Randolph Scott
Encyclopedia
Randolph Scott was an American film actor whose career spanned from 1928 to 1962. As a leading man for all but the first three years of his cinematic career, Scott appeared in a variety of genres, including social dramas, crime dramas, comedies, musicals (albeit in non-singing and non-dancing roles), adventure tales, war films, and even a few horror
and fantasy
films. However, his most enduring image is that of the tall-in-the-saddle Western
hero. Out of his more than 100 film appearances more than 60 were in Westerns; thus, "of all the major stars whose name was associated with the Western, Scott most closely identified with it."
Scott's more than thirty years as a motion picture actor resulted in his working with many acclaimed screen directors, including Henry King
, Rouben Mamoulian
, Michael Curtiz
, John Cromwell
, King Vidor
, Alan Dwan, Fritz Lang
, and Sam Peckinpah
. He also worked on multiple occasions with prominent directors: Henry Hathaway
(8 times), Ray Enright (7), Edwin R. Marin (7), Andre DeToth (6), and most notably, his seven film collaborations with Budd Boetticher
.
Scott also worked with a diverse array of cinematic leading ladies, from Shirley Temple
and Irene Dunne
to Mae West
and Marlene Dietrich
. He also appeared with Gene Tierney
, Ann Sheridan
, Maureen O'Hara
, Nancy Carroll
, Donna Reed
, Gail Russell
, Margaret Sullavan
, Virginia Mayo
, Bebe Daniels
, Carole Lombard
, and Joan Bennett
.
Tall (6 ft 2 in; 188 cm), lanky, and handsome, Scott displayed an easygoing charm and courtly Southern drawl in his early films that helped offset his limitations as an actor, where he was frequently found to be stiff or "lumbering". As he matured, however, Scott's acting improved while his features became burnished and leathery, turning him into the ideal "strong, silent" type of stoic hero. The BFI Companion to the Western noted:
During the early 1950s, Scott was a consistent box-office draw. In the annual Motion Picture Herald Top Ten Polls, he ranked tenth in 1950, eighth in 1951, and again tenth in 1952. Scott also appeared in the Quigley's Top Ten Money Makers Poll from 1950 to 1953.
, and raised in Charlotte, North Carolina
, the second of six children born to parents of Scottish-American descent. His father was George Grant Scott, born in Franklin, Virginia
, an administrative engineer in a textile firm. His mother was Lucille Crane Scott, born in Luray, Virginia
, a member of a wealthy North Carolina family. The Scott children in order of birth were: Margaret, Randolph, Katherine, Virginia, Joseph and Barbara, most born in North Carolina.
Because of his family's financial status, young Randolph was able to attend private schools such as Woodberry Forest School
. From an early age, Scott developed and displayed an athletic trait, excelling in football
, baseball
, horse racing
, and swimming
.
and served in France as an artillery observer with the 2nd Trench Mortar Battalion, 19th Field Artillery.
Scott's wartime experience would give him training that would be put to use in his later film career, including the use of firearms and horsemanship.
brought the war
to an end, Scott stayed in France and enrolled in an artillery officers' school. Although he eventually received a commission, Scott decided to return to America and thus journeyed home around 1919.
With his military career over, Scott continued his education at Georgia Tech
where he set his sights on becoming an all-American football
player. However a back injury prevented him from achieving this goal. Scott then transferred to the University of North Carolina
, where he majored in textile engineering and manufacturing. As with his military career, however, he eventually dropped out of college and went to work as an accountant in the textile firm where his father was employed.
and provided a letter of introduction for his son to present to the eccentric millionaire filmmaker. Hughes responded by getting Scott a small part in a George O'Brien film called Sharp Shooters
(1928).
In the next few years, Scott continued working as an extra and bit player in several films, including Weary River (1929) with Richard Barthelmess
and The Virginian
(1929) with Gary Cooper
. Reputedly, Scott also served as Cooper's dialect coach in this latter film.
On the advice of director Cecil B. DeMille
, Scott also gained much-needed acting experience by performing in stage plays with the Pasadena Playhouse
. Scott's stage roles during this period include:
In 1931 Scott played his first leading role (with Sally Blane
) in Women Men Marry, a film
, now apparently lost, that was made by a Poverty Row
studio called Headline Pictures. He followed that movie with a supporting part in a Warner Bros.
production starring George Arliss
, A Successful Calamity.
In 1932 Scott appeared in a play at the Vine Street Theatre in Hollywood entitled Under a Virginia Moon. His performance in this play resulted in several offers for screen tests by the major movie studios. Scott eventually signed a seven-year contract with Paramount Pictures
at a salary of US$400 per week.
contract was a small supporting part in a comedy called Sky Bride (1932) starring Richard Arlen
and Jack Oakie
.
Following that, however, Paramount cast him as the lead in Heritage of the Desert
(1932), his first significant starring role and also the one that established him as a Western
hero. As with Women Men Marry, Sally Blane
was his leading lady. The film was the first of ten "B" Western
films that Scott made for Paramount in a series loosely based on the novels of Zane Grey
. Henry Hathaway
made his directorial debut with Heritage of the Desert; he would go on to direct a total of seven out of the ten Zane Grey
adaptations that Scott would appear in.
