Robert Mitchum
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As was the image of Pete Fountain, this picture of movie star Robert Mitchum is not an actual "raster" or bitmap image. That is, it was not created by specifying the colors and tones of individual pixels in a grid on the computer window.
Instead this scaleable vector graphics image is displayed from a javascript function composed of a conglomeration of equations. Because the unit of the equations is the pixel - the smallest part of a computer screen - when you zoom in the computer redraws the image with no loss of resolution even though the zoomed image is from the exact same file as the original picture. The image could be zoomed in even more and made into poster size without loss of resolution if that's what was wanted. The file size, though, is the same as a JPG with similar resolution of the smaller image, in the case about 30 kilobytes.
This picture is of the young Robert Mitchum. Robert began film acting in 1943 when one of his first roles was as a henchman in Hoppy Serves a Writ. In that movie, Robert not only appeared with an unshaven visage that only became acceptable for "good guys" after the first decade of the new Millennium, he wasn't even given a screen credit! Hoppy - that is, Hopalong Cassidy - was played by William Boyd, and other small roles noteworthy to fans of Old Times Movies and Television was George Reeves and Roy Barcroft.1
Footnote
George Reeves, of course, was the stage name of George Keefer Brewer who after his mother remarried took his stepfather's name surname and became George Bessolo. George, but now billing himself as George Reeves, was in the opening scene of Gone With the Wind where he played Stuart Tarleton who with his twin brother Brent (played by Fred Crane) were trying to convince Scarlett O'Hara to agree to dance with them at a barbecue at a neighboring plantation.
George later had roles in a large number of movies including From Here to Eternity and was also in Jungle Jim the first movie in the series where Johnny "Tarzan" Weissmuller hung up his loincloth and put on - quote - "civilized duds" - unquote. George, of course, achieved his greatest fame as the star of the television series The Adventures of Superman.
Roy Barcroft was a veteran character actor usually playing bad guys in westerns, but is known to fans of the old time serials as the insidious Captain Mephisto in Manhunt of Mystery Island. In 1966 this was cut down to feature film length for a television broadcast as Captain Mephisto and the Transformation Machine.
Manhunt of Mystery Island and its paired down version is one of those movies that's so bad it's good and it's quite instructive to see how you can reduce a movie by more than 50% and still have the same plot.
Robert Mitchum's real name was - Robert Mitchum. He was born in 1917 and there was no one less likely to become one of the top actors of the 20th century. Twice kicked out of schools for his fractious behavior he became what the polite call of hobo and the less decorous a bum.
But his sister, Julie, had decided to move to Hollywood in hopes of getting into the movies. Bob (as he was called) followed and he joined a small theater group where he showed a natural gift for writing. By the early 1940's he began landing the small roles in the movies where his droopy eyes and chiseled features made him well suited for both "bad guy" roles and as the tough-guy good guys who sometimes aren't too good.
So as the 1940's rolled on Bob, now married, was working in small time roles. Then in 1944 a bit part in Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo landed him a contract with the Radio-Keith-Orpheum production company which was even then was always called RKO.
Bob's big break came the next year when he was cast in the #2 slot of Captain William Walker in The Story of G. I. Joe, an adaptation of the writings of war correspondent Ernie Pyle (played by Burgess Meredith). The role landed Bob a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Although the award went to James Dunn in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Robert Mitchum was a star.
For the next two years Bob had major roles in eight movies. These were a mix of westerns and dramas, including the film noir movies Pursued, Crossfire, and Out of the Past. RKO was counting on Bob to be one their stars for the future and in 1948 he was cast in another western, Rachel and the Stranger, with Loretta Young.
With his Hollywood career secure, Bob decided to find a new house. So he and real estate agent Robin Ford along with Lila Leeds, another up-and-coming Hollywood actor, and dancer Vicki Evans, were at a house in Laurel Canyon having a smoke.
The trouble was, it wasn't tobacco, and they were most discomfited when the cops showed up. They were - to quote Arlo Guthrie - "immediately arrested" and hauled off to the hoosegow.
Bob decided his career was over and at the station house wearily gave his occupation as "former actor". But the studio had banked a lot on Rachel and the Stranger and the man in charge of RKO was none other than Howard Hughes. When Howard got the word he immediately had Lawyer-For-The-Stars-And-The-Occasional-Mobster Jerry Giesler take the case.2
Footnote
Among Jerry's less savory clients whom he successfully defended was Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel. Bugsy was charged with the murder of Harry Greenberg who Bugsy thought was going to spill the beans about his criminal activities. Bugsy's eventual acquittal - actual the case was dismissed - was due less to Jerry's legal maneuvers and acumen than the deaths of two key witnesses, one of whom went rather heavily out of a six story window while under police custody.
Jerry was famous for his flamboyant manner and courtroom theatrics. He did not disappoint. He maintained the indictment had to be thrown out because it wasn't in "plain English" that the defendants could understand. It used the words "flowering tops", "leaves", "hemp", and "cannabis", the last word which Jerry mispronounced and said the only Latin he knew was Xavier Cugat. The reporters may have been amused but Judge Clement Nye was not and ordered the case to trial.
The trial lasted an hour and Bob and the others were convicted and got a year in jail plus two years probation. The judge, though, reduced the sentences to 60 days and Bob and the others were hauled off to the Los Angeles County Jail. From there Bob was taken to the "honor" prison farm in Castaic, about forty miles northwest of LA proper. Among his duties were cleaning floors and milking cows.
Among the visitors that were permitted twice a week was Howard Hughes who seemed to admire Bob personally even above his future value to RKO. He assured Bob that things would be all right and agreed to loan Bob the money for his legal costs at 5% interest. Bob was released on schedule and told the waiting reporters that he had actually liked being in jail.
Certainly Bob's career wasn't hurt by his unintended hiatus. Rachel and the Stranger was released as advertised and Bob kept making movies that did well and when the era arose began appearing on television. Among his more light-hearted films were Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (1957) where he played a US Marine corporal who gets stranded on a Japanese occupied Pacific Island with a Catholic nun (played by Deborah Kerr) and Mr. Moses (1965, with Carol Baker and Raymond St. Jacques) set in Africa which is amusing enough if it's possible to get by the rather condescending picture of African natives. His last film appearance was in 1997, over half a century after Bob appeared in Hoppy Serves a Writ.
Bob's sister, Julie, did make it into the movies. She played the part of a slave girl in Cecille B. Demille's The Ten Commandments but her most famous role was in House on Haunted Hill where she played Ruth Bridges, a newspaper columnist who agreed to go to a haunted house party held by the inevitable "eccentric millionaire" Frederick Loren (Vincent Price). Frederick was offering a select group of people $10,000 apiece if they could stay (alive) all night in a haunted house. Ruth needed the money to help pay her gambling debts. The later remake upped the amount of money to $1,000,000, over a ten-fold increase after correcting for inflation.
You can see the family resemblance between Ruth and Bob, but she evidently decided the movies were not for her and she retired from films in 1959.
References
Robert Mitchum: "Baby I Don't Care", Lee Server, Faber and Faber, 2001.
Mitchum: The Film Career of Robert Mitchum, Bruce Crowther, Robert Hale, Ltd., 1991.
"Robert Mitchum", Internet Movie Data Base.
"Captain Mephisto and the Transformation Machine", Internet Movie Data Base.