantly returning to second-unit jobs. Years ago he had turned down Howard Hughes’s request that he direct retakes on the Faith Domergue debacle
Vendetta
(it had already exhausted the talents of Preston Sturges and Max Ophuls), declaring the thing was unfixable. Hughes had appreciated his honesty and now offered him the Mitchum project. It was an assignment with built-in aggravation, Siegel thought—no story, little script, a crazy schedule, and a star who might be headed for prison—but he was grateful to Hughes for a chance to restart his stalled career. Howard himself came up with the title for the picture—
The Big Steal.

January 10. Mitchum, Leeds, and Ford filed into Judge Nye’s courtroom, looking as grimly resigned as if they had already heard a guilty verdict. In a sense they had. They had all agreed to follow Jerry Giesler’s plan of action—inaction better described it—which allowed for an almost certain criminal conviction.
Vicki Evans did not appear for her court date. She had been tracked to New York City where her attorney informed the DA’s office that she was without funds to return to Los Angeles but would report to them as soon as possible.

Det. Sgt. A. M. Barr, the man who had led the raid on Ridpath, approached Mitchum in the courtroom and handed him a thick packet of letters, most of them already opened. They had been addressed to the actor care of the police station, Barr said tonelessly. It was fan mail wishing him good luck.

The trial began. The defense attorneys spoke. On the charge of conspiracy to possess marijuana, their clients would offer no defense and agreed to waive a jury trial and have their cases decided upon a reading of the testimony by the arresting officers given before the county grand jury. As Giesler had prearranged, the other charge, of possession, was held in abeyance.

Mitchum sat calmly for the sixty minutes it took Judge Nye to return with a guilty verdict for each of the three defendants. Nye set a court date of February 9 for probation hearing and sentencing.

In the hallway reporters rushed at the departing criminals. Asked about the unexpected “defense,” Giesler said, “The evidence was in the transcript. Mitchum wouldn’t perjure himself. He would have had to tell the truth.” Giesler had “thrown in the towel,” he said. When asked, Ford’s attorney, Vernon Brumbaugh, echoed by Lila’s Grant Cooper, said he believed probation was definitely possible in a case like this one.

Prosecutors held their own brief meeting with the press. Deputy DA Adolph Alexander was asked if he expected Mitchum and friends to do jail time. “Mitchum,” he said, “will be treated no better or no worse than any other persons found guilty of narcotics charges.” He then informed them that if Mitchum received probation it would be the first time in local history that a narcotics user got off that easy. “Of course,” he said, “it’s up to the judge whether he gets probation.”

As Mitchum and Leeds exited the courtroom, they were served with a summons. The pair were being sued by one Nanette Bordeaux, “actress,” for damages done to her house at 8443 Ridpath Drive. Miss Bordeaux alleged that the two, described as trespassers, had carelessly and negligently burned her furniture and walls with cigarettes and, further, had caused her property to be unfairly publicized as a “shack” and a “marijuana den,” when in reality, said the suit, “it was an attractive hillside cottage.”

Prepared at lightning speed,
The Big Steal
was ready to begin shooting by the day of the trial. Then came the guilty verdict. Hal Wallis decided it was just too risky putting his valuable property together with a freshly convicted felon and
abruptly withdrew Liz Scott from the picture. With the clock ticking, several other stars were contacted, all of them unavailable or reluctant to take the job. Hughes had deemed a shoot-’em-up quickie unworthy of his own carefully nurtured discovery, star of
The Outlaw,
Jane Russell, whose recent appearance in Paramount’s
The Paleface
had legitimized her career; but now he changed his mind. Hedda Hopper, in her January 19 column, announced the Russell-Mitchum teaming for
The Big Steal
and predicted “a box office bombshell.” Then Hughes changed his mind again. It was possible that Hal Wallis knew something after all, Howard thought. If there was a backlash against Mitch um, he didn’t want to taint a second valuable property.

Rogell and producer Jack Gross warned the dithering Hughes that Mitchum’s sentencing was ticking closer. At last, with a combination of practicality and perverseness, Hughes picked the girl for the part. She was one of the studio’s own contract players, a woman whose talent and beauty he greatly admired but whose ingratitude had turned him against her. Since taking control at RKO he had been determined to wreck her career. She was the perfect actress for this risky project. What did she have to lose?

“After
Out of the Past
I felt I was finally getting somewhere,” said Jane Greer. “I had gotten a chance to show what I could do, I thought the studio was behind me, I had a contract for years to come, I was set. Then came the news that Howard had bought the place. A few days after he took over, he sent for me.”