Many of these Grey adaptations were remakes of earlier silent films. In an effort to save on production costs, Paramount utilized stock footage from the silent version and even hired some of the same actors, such as Raymond Hatton
and Noah Beery
, to repeat their roles. For the 1933 films The Thundering Herd and Man of the Forest, Scott's hair was darkened and he sported a trim moustache so that he could easily be matched to footage of Jack Holt
, the star of the silent versions.
In his book The Hollywood Western, film historian William K. Everson
refers to the Zane Grey series as being "uniformly good". He also writes:
The Zane Grey series were a boon for Scott, as they provided him with "an excellent training ground for both action and acting".
series, Paramount cast Scott in several non-Western
roles, such as "the other man" in Hot Saturday
(1932), with Nancy Carroll
and Cary Grant
; Hello, Everybody! (1933), an odd one-shot attempt to make a film star out of the popular but heavy-set radio singer Kate Smith
; and Go West, Young Man
(1936).
Paramount also cast Scott in two fairly good horror films: Murders in the Zoo
(1933) with Lionel Atwill
, and Supernatural (1933) with Carole Lombard
. Paramount also loaned him to work at other studios, including Columbia
, where he appeared with Bebe Daniels
in a minor romantic comedy called Cocktail Hour (1933).
status to a star of "A" features, many on loan out.
Scott made four films for RKO Radio Pictures
during 1935–36. Two of these were in the popular series of musicals starring Fred Astaire
and Ginger Rogers
: Roberta
(1935), also starring Irene Dunne
, and Follow the Fleet
(1936). In both of these films Scott played Astaire's
lunkheaded but likable pal. The other two were among the best in Scott's career: Village Tale (1935), "a touching, still-obscure melodrama about small-town gossip and hypocrisy" directed by John Cromwell
, and She
(1935), a superb adventure-fantasy adapted from H. Rider Haggard
's 1886 novel
.
In 1936 Scott, on loan to independent producer [Edward Small] Edward Small
, starred in another adventure classic, The Last of the Mohicans
, adapted from the 1826 novel
by James Fenimore Cooper
. A big hit in its day, the film "gave Scott his first unqualified 'A' picture success as a lead."
Scott's films at Paramount include the aforementioned Go West, Young Man (1936), which reunited him with director Henry Hathaway
and is Mae West
's adaptation of Lawrence Riley
's Broadway hit comedy Personal Appearance; So Red the Rose
(1936), directed by King Vidor
and starring Margaret Sullavan
; and High, Wide, and Handsome
. This last film, a musical directed by Rouben Mamoulian
, featured Scott in his "most ambitious performance," The film is …
and began freelancing. Some of the roles that he took over the next few years were supporting ones, while his other roles during the same time frame had him occasionally lapse into villainy. One missed opportunity also came about around this time. Due to his Southern background, Scott was considered for the role of Ashley Wilkes
in Gone with the Wind
, but it was Leslie Howard
who eventually got the part.
For 20th Century Fox
Scott supported child star Shirley Temple
in Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1938) and Susanna of the Mounties (1939). For the same studio he played a supporting role in his first Technicolor
film, Jesse James (1939), a lavish highly romanticized account of the famous outlaw (Tyrone Power
) and his brother Frank
(Henry Fonda
). Shortly after making this film, Scott portrayed Wyatt Earp
in Frontier Marshal (1939) and, for Universal
, starred with Kay Francis
in When the Daltons Rode (1940).
Scott followed this by co-starring with Errol Flynn
in Virginia City (1940) and played the "other man" role in the Irene Dunne
–Cary Grant
romantic comedy My Favorite Wife
(1940).
In 1941 Scott returned to Zane Grey
country by co-starring with Robert Young
in the Technicolor
production Western Union, directed by Fritz Lang
. Scott played a "good bad man" in this film and gave one of his finest performances. Bosley Crowther
of the New York Times wrote:
Also in 1941 Scott co-starred with a young Gene Tierney
, in another western, Belle Starr
. Scott's only role as a truly evil villain was in Universal
's The Spoilers
, a rip-roaring adaptation of Rex Beach
's 1905 tale of the Alaskan gold rush
co-starring Marlene Dietrich
and John Wayne
. The movie's climax featured Scott and Wayne
(and their stunt doubles) in one of the most spectacular fistfights ever filmed. The Dietrich
-Scott-Wayne
combination worked so well that Universal
recast the trio the following year in Pittsburgh, a war-time action-melodrama which had Wayne
and Scott slugging it out once more.
In 1943 Scott starred in The Desperados, Columbia Pictures
' first feature in Technicolor
. The film was produced by Harry Joe Brown
, with whom Scott would form a business partnership several years later.
In 1942 and 1943 Scott appeared in several war movies, notably To the Shores of Tripoli
, Bombardier
, the Canadian warship drama Corvette K-225
, Gung Ho!
