Modern Screen (Dec 1949 - Nov 1950)

He began to startle Hollywood soon after his arrival there. He was a shock to the press and publicity corps, because he would not go along with a phony stunt, figuring that people would just have to like him the way he was or go to blazes. When he began to click, and he wasn't making enough money, he would walk into his boss's office, lay the profit figures on the desk and say he wanted his share or he'd go back to Long Beach and take a job cleaning fish. He began to get his cut. Now that he's a thoroughly established star, he's still considered a character. He's not, really, he iust acts on impulses and loathes sham. When he got a chance to work with Greer Garson at MGM, the goal of most male players, he thought she was a bit stuffy. The second night they worked together in a small boat in a lagoon on the back lot, he waited until a moment when she stood up. Then he put one big hand on her posterior and shoved. She hit the water with a yell — but she loved it. He's the only man who ever dared call her Big Red. Today, Bob is living the life of a country squire out in Mandeville Canyon. Still, this is not the quiet happy little ending for Bob Mitchum. He is a man of many parts, many backgrounds, many moods. Most of all he's a man who will take a situation by the throat and throttle it into the shape he wants it. For instance, consider the case of the vacant lot next door to the Mitchum house. Bob hasn't the money to buy it right now, but he has a "hold" on the property in the shape of a very large saxophone which sits on the living room table 24 hours a day. At any time, any hour, that anyone looks at the lot next door with the slightest interest, Bob grabs the saxophone and blows himself purple in the face. "Good heavens!" one dowager prospect exclaimed recently. "Does that noise go on all the time?" From Bob's bedroom came a familiar, sardonic voice. "It sure does, lady. It sure does." Who knows what lies ahead for unpredictable Robert Mitchum? No one, of course, can say. But when he again gives Hollywood an electric shock — as his strong, restless spirit will eventually dictate — no one should be surprised. The End GARY COOPER'S MOUNTAIN HIDEAWAY (Continued from page 44) Russell, E. H. Sothern and Julia Marlowe, and dozens of other famous people in the theater appeared here. It's been burned out twice and it's still usable. It was reopened a year ago with a concert by Burl Ives, and it's been going strong ever since." The rest of the afternoon we spent tramping around the town. We saw the antiquated town bell, now used to call skiing classes. We walked down to look at the ruins of Aspen's railroad station, now dead for 33 years. (Bus service nowadays connects with coast-to-coast trains at Glenwood Springs, some 40 miles away.) We looked down the main street on which, 40 years ago, horse-drawn street-cars ran on a 10-minute schedule. Last of all, we climbed up a small back road to Gary's 15-acre property which overlooks the entire city and the ski slopes across the valley. (The house was still incomplete, and the Coopers were staying at the hotel.) The view from the knoll which comprises his front yard was as pretty as any winter scene ever painted. "When Rocky and I first came up here and looked out across that valley," Gary said, "we knew that we'd found the hideaway where, above all other places, we wanted to spend our free time." We got back to the hotel just in time to meet Mrs. Cooper and Maria, their 12year-old daughter, who had just come down the long, winding Ruthie's Run for the seventh and final time of the day. Both were wearing identical knit caps, and their faces were equally tanned from the hours already spent on the ski slopes. As they dashed upstairs to dress for dinner, Cooper said proudly, "They're the real skiers in the family, excellent form. But I'm the headlong type — I just make up my mind and come down the hill." The next morning, Gary met us for breakfast at 7:30 and then walked us down to Mike Magnifico's Sport Shop to be measured up for skis. Mike is a merry-faced man in his early forties who is one of the pioneers in the new Aspen, and one of the more difficult ski runs is named after him. He came to Aspen in the 1930s, opened a small shoe-repair store, and waited for the town to be reborn. "He's a patient man," Cooper explained. "He worked, and waited it out, and now he has the biggest ski shop in town to show for it." Cooper left us to be outfitted and walked back to the hotel to meet Rocky and Maria. Thirty minutes later, we met them at the bottom of the hill. When we trudged up, Gary was helping Rocky buckle on her skis. Maria could hardly wait for her 98 mother and kept looking anxiously as each empty chair went by on the lift that carries the skiers to the top of the run. Aspen's chair lift, built at a cost of $250,000, is the longest in the world. It carries skiers three miles up the mountainside in less than half an hour. The first section passes over the rooftops of the city and rises over thousands of aspen trees to Midway, at an elevation of 10,000. The second section rises another 5,600 feet to the Sundeck, a modern octagonal building which offers on every side some of the most commanding scenery in the world. From there, the skier has more than a dozen unbelievably beautiful trails to choose from. When we reached the Sundeck, Rocky and Maria waved a quick goodbye and poled over to the start of Spar Gulch Run. "We'll see you at lunch," Rocky yelled, as they disappeared over the hill. "See what I mean?" Cooper laughed, leading us into the building for coffee. "They're the real skiers of the family. Me, I have to think about what I'm going to do before I shove off. They'll be back up for a second go at it before I make up my mind to try it the first time." Cooper gave up worrying about Maria, on even the toughest runs, some time ago. For two years, she has been skiing with Elli Iselin, one of Aspen's, and America's, leading instructors. Last year, Maria surprised no one by placing first in her class during the downhill races. She has better form than most adult skiers and the kind of driving self-confidence that makes champions. After coffee, I decided to go back to Midway to wait while Bob Beerman skied down with Cooper to get pictures. I was so lovely to look at lana turner on the january cover of modern screen on sale december 9 surprised when, a few minutes later, Cooper came gliding in alone. I had a vision of Beerman 's broken body lying in the snow — until Cooper assured me that Bob was making it down all right. Just taking it easy. Half an hour later. Bob finally slid in, his clothes completely covered with snow. "I have just joined the ski crowd," he remarked grimly. A ski-patrol man told me that evening that he had counted 39 of Bob's sitzmarks (the jocularly technical term for marks made when a skier tumbles, or sits), each one distinguished by a five-point impression in the snow. We beat the Coopers back to the hotel that afternoon and, after a hot shower, had a chance to talk to Meg Bronski, who operates the ski desk in the Jerome Hotel lobby. "No one up here thinks of Gary Cooper as a movie star," she told us. "He, Rocky and Maria are as regular as anyone on the mountain, and they all three would rather ski than eat." This will be the third winter the Coopers have spent at Aspen. The first winter they came up briefly from Sun Valley, which used to be their favorite winter resort, to try the fine skiing that a few pioneers were raving about. The second winter they bought their 15-acre home site, and began plans to build. This winter, they will spend every free moment away from Hollywood in Aspen, as they did most of the summer. By now, their home is completed, and frequently will be filled with friends who share their enthusiasm for winter sports. (Their nextdoor neighbors will soon be the Charles Lindberghs, who bought an adjoining lot on Red Mountain during the Goethe Festival this July.) That night, our last in Aspen, Bob and I met the Coopers in the cocktail lounge for a goodbye drink — one final Aspen Special. Across the valley, the moonlight reflected on the ski slopes made it seem like day. "When I leave this place," Gary said, "I go back to work in Hollywood, refreshed and ready for anything. Aspen is a perfect hideaway — a hideaway where you can really relax and live." Then Gary walked with us to the bus outside the hotel and said goodbye. The thermometer was dropping down below zero again. As we drove off, the driver remarked, "They always say that those tall fellows have snow on their shoulders six months out of the year. But I think Cooper's got it in his blood." The End (Gary Cooper's current picture is Task Force.)