Joe played bridge in LaJolla, California last week, and naturally thought of the town’s native son and biggest film star, Gregory Peck.  He wondered how much Frank knew about Peck, and in turn we both wondered how much our readers know.

Robert Mitchum, an actor we much admire, once referred to Peck (his costar in the superb 1962 thriller, Cape Fear) as the dullest actor in Hollywood.

As British author-critic David Thomson puts it: Peck’s one besetting failure as an actor  — that he is dull — is excused because it confirms the aura of responsibility and commitment to proper causes that surrounds him.

In this regard, think of Peck as the upstanding dad in 1946’s The Yearling; as the reporter uncovering anti-Semitism in 1947’s Gentlemen’s Agreement; or as the valiant guerilla fighter in his 1944 debut film, director Jacques Tournier’s Days of Glory.  (We are reluctant to even mention the virtue that oozes from Peck’s liberal country lawyer in 1963’s To Kill a Mockingbird.)

To put it simply, we prefer the “bad” Gregory Peck: as the mentally frazzled Air Force officer in 1949’s Twelve O’Clock High (a superb World War II combat film); as the medical poseur in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1945 melodrama, Spellbound; as Jennifer Jones’ sexual dancing partner in 1946’s Duel In The Sun; as the harried ambassador in 1976’s The Omen; or even as the gruff Nazi in 1978’s The Boys From Brazil.

Then there is Twentieth Century Fox’s underrated 1950 “oater,” The Gunfighter, starring Peck as a hardened killer (see photo below).

John Griggs in The Films of Gregory Peck says that The Gunfighter actually was the landmark western that marked the turning of the genre from shoot-em-ups to psychological drama (with Shakespearean undertones.)

Griggs concedes that most people think High Noon (director Fred Zinnemann’s 1952 classic starring Gary Cooper) is that landmark film.  But he reminds us that  the Nunnally Johnson-Henry King production actually got there first — complete even with the wall clock ticking away the minutes to heighten suspense and reinforce the tension with its unrelenting countdown to a fateful conclusion.

In short, a sterling example of the “bad” Gregory Peck. Now on to our Quiz. Questions today and answers tomorrow.  Here we go:

1) Question: One of Peck’s more self effacing and charming roles came in 1953’s Roman Holiday with Audrey Hepburn. What role did he play in the picture?  a) an American journalist in Europe; b) a diplomat; c) a news photographer; or d) a carefree heir to a fabulous fortune.

2) Question: In 1977, Peck portrayed one of America’s most acclaimed military figures. Which one?  a) Dwight Eisenhower; b) Ulysses S. Grant; c) George Patton; or d) Douglas MacArthur.

3) Question: Peck was a box office draw almost from his first movie. But which one of the following pictures earned him the most money?  a) 1961’s The Guns of Navarone; b) 1963’s To Kill A Mockingbird; 1978’s The Boys From Brazil; or d) 1976’s The Omen.

4) Question:  Besides Spellbound, Peck starred in one other picture for Alfred Hitchcock. Which one? a) Lifeboat; b) Rebecca; c) The Paradine Case; or d) Saboteur.

5) Question: As mentioned in our intro, one of Peck’s finest films in 1962’s Cape Fear, which was remade in 1991 by Martin Scorsese, also with Peck in the cast.  What role did he play in each version?

He led some life and had some career — as a director, a star, and most notably as one of the screen’s most recognizable character actors.

If the photo of today’s subject, Donald Crisp, reminds you of your stern but avuncular local banker, don’t be surprised.  Crisp may have started his movie career way back before in 1910 — his first movie was a 1908 short, The French Maid — but he finished it as a kind of Hollywood eminence gris with deep connections in the banking world, which in turn made him into something of a wealthy real estate mogul.

This is all the more remarkable since Crisp was English, born in modest circumstances near London in 1882. He started his career as a teenager, ended it more than a half century later in 1963 as “Grandpa Spencer” in the family drama, Spencer’s  Mountain, costarring Henry Fonda and Maureen O’Hara. (The picture became the basis for the 1971 tv series, The Waltons.)

In all, he appeared in more than 170 vehicles of one kind or another, both silent and sound. Although retired for his last 10 years … his span was remarkable, wrote British critic David Thomson.  (Crisp died in 1974, two months away from his 92d birthday.)

In the Thirties and Forties, Crisp appeared as an actor in a broad range of memorable pictures including these best-picture Oscar winners: 1935’s Mutiny on the Bounty, 1937’s The Life of Emil Zola and, of course, 1941’s How Green Was My Valley. We say “of course” since the John Ford opus won Crisp a supporting actor Oscar, and reinforced his career in that middling territory encompassing leading actor and supporting player. (Note his billing below.)