, and China Sky
.
release which cast him in what would become one of his classic images, the fearless lawman cleaning up a lawless town. The film "cemented Scott's position as a cowboy hero" and from this point on all but two of his starring films would be Westerns. The Scott Westerns of the late 1940s would each be budgeted around US$1 million.
Scott renewed his acquaintance with producer Harry Joe Brown
and together they began producing many of Scott's Westerns, including several that were shot in the two-color Cinecolor
process. Their collaboration produced the superior Coroner Creek (1948) with Scott as a vengeance-driven cowpoke who "predates the Budd Boetticher
/Burt Kennedy
heroes by nearly a decade," Gunfighters
(1947) based on the Zane Grey
novel Two Sombreros and The Walking Hills (1949), a modern-day tale of gold
hunters.
Scott also made Westerns for Nat Holt. Some of these movies, Badman's Territory, Return of the Badmen, Trail Street, and Rage At Dawn
were released by RKO
, while others, like Fighting Man of the Plains
, Canadian Pacific
, and The Cariboo Trail
were released by Twentieth Century Fox.
In the late 1940s and early 1950s Scott's films were made mainly for Columbia
or Warner Bros.
His salary for the latter studio was US$100,000 per picture.
Scott's pictures from this period include the 1950 Colt .45, the 1951 films Fort Worth, Man in the Saddle and Carson City, and the 1952 films Hangman's Knot
with Claude Jarman, Jr. and Lee Marvin
(which Scott produced), Man Behind the Gun, The Stranger Wore a Gun (filmed in 3-D
), and Thunder Over the Plains. Also in 1953, Scott appeared in Riding Shotgun, an unusual Western
that presents (probably unintentionally) some McCarthyistic
overtones. Most of these films were directed by Andre De Toth
.
He also did Rage at Dawn in 1955 for Nat Holt, which was released by RKO
starring Scott and Forrest Tucker
, and featuring Denver Pyle
, Edgar Buchanan
, and J. Carrol Naish
. It purports to tell the true story of the Reno Brothers
, an outlaw gang which terrorized the American Midwest, particularly Southern Indiana
, soon after the American Civil War
.
Also of interest is Shootout at Medicine Bend shot in 1955, but released in 1957, which was Scott's last movie in black and white. The movie co-stars James Garner
and Angie Dickinson
By 1956 Scott was 58 years old, an age where the careers of most leading men would be winding down. Scott, however, was about to enter his finest and most acclaimed period.
wrote a script entitled Seven Men from Now
which was scheduled to be filmed by John Wayne
's Batjac Productions
with Wayne as the film's star and Budd Boetticher
as its director. However, Wayne was already committed to John Ford
's The Searchers
. Wayne therefore suggested Scott as his replacement. The resulting film, released in 1956, did not make a great impact at the time but is now regarded by many as one of Scott's best, as well as the one that launched Scott and Boetticher into a successful collaboration that totaled seven films. Kennedy scripted four of them. In these films …
Scott and Boetticher films:
, a film now regarded as a classic. It was directed by Sam Peckinpah
and co-starred Joel McCrea
, an actor who had a screen image similar to Scott's and who also from the mid-1940s on devoted his career almost exclusively to Westerns.
During his retirement years he remained friends with Fred Astaire
and also became friends with the Reverend Billy Graham
. Scott was described by his son Christopher as being a deeply religious man. He was an Episcopalian and a member of St. Peter's Episcopal Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, where he was buried. He was also a York Rite
Freemason.
Scott died of heart and lung ailments in 1987 at the age of 89 in Beverly Hills, California
. He was interred at Elmwood Cemetery in Charlotte, North Carolina
.
, Sally Blane
, Claire Trevor
, and Dorothy Lamour
. In 1944 Scott married Patricia Stillman, with whom he adopted two children. The marriage lasted until Scott's 1987 death.
Although Scott achieved fame as a motion picture actor, he managed to keep a fairly low profile with his private life. Off-screen he was good friends with Fred Astaire
and Cary Grant
. He met Grant on the set of Hot Saturday
and shortly afterwards they began rooming together in a beach house in Malibu that became known as "Bachelor Hall." According to biographer Robert Nott, "They lived together on and off for about ten years, because they were friends and wanted to save on living expenses (they were both considered to be notorious tightwads)."
In his book, Cary Grant: Grant's Secret Sixth Marriage (2004), Marc Eliot claims Grant had a sexual relationship with Scott after they met on the set of Hot Saturday. In Hollywood Gays (1996), Boze Hadleigh
, author of numerous books purporting to "out" the sexual orientation of celebrities, makes various claims for Scott's homosexuality. He cites homosexual director George Cukor
who said about the homosexual relationship between the two: "Oh, Cary won't talk about it. At most, he'll say they did some wonderful pictures together. But Randolph will admit it – to a friend." There is considerable disagreement over the veracity of Hadleigh's claims about alleged homosexuals in Hollywood. According to William J. Mann
's book, Behind the Screen: How Gays and Lesbians Shaped Hollywood, 1910–1969, photographer Jerome Zerbe
spent "three gay months" in the movie colony taking many photographs of Grant and Scott, "attesting to their involvement in the gay scene." In 1995, Richard Blackwell
published his autobiography From Rags to Bitches, where he declared he was a lover of both Grant and Scott.
