Author Description

This book is a competent run through of the sleepy-eyed film star's career--heavy on anecdotes about his brawling, boozing, rebellious ways. Raised by his determined, plucky widowed mother Ann, Bob was later sent--with sister Julie--to his grandfather's farm in Delaware, while his mother worked and remarried. Some of his family and friends feel these traumas produced a feeling of abandonment and loneliness that has haunted him all his life. Mitchum adopted a crude, insolent stance, and became a freewheeling rover--but did wed quiet, lovely young Dorothy, to whom he's been married ever since. A variety of Hollywood jobs led to small parts in Hopalong Cassidy films, then on to "The Story of G.I. Joe." His snow-balling career was threatened, but not really impeded, by his arrest and conviction on a 1948 pot-smoking charge. After feuding with and leaving RKO, his stardom soared in the 1950s, with offbeat winner "Night of the Hunter"; wife Dorothy's solid loyalty outlasted a serious affair with Shirley MacLaine; and "Ryan's Daughter" paved the way for his middle-aged career. At 67, the end isn't in sight for this film noir star with the beguiling bedroom eyes.