Aftr attending Oxford, Crisp served in the Boer War at the dawn of the 20th century in South Africa where he ran across an aspiring politician by the name of Winston Churchill. Crisp also signed up for British army intelligence during World War I, and followed that with service in World War II, this time in the U.S. Army.

Fact is that Crisp shifted to Hollywood by around 1910, joining as an actor D.W. Griffith’s operations at the Biograph. He was cast initially as something of a rough-house character, not the proud, wise and principled figures he was later to play.

It was working with Griffith that Crisp turned to directing in his own right, helming more than 70 pictures through the late teens and throughout the silent-era 1920’s. From the introduction of sound, Crisp, almost 50 by this point, shifted to strictly acting.

Crisp could be a warm presence (he graced more than one ‘Lassie’ picture) or a flinty  authoritarian as in, more or less, Mutiny on the Bounty. A remarkable career indeed.

How much did you know about our man Gene Autry?

Undoubtedly you knew something about his exploits as a singing cowboy. But did you know that after Gene hung up his movie and tv spurs in the 1960’s, he proceeded to became one of the richest businessmen ever to come out of show business?

Autry amassed extensive holdings in real estate, radio and tv stations and ownership of the (now) Los Angeles Angels baseball team. He became became a tv station tycoon as majority and chairman-president of Golden West Broadcasters, a West Coast group whose flagship station was KTLA-TV in Los Angeles.

His simpler days as “the singing cowboy” are commemorated at the Gene Autrey Oklahoma Museum in the tiny town of — what else? — Gene Autry, Oklahoma. There’s also an Autry Center of the American West in Los Angeles.

Ok, on to the answers to our Gene Autry Quiz. Here we go:

1) Question: What would a movie cowboy star be without his favorite horse? Which of the following was Autry’s? a) Tony; b) Topper; c) Scout; or d) Champion.

1) Answer: d) Autry’s signature horse was Champion, “the Wonder Horse.” He was Gene’s steady companion through some 80 movies from 1935 to 1952, and many tv shows in the Fifties. Champion became so popular he got a tube show of his own, The Adventures of Champion. In fact three ‘official’ horses playing Champion over the years, plus an occasional fill-in steed.

2) Question: After his retirement from movies and tv, Autry became an extraordinarily wealthy businessman with extensive holdings in real estate, broadcasting and in professional baseball.  Which team did he own?  a) The Dodgers, b) The Devil Rays; c) The Angels; or d) The Diamondbacks.

2) Answer:  As mentioned above, Autry bought the then Anaheim Angels, which later became the Los Angles Angles.

3) Question: Which of the following characters actors did NOT appear in various Autry movies? a) Frankie Darro; b) Francis X. Bushman; c) Alan Hale Jr.; or d) Sterling Holloway. 

3) Answer:  Ok, we admit it.  This is one of our patented trick questions.  Credit will be received all around.  ALL four character actors appeared in various Autry movies.

4) Question: Can you identify this Autry picture which was actually nominated for an Oscar? What was the title of the picture, and what was it nominated for? (Given that Autry appeared in dozens of pictures, this may be a hard one.  Hints: the picture came out in the early 1940’s and its title refers to a phenomenon extolled in a famous Judy Garland song.)

4) Answer: 1941’s Ridin’ On A Rainbow, which was nominated in the best original song category for “Be Honest With Me.”

5) Question: Autry and Roy Rogers were immensely popular cowboy stars, but they didn’t particularly like or trust one another.  a) True; b) False.

5) Answer: a) True. Autry and Rogers were close contemporaries — Gene born in 1907 and Roy four years later.  Also, Rogers’ movie career began a year after Autry’s.  And like Gene, Roy made his debut as a singer — a member of the Sons of the Pioneers vocal group.  And, finally, both Autry and Roger died in the same year, 1998; Gene was 91, Roy was 86. But although friendly, the two singing cowboys were rivals. When Autry joined the military in World War II, Republic Pictures promoted Roy as the new “King of the Cowboys,” infuriating Gene, who vowed to (and did) depart from the studio.  Let’s say both of these “kings” kept careful watch on the other.

One of our favorite pictures from The Donald Gordon Collection is this one of 1940s star — and we do mean STAR — Linda Darnell. (That’s Donald above; a great guy but, alas, no star.)

We thought of her recently when we discussed the recent death of Tab Hunter (below left) and remembered that his breakout film (1951’s Island of Desire) starred him, a newcomer, with Linda whose career was then fading.  In those days when a female sex symbol turned 30 it was downhill until character parts.

Many years later Hunter wrote about how impressed he was with his glamorous leading lady. She was 20th Century Fox’s most alluring star (in the 1940’s). Sensual brown eyes, stunning face, sultry voice, sexy figure.