In 1944 Scott and Grant stopped living together but remained close friends throughout their lives. Grant's insistence that he had "nothing against gays, I'm just not one myself", is treated at length in Peter Bogdanovich
's book of essays about actors, Who the Hell's in It. Scott's adopted son, Christopher, also challenged the rumors. Following Scott's death, Christopher wrote a book entitled, Whatever Happened to Randolph Scott?, in which he rebuts rumors of his father's alleged homosexuality. Budd Boetticher
, the director most often linked with Scott's work, had this to say about the rumors: "Bullshit."
song "Whatever Happened to Randolph Scott?", lamenting the passing of Western films.
He is mentioned in the film Blazing Saddles
when Sheriff Bart tries to convince the reluctant citizens of Rock Ridge to support his plan to save the town. He says that they "would do it for Randolph Scott" and they rise, putting their hands to their hearts and saying reverently "Randolph Scott", echoed by an off-screen chorus.
Randolph Scott and To the Shores of Tripoli
are referred to in Tom Lehrer
's song "Send the Marines."
in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
, United States. He also received an In Memoriam Golden Boot Award
for his work in Westerns.
For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Randolph Scott has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
at 6243 Hollywood Blvd.
Horror film
Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...
and fantasy
Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...
films. However, his most enduring image is that of the tall-in-the-saddle Western
Western (genre)
The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...
hero. Out of his more than 100 film appearances more than 60 were in Westerns; thus, "of all the major stars whose name was associated with the Western, Scott most closely identified with it."
Scott's more than thirty years as a motion picture actor resulted in his working with many acclaimed screen directors, including Henry King
Henry King (director)
Henry King was an American film director.Before coming to film, King worked as an actor in various repertoire theatres, and first started to take small film roles in 1912. He directed for the first time in 1915, and grew to become one of the most commercially successful Hollywood directors of the...
, Rouben Mamoulian
Rouben Mamoulian
Rouben Mamoulian was an Armenian-American film and theatre director.-Biography:Born in Tbilisi, Georgia to an Armenian family, Rouben relocated to England and started directing plays in London in 1922...
, Michael Curtiz
Michael Curtiz
Michael Curtiz was an Academy award winning Hungarian-American film director. He had early creditsas Mihály Kertész and Michael Kertész...
, John Cromwell
John Cromwell (director)
Elwood Dager Cromwell , known as John Cromwell, was an American film actor, director and producer.-Biography:...
, King Vidor
King Vidor
King Wallis Vidor was an American film director, film producer, and screenwriter whose career spanned nearly seven decades...
, Alan Dwan, Fritz Lang
Fritz Lang
Friedrich Christian Anton "Fritz" Lang was an Austrian-American filmmaker, screenwriter, and occasional film producer and actor. One of the best known émigrés from Germany's school of Expressionism, he was dubbed the "Master of Darkness" by the British Film Institute...
, and Sam Peckinpah
Sam Peckinpah
David Samuel "Sam" Peckinpah was an American filmmaker and screenwriter who achieved prominence following the release of the Western epic The Wild Bunch...
. He also worked on multiple occasions with prominent directors: Henry Hathaway
Henry Hathaway
Henry Hathaway was an American film director and producer. He is best known as a director of Westerns, especially starring John Wayne.-Background:...
(8 times), Ray Enright (7), Edwin R. Marin (7), Andre DeToth (6), and most notably, his seven film collaborations with Budd Boetticher
Budd Boetticher
Oscar "Budd" Boetticher, Jr. was a film director during the classical period in Hollywood most famous for the series of low-budget Westerns he made in the late 1950s starring Randolph Scott.Known for their sparse style, dramatic rocky locations near Lone Pine, California, and recurring stories of...
.
Scott also worked with a diverse array of cinematic leading ladies, from Shirley Temple
Shirley Temple
Shirley Temple Black , born Shirley Jane Temple, is an American film and television actress, singer, dancer, autobiographer, and former U.S. Ambassador to Ghana and Czechoslovakia...
and Irene Dunne
Irene Dunne
Irene Dunne was an American film actress and singer of the 1930s, 1940s and early 1950s. Dunne was nominated five times for the Academy Award for Best Actress, for her performances in Cimarron , Theodora Goes Wild , The Awful Truth , Love Affair and I Remember Mama...
to Mae West
Mae West
Mae West was an American actress, playwright, screenwriter and sex symbol whose entertainment career spanned seven decades....
and Marlene Dietrich
Marlene Dietrich
Marlene Dietrich was a German-American actress and singer.Dietrich remained popular throughout her long career by continually re-inventing herself, professionally and characteristically. In the Berlin of the 1920s, she acted on the stage and in silent films...