It was years since they had last seen each other, and Greer had been happily married to businessman and producer Edward Lasker for most of that time. She greeted Hughes as an old but distant friend.

“I’m so excited for you, Howard,” she said. “It’s a wonderful studio. I think you’ll love it.”

Hughes, acting not like a friend or employer but like a just-spurned lover, wished only to discuss her private life.

“You don’t want to stay married,” he told her. “You aren’t happy.”

“Yes I am, Howard, I’m very happy,” Greer said.

“No. Deep down you’re not satisfied.”

“Yes . . . I am.”

They argued some more along these lines, to no purpose. Then Hughes said, “I’ve decided that you will not be appearing in any more pictures, Bettejane. You will remain under contract to me and continue to be paid every week. But as long as I own the studio you will never work again. What do you think of that?”

“It means the end of me as a movie star.”

“Yes, I guess it does.”

“Well then,” said Greer impassively, “I’ll just have to stick with being a wife and having babies.”

Hughes’s tiny black eyes glared furiously. It looked like a scene from
Out of the Past,
with Hughes in the Kirk Douglas role, the powerful man undone by his unpredictable Circe. Jane Greer smiled, said good-bye, and went home.

“He kept his word. I hadn’t worked in ages. Then Sid Rogell, who was running the studio, came by my house. He said, ‘Whatever you do, don’t let Howard know that I came here, you know how he is; but he is going to call you. He wants you to do a picture with Bob Mitchum.’ I said, ‘He wants me to do a picture with Bob?’ Sid said, ‘Yes, yes, he doesn’t have anybody else. Wait for his call. And remember . . . don’t say that I was here.
You never saw me!”’

Moments later the phone rang.

“Bettejane!”

“Yes. Is that you, Howard?”

Sid Rogell, dignified Dore Schary’s successor, crouched behind a big chair.

“How would you like to do this picture with Mitchum—
The Big Steal?”

“I’d like to very much, Howard. I love Mitchum, and I want him to know how much I’m pulling for him. I know how unhappy he is.”

Hughes said, “You’re going to have to go into Liz Scott’s clothes, because we don’t have time to wardrobe you.”

“Well, that’s all right, Howard. I’m about her size.”

“You start on Tuesday.”

“OK. I’ll be there.”

“Oh, there’s something else.”

“Yes, Howard?”

“You’re knocked up.”

“What?”

“The rabbit died.”

Greer had gone to the doctor a few days before for a pregnancy test and was still waiting for the results. “Howard found out I was pregnant before I did. He broke the news to me. He had spies everywhere.”

As part of his appeal for probation from the superior court, Mitchum was required to submit a written autobiographical statement that would include an
account of his crime and, presumably, indications of remorse and rehabilitation. It was a revealing and detailed manuscript and, from the rich vocabulary and self-conscious locutions, clearly written by the man himself. Indeed, Mitchum seems to have approached it as something of a showcase for his neglected literary skills. While the typical plea from a felon read like a passage out of
The Postman Always Rings Twice,
Mitchum’s appeared to be in thrall to a bad Victorian doorstopper.

“Publication of infantile verse and prose,” wrote the actor, “which I composed to delight my mother was climaxed by featured interviews and photographs, which small spotlight on our material impoverishment inspired in me an introspection ever at odds with my desire for expression.”

And later: “The rumor spread that . . . I was associating with people who indulged in the use of marijuana. This last gossip brought a swelling stream of acquaintances who appeared to accept me as one of their number, although their curious jargon was foreign to me, and their pressing invitations hinted at a social pattern of some mystery. Although progressing famously in my professsion, I was constantly obsessed with the phantom of failure, and in the next two years I several times answered entreaty by sharing a cigaret with one or more of these sycophants.

“The only effect that I ever noticed from smoking marijuana was a sort of mild sedative,” he continued, “a release of tension. . . . It never made me boisterous or quarrelsome. If anything it calmed me down and reduced my activity.” Mitchum asserted that he had first smoked the weed in Ohio in 1936 and then not again until 1947 and unequivocally declared, “My attitude with respect to the future use of marijuana is that I will not use marijuana at any time whatsoever.”

Concluding the document with a self-pitying flourish, Mitchum told of his belief that he had already, before and after his conviction, been punished far more than the law itself had envisaged for a first offense. “Time in jail,” he wrote, “would add nothing to the subjective feeling I already have about what I have done.”