During their screen test, the nervous tyro actor was instructed to embrace Darnell and plant on her a convincing kiss. (Linda plays a military nurse marooned on a South Sea Island with a Marine corporal. Nature takes its course.)

Don’t worry, honey, she whispered. Just relax. I’m good luck for newcomers.

Linda was certainly that for Tab Hunter.

Some might say in retrospect that Darnell’s life off-camera often was far more interesting than many of the movies she made.

Gorgeous from birth (in Dallas, Texas), Monetta Eloyse Darnell was relentlessly pushed by an aggressive stage mother – tap dance classes at five, talent competitions at 11, beauty contests at 14 (she developed early) and an RKO screen test at 16.

But a 20^th Century Fox talent scout had brought her out to Hollywood a year before.  The studio realizing she was just 14 sent her home to age a bit.  When Fox’s Darryl Zanuck discovered she was about to sign with RKO he exercised his prior claim.  She was still underage but appeared quite mature and Zanuck launched her career in a starring role (with co star billing)–opposite Tyrone Power.  She starred opposite him again in The Mark of Zorro and Blood and Sand.

She was Zanuck’s favorite until she angered him by marrying a man old enough to be her father. After that he cast her in supporting roles.

But it turned out in addition to being virginal she could be sultry.

Her career spanned some 50 films. Summer Storm,( Danish-born director Douglas Sirk’s second Hollywood film, an adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s Shooting Party), showcased Darnell’s smoldering gaze and sexy physique in the role of a cunning, illiterate peasant girl who catches the eye of none other than George Sanders. (Summer Storm recently was reissued on DVD.)

She was superb in Hangover Square and“The Fallen Angel. She wasn’t a bad comedienne (see A Letter To Three Wives or Unfaithfully Yours). All four of these are classics.

Darnell had a torrid affair with Three Wives director Joe Mankiewicz,  which ruined her marriage.  After her Fox contract lapsed in the 1950’s, she appeared in an eclectic mix of American and European films. Darnell, who had problems with alcohol abuse, married and divorced three times Then she had to work in summer stock and dinner theatre to earn a living. Her comeback film was Black Spurs, a 1965 western released by Paramount and costarring Rory Calhoun and Scott Brady.

She might have had a career in character parts.  But tragedy struck.

While visiting her former secretary in the Chicago suburb of Glenview, a fire burned through the apartment while Darnell was sleeping. She died of burns at Cook County hospital in April 1965.  She was only 41.

About Donald’s photos above, he later said about Linda what most people who met her said: “She was even more beautiful in person than on film or in photographs.”

Our quiz about Joe E. Brown prompted us to dig up these picture of Brown with Martha Raye.

Our article on Raye a few weeks ago received this comments from regular contributor, Jeff Woodman —“I was told the following story by the late Maxine Andrews.

Andrews had been approached by the makers of Polident about becoming their TV spokesperson. Because she wasn’t a denture wearer at the time, she repeatedly declined their offers, but they kept pursuing her, finally saying they’d like to attend her nightclub performance that evening, then meet with her afterward to discuss it. Thinking that it would be an opportunity to turn them down in person once and for all, Andrews agreed.

As luck would have it, Martha Raye was attending that night, and arrived in Andrews’ dressing room prior to the performance (feeling, shall-we-say, a little happy?) and insisting that Andrews needed “a star to introduce” her.

Seeing Raye’s condition, Andrews attempted to dissuade her, but Raye was adamant, and finally Andrews had no choice but to relent.

Of course, instead of merely performing the introduction, Raye did a good fifteen minutes, and being in her cups, saw no problem doing a bit during which she removed her dentures for a laugh. (As you observed, her style was anything but subtle.)

The Polident people saw a celebrity who obviously wore dentures, and who obviously had no compunction about revealing that fact in public, and promptly signed Raye as their spokesperson.”

And another regular contributor Graham Hill had this to say about Brown’s big mouth:

Brown certainly had the biggest mouth in showbiz in terms of size, but he also had one of the biggest hearts when it came to his WWII service with the Hollywood Canteen, and in entertaining the troops overseas.

Whilst Bob Hope got all the credit, the honors and applause with the USO and such, Joe E. Brown was the first to do so before Hope and before there was even such a thing as the USO.

Hope certainly became the richest and most decorated entertainer of his era, but Joe E. Brown’s quiet unheralded philanthropy and love of family and humanity, to my mind made him truly richer and much more genuine for a man with the biggest smile you’ve ever seen!

Who knew that mouth sizes could inspire such interesting commentary?  Thanks to Jeff and Graham.