. He also appeared with Gene Tierney
Gene Tierney
Gene Eliza Tierney was an American film and stage actress. Acclaimed as one of the great beauties of her day, she is best remembered for her performance in the title role of Laura and her Academy Award-nominated performance for Best Actress in Leave Her to Heaven .Other notable roles include...
, Ann Sheridan
Ann Sheridan
-Life and career:Born Clara Lou Sheridan in Denton, Texas on February 21, 1915, she was a student at the University of North Texas when her sister sent a photograph of her to Paramount Pictures. She subsequently entered and won a beauty contest, with part of her prize being a bit part in a...
, Maureen O'Hara
Maureen O'Hara
Maureen O'Hara is an Irish film actress and singer. The famously red-headed O'Hara has been noted for playing fiercely passionate heroines with a highly sensible attitude. She often worked with director John Ford and longtime friend John Wayne...
, Nancy Carroll
Nancy Carroll
Nancy Carroll was an American actress.-Career:She was christened Ann Veronica Lahiff in New York City. Of Irish parentage, she and her sister once performed a dancing act in a local contest of amateur talent. This led her to a stage career and then to the screen. She began her acting career in...
, Donna Reed
Donna Reed
Donna Reed was an American film and television actress.With appearances in over 40 films, Reed received the 1953 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as the tramp Lorene in the war drama From Here to Eternity. She is also noted for her role in the perennial Christmas...
, Gail Russell
Gail Russell
Gail Russell was an American film and television actress.-Career:She was born Elizabeth L. Russell to George and Gladys Russell in Chicago, Illinois, and then moved to the Los Angeles, California, area when she was a teenager. Russell's extraordinary beauty brought her to the attention of...
, Margaret Sullavan
Margaret Sullavan
Margaret Brooke Sullavan was an American stage and film actress. Sullavan started her career on the stage in 1929. In 1933 she caught the attention of movie director John M. Stahl and had her debut on the screen that same year in Only Yesterday...
, Virginia Mayo
Virginia Mayo
Virginia Mayo was an American film actress.After a short career in vaudeville, Mayo progressed to films and during the 1940s established herself as a supporting player in such films as The Best Years of Our Lives and White Heat .Mayo remained an A-list actress into the mid-'50s, but then went...
, Bebe Daniels
Bebe Daniels
Bebe Daniels was an American actress, singer, dancer, writer and producer. She began her career in Hollywood during the silent movie era as a child actress, became a star in musicals like 42nd Street, and later gained further fame on radio and television in Britain...
, Carole Lombard
Carole Lombard
Carole Lombard was an American actress. She was particularly noted for her comedic roles in the screwball comedies of the 1930s...
, and Joan Bennett
Joan Bennett
Joan Geraldine Bennett was an American stage, film and television actress. Besides acting on the stage, Bennett appeared in more than 70 motion pictures from the era of silent movies well into the sound era...
.
Tall (6 ft 2 in; 188 cm), lanky, and handsome, Scott displayed an easygoing charm and courtly Southern drawl in his early films that helped offset his limitations as an actor, where he was frequently found to be stiff or "lumbering". As he matured, however, Scott's acting improved while his features became burnished and leathery, turning him into the ideal "strong, silent" type of stoic hero. The BFI Companion to the Western noted:
In his earlier Westerns ... the Scott persona is debonair, easy-going, graceful, though with the necessary hint of steel. As he matures into his fifties his roles change. Increasingly Scott becomes the man who has seen it all, who has suffered pain, loss, and hardship, and who has now achieved (but at what cost?) a stoic calm proof against vicissitude.
During the early 1950s, Scott was a consistent box-office draw. In the annual Motion Picture Herald Top Ten Polls, he ranked tenth in 1950, eighth in 1951, and again tenth in 1952. Scott also appeared in the Quigley's Top Ten Money Makers Poll from 1950 to 1953.
Birth, family, and schooling
His full name was George Randolph Scott. He was born in Orange County, VirginiaOrange County, Virginia
As of the census of 2000, there were 25,881 people, 10,150 households, and 7,470 families residing in the county. The population density was 76 people per square mile . There were 11,354 housing units at an average density of 33 per square mile...
, and raised in Charlotte, North Carolina
Charlotte, North Carolina
Charlotte is the largest city in the U.S. state of North Carolina and the seat of Mecklenburg County. In 2010, Charlotte's population according to the US Census Bureau was 731,424, making it the 17th largest city in the United States based on population. The Charlotte metropolitan area had a 2009...
, the second of six children born to parents of Scottish-American descent. His father was George Grant Scott, born in Franklin, Virginia
Franklin, Virginia
Franklin is an independent city in Virginia. The Bureau of Economic Analysis combines the city of Franklin with Southampton county for statistical purposes. The population was 8,582 in 2010.-History:...
, an administrative engineer in a textile firm. His mother was Lucille Crane Scott, born in Luray, Virginia
Luray, Virginia
Luray is a town in Page County, Virginia, United States, in the Shenandoah Valley of the northern part of the state. It is also the county seat...
, a member of a wealthy North Carolina family. The Scott children in order of birth were: Margaret, Randolph, Katherine, Virginia, Joseph and Barbara, most born in North Carolina.
Because of his family's financial status, young Randolph was able to attend private schools such as Woodberry Forest School
Woodberry Forest School
Woodberry Forest School is a private, all-male boarding school located in Woodberry Forest, Madison County, Virginia, in the United States. Woodberry's current enrollment is 402. Students come from 28 U.S...
. From an early age, Scott developed and displayed an athletic trait, excelling in football
American football
American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...
, baseball
Baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...
, horse racing
Horse racing
Horse racing is an equestrian sport that has a long history. Archaeological records indicate that horse racing occurred in ancient Babylon, Syria, and Egypt. Both chariot and mounted horse racing were events in the ancient Greek Olympics by 648 BC...
, and swimming
Swimming (sport)
Swimming is a sport governed by the Fédération Internationale de Natation .-History: Competitive swimming in Europe began around 1800 BCE, mostly in the form of the freestyle. In 1873 Steve Bowyer introduced the trudgen to Western swimming competitions, after copying the front crawl used by Native...
.
World War I
In April 1917 the United States entered World War I. Shortly afterwards, Scott, then 19 years old, joined the ArmyUnited States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
and served in France as an artillery observer with the 2nd Trench Mortar Battalion, 19th Field Artillery.
Scott's wartime experience would give him training that would be put to use in his later film career, including the use of firearms and horsemanship.
Post-war career
After the ArmisticeArmistice
An armistice is a situation in a war where the warring parties agree to stop fighting. It is not necessarily the end of a war, but may be just a cessation of hostilities while an attempt is made to negotiate a lasting peace...
brought the war
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
to an end, Scott stayed in France and enrolled in an artillery officers' school. Although he eventually received a commission, Scott decided to return to America and thus journeyed home around 1919.
With his military career over, Scott continued his education at Georgia Tech
Georgia Institute of Technology
The Georgia Institute of Technology is a public research university in Atlanta, Georgia, in the United States...
where he set his sights on becoming an all-American football
American football
American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...
player. However a back injury prevented him from achieving this goal. Scott then transferred to the University of North Carolina
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is a public research university located in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States...
, where he majored in textile engineering and manufacturing. As with his military career, however, he eventually dropped out of college and went to work as an accountant in the textile firm where his father was employed.
Stage and early film appearances
Around 1927, Scott developed an interest in acting and decided to make his way to Los Angeles and seek a career in the motion picture industry. Fortunately, Scott's father had become acquainted with Howard HughesHoward Hughes
Howard Robard Hughes, Jr. was an American business magnate, investor, aviator, engineer, film producer, director, and philanthropist. He was one of the wealthiest people in the world...
and provided a letter of introduction for his son to present to the eccentric millionaire filmmaker. Hughes responded by getting Scott a small part in a George O'Brien film called Sharp Shooters
Sharp Shooters
Sharp Shooters is a 1928 comedy film directed by John G. Blystone and starring George O'Brien. A print survives in the UCLA Film and Television Archive...
(1928).
In the next few years, Scott continued working as an extra and bit player in several films, including Weary River (1929) with Richard Barthelmess
Richard Barthelmess
Richard Semler "Dick" Barthelmess was an Oscar-nominated silent film star.-Early life:Barthelmess was educated at Hudson River Military Academy at Nyack and Trinity College at Hartford, Connecticut...
and The Virginian
The Virginian (1929 film)
The Virginian is a 1929 western movie starring Gary Cooper as the Virginian and Walter Huston as the villainous Trampas. The early sound film was directed by Victor Fleming....
(1929) with Gary Cooper
Gary Cooper
Frank James Cooper, known professionally as Gary Cooper, was an American film actor. He was renowned for his quiet, understated acting style and his stoic, but at times intense screen persona, which was particularly well suited to the many Westerns he made...
. Reputedly, Scott also served as Cooper's dialect coach in this latter film.
On the advice of director Cecil B. DeMille
Cecil B. DeMille
Cecil Blount DeMille was an American film director and Academy Award-winning film producer in both silent and sound films. He was renowned for the flamboyance and showmanship of his movies...
, Scott also gained much-needed acting experience by performing in stage plays with the Pasadena Playhouse
Pasadena Playhouse
The Pasadena Playhouse is a historic performing arts venue located 39 S El Molino Avenue in Pasadena, California. The 686-seat auditorium produces a variety of cultural and artistic events, professional shows, and community engagements each year.-History:...
. Scott's stage roles during this period include:
- A minister in Gentlemen Be Seated
- A butler in Nellie, the Beautiful Model
- Metellus Cimber in William ShakespeareWilliam ShakespeareWilliam Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
's Julius CaesarJulius Caesar (play)The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, also known simply as Julius Caesar, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1599. It portrays the 44 BC conspiracy against... - Hector Malone in George Bernard ShawGeorge Bernard ShawGeorge Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...
's Man and SupermanMan and SupermanMan and Superman is a four-act drama, written by George Bernard Shaw in 1903. The series was written in response to calls for Shaw to write a play based on the Don Juan theme. Man and Superman opened at The Royal Court Theatre in London on 23 May 1905, but with the omission of the 3rd Act...
