Robert Mitchum

Robert Mitchum (1917 to 1997) was an American film actor and singer, remembered above all for the weary, laconic antihero he brought to the screen and for his central place in film noir. He first drew wide notice with an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for The Story of G.I. Joe in 1945, his only Oscar nomination, and went on to anchor noir and thriller landmarks such as Out of the Past in 1947, The Night of the Hunter in 1955 and Cape Fear in 1962. His range ran from westerns and war pictures to the television miniseries The Winds of War and War and Remembrance, where he played Navy Captain Victor Pug Henry. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1984 and the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award in 1992, and the American Film Institute ranked him among the greatest male stars of classic American cinema. For the history of the medium he stands as a defining screen presence of the postwar studio and noir era, an example of a performer whose persona shaped how a genre looked and sounded.