Robert Mitchum
August 6, 1917 – July 1, 1997
Robert Charles Durman Mitchum grew up on a farm in Delaware. A prankster and somewhat rebellious child, by the time Mitchum was 14 he had lived in South Carolina, Connecticut, Delaware, Philadelphia, and New York City with various parts of his family. He was expelled from at least 2 schools and ran away from home a number of times. He lived for a while hopping freight cars and was arrested for vagrancy and put on a chain-gang (from which he claims to have escaped). He worked his way across the country digging ditches, picking up odd jobs and boxing semi-professionally before suffering a career-ending facial injury.
THEN he became one of Hollywood’s greatest antiheroes.
After settling in Long Beach, California with his sister Julie and her family, Mitchum took a shine to a theater troupe that she was a part of. He became an active writer, composer and performer with the troupe. But, once he married his childhood sweetheart, he only was able to pursue acting part-time; instead earning money as a sheet metal worker. He eventually gained an agent and started appearing in Hopalong Cassidey westerns. Mitchum appeared in dozens of movies in the mid-to-late 1940s drawing attention to himself for his effortless performances and tough guy appearance. He was nominated for an Academy Award in 1945 for The Story of G.I. Joe.
By 1947, Mitchum was a mainstay in the growing film noir movement. He would become most associated with his roles in these films including Out of the Past, The Big Steal (both opposite Jane Greer) and Angel Face (with Jean Simmons). His career exploded in the 1950s and ’60s with his biggest successes coming with films like 1955’s The Night of the Hunter and 1962’s Cape Fear.
Mitchum became one of the biggest stars in the world and earned a reputation of a fiery tough guy both on and off the screen. Just as in his youth, he got in legal trouble throughout his career (he threw a basketball at a female photographer once…costing him $30 million in damages) and earned some animosity from some of his peers at his insistence that acting was an “easy” profession. But, he was mostly beloved by the directors and costars he worked with. He was also a talented crooner and released 2 albums during his lifetime.
After a career spanning 6 decades – appearing in movies well into the ’80s and ’90s – Robert Mitchum died in his California home from lung cancer and emphysema. He was a lifelong smoker, naturally. He was 79.
Burial
Specific Location
Robert was cremated and his ashes were scattered over the Pacific Ocean. There is a memorial cenotaph at Sharon Hills Odd Fellows Cemetery in Camden, Delaware. The marker is a few rows in front of the house at the northwest corner of the cemetery.
Celebrity Graveland 
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