In 1931 Scott played his first leading role (with Sally Blane
Sally Blane
Sally Blane was an American actress. Blane was the sister of actresses Polly Ann and Loretta Young, and half-sister to actress Georgiana Young, the wife of actor Ricardo Montalban...
) in Women Men Marry, a film
Lost film
A lost film is a feature film or short film that is no longer known to exist in studio archives, private collections or public archives such as the Library of Congress, where at least one copy of all American films are deposited and catalogued for copyright reasons...
, now apparently lost, that was made by a Poverty Row
Poverty Row
Poverty Row is a slang term used in Hollywood from the late silent period through the mid-fifties to refer to a variety of small and mostly short-lived B movie studios...
studio called Headline Pictures. He followed that movie with a supporting part in a Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
production starring George Arliss
George Arliss
George Arliss was an English actor, author and filmmaker who found success in the United States. He was the first British actor to win an Academy Award.-Life and career:...
, A Successful Calamity.
In 1932 Scott appeared in a play at the Vine Street Theatre in Hollywood entitled Under a Virginia Moon. His performance in this play resulted in several offers for screen tests by the major movie studios. Scott eventually signed a seven-year contract with Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
at a salary of US$400 per week.
Zane Grey apprenticeship
Scott's first role under his new ParamountParamount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
contract was a small supporting part in a comedy called Sky Bride (1932) starring Richard Arlen
Richard Arlen
-Biography:Born Sylvanus Richard Van Mattimore in St. Paul, Minnesota, he attended the University of Pennsylvania. He served as a pilot in the Royal Flying Corps during World War I. His first job after the war was with St. Paul's Athletic Club...
and Jack Oakie
Jack Oakie
Jack Oakie was an American actor, starring mostly in films, but also working on stage, radio and television.-Early life:...
.
Following that, however, Paramount cast him as the lead in Heritage of the Desert
Heritage of the Desert
Heritage of the Desert is a Western directed by Henry Hathaway, released by Paramount Pictures, and starring Randolph Scott and Sally Blane. -Cast:*Randolph Scott as Jack Hare*Sally Blane as Judy*J. Farrell MacDonald as Adam Naab...
(1932), his first significant starring role and also the one that established him as a Western
Western (genre)
The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...
hero. As with Women Men Marry, Sally Blane
Sally Blane
Sally Blane was an American actress. Blane was the sister of actresses Polly Ann and Loretta Young, and half-sister to actress Georgiana Young, the wife of actor Ricardo Montalban...
was his leading lady. The film was the first of ten "B" Western
Western (genre)
The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...
films that Scott made for Paramount in a series loosely based on the novels of Zane Grey
Zane Grey
Zane Grey was an American author best known for his popular adventure novels and stories that presented an idealized image of the Old West. Riders of the Purple Sage was his bestselling book. In addition to the success of his printed works, they later had second lives and continuing influence...
. Henry Hathaway
Henry Hathaway
Henry Hathaway was an American film director and producer. He is best known as a director of Westerns, especially starring John Wayne.-Background:...
made his directorial debut with Heritage of the Desert; he would go on to direct a total of seven out of the ten Zane Grey
Zane Grey
Zane Grey was an American author best known for his popular adventure novels and stories that presented an idealized image of the Old West. Riders of the Purple Sage was his bestselling book. In addition to the success of his printed works, they later had second lives and continuing influence...
adaptations that Scott would appear in.
Many of these Grey adaptations were remakes of earlier silent films. In an effort to save on production costs, Paramount utilized stock footage from the silent version and even hired some of the same actors, such as Raymond Hatton
Raymond Hatton
Raymond William Hatton was an American movie actor who appeared in almost five hundred movies, including a stint of being paired in 1920s comedies with Wallace Beery....
and Noah Beery
Noah Beery, Sr.
Noah Nicholas Beery was an American actor, who appeared in films from 1913 to 1945.-Early life:His parents originally came from Switzerland. Beery was born in Kansas City, Missouri. He and his brothers William C. Beery and Wallace Beery became Hollywood actors...
, to repeat their roles. For the 1933 films The Thundering Herd and Man of the Forest, Scott's hair was darkened and he sported a trim moustache so that he could easily be matched to footage of Jack Holt
Jack Holt (actor)
Jack Holt was an American motion picture actor. He was a leading man of silent and sound films, and was known for his many roles in Westerns.-Early life:...
, the star of the silent versions.
In his book The Hollywood Western, film historian William K. Everson
William K. Everson
William Keith "Bill" Everson was an English-American archivist, author, critic, educator, collector and film historian. He often discovered lost films.-Early life and career:...
refers to the Zane Grey series as being "uniformly good". He also writes:
To the Last Man was almost a model of its kind, an exceptionally strong story of feuding families in the post-Civil WarAmerican Civil WarThe American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
era, with a cast worthy of an "A" feature, excellent direction by Henry HathawayHenry HathawayHenry Hathaway was an American film director and producer. He is best known as a director of Westerns, especially starring John Wayne.-Background:...
, and an unusual climactic fight between the villain (Jack LaRue) and the heroine (Esther RalstonEsther RalstonEsther Ralston was an American movie actress whose greatest popularity came during the silent era.-Early life and career:...
, in an exceptionally appealing performance).
Sunset Pass... was not only one of the best but also one of the most surprising in presenting Randolph Scott and Harry Carey as heavies.
The Zane Grey series were a boon for Scott, as they provided him with "an excellent training ground for both action and acting".
Non-Western roles for Paramount
In between his work in the Zane Grey WesternWestern (genre)
The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...
series, Paramount cast Scott in several non-Western
Western (genre)
The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...
roles, such as "the other man" in Hot Saturday
Hot Saturday
Hot Saturday is Cary Grant's first movie as leading man. The movie was directed by William A. Seiter and based on a novel written by Harvey Fergusson...
(1932), with Nancy Carroll
Nancy Carroll
Nancy Carroll was an American actress.-Career:She was christened Ann Veronica Lahiff in New York City. Of Irish parentage, she and her sister once performed a dancing act in a local contest of amateur talent. This led her to a stage career and then to the screen. She began her acting career in...
and Cary Grant
Cary Grant
Archibald Alexander Leach , better known by his stage name Cary Grant, was an English actor who later took U.S. citizenship...
; Hello, Everybody! (1933), an odd one-shot attempt to make a film star out of the popular but heavy-set radio singer Kate Smith
Kate Smith
Kathryn Elizabeth "Kate" Smith was an American Popular singer, best known for her rendition of Irving Berlin's "God Bless America". Smith had a radio, television, and recording career spanning five decades, which reached its pinnacle in the 1940s.Smith was born in Greenville, Virginia...
; and Go West, Young Man
Go West, Young Man
Go West, Young Man is a 1936 Paramount Pictures comedy film directed by Henry Hathaway starring Mae West. The supporting cast includes Warren William, Alice Brady, Elizabeth Patterson, and Lyle Talbot...
(1936).
Paramount also cast Scott in two fairly good horror films: Murders in the Zoo
Murders in the Zoo
Murders in the Zoo is 1933 horror film directed by A. Edward Sutherland, written by Philip Wylie and Seton I. Miller. Considered particularly dark for it's time, film critic Leonard Maltin has called the film "Astonishingly grisly".-Plot:...
(1933) with Lionel Atwill
Lionel Atwill
Lionel Atwill was an English stage and film actor born in Croydon, London, England.He studied architecture before his stage debut at the Garrick Theatre, London in 1904. He become a star in Broadway theatre by 1918, and made his screen debut in 1919. He acted on the stage in Australia but was most...
, and Supernatural (1933) with Carole Lombard
Carole Lombard
Carole Lombard was an American actress. She was particularly noted for her comedic roles in the screwball comedies of the 1930s...
. Paramount also loaned him to work at other studios, including Columbia
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...
, where he appeared with Bebe Daniels
Bebe Daniels
Bebe Daniels was an American actress, singer, dancer, writer and producer. She began her career in Hollywood during the silent movie era as a child actress, became a star in musicals like 42nd Street, and later gained further fame on radio and television in Britain...
in a minor romantic comedy called Cocktail Hour (1933).
Star on the rise
By 1935 Scott was firmly established as a popular movie star and, thus, following the release of Rocky Mountain Mystery (1935), Paramount moved him up from his "B" WesternWestern (genre)
The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...
status to a star of "A" features, many on loan out.
Scott made four films for RKO Radio Pictures
RKO Pictures
RKO Pictures is an American film production and distribution company. As RKO Radio Pictures Inc., it was one of the Big Five studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Keith-Albee-Orpheum theater chains and Joseph P...
during 1935–36. Two of these were in the popular series of musicals starring Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire was an American film and Broadway stage dancer, choreographer, singer and actor. His stage and subsequent film career spanned a total of 76 years, during which he made 31 musical films. He was named the fifth Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute...
and Ginger Rogers
Ginger Rogers
Ginger Rogers was an American actress, dancer, and singer who appeared in film, and on stage, radio, and television throughout much of the 20th century....
: Roberta
Roberta (1935 film)
Roberta is a 1935 musical film by RKO starring Irene Dunne, Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, and Randolph Scott. It was an adaptation of a 1933 Broadway theatre musical of the same name, which in turn was based on the novel Gowns by Roberta by Alice Duer Miller...
(1935), also starring Irene Dunne
Irene Dunne
Irene Dunne was an American film actress and singer of the 1930s, 1940s and early 1950s. Dunne was nominated five times for the Academy Award for Best Actress, for her performances in Cimarron , Theodora Goes Wild , The Awful Truth , Love Affair and I Remember Mama...
, and Follow the Fleet
Follow the Fleet
Follow the Fleet is a 1936 Hollywood musical comedy film with a nautical theme and stars Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Randolph Scott, Harriet Hilliard, and Astrid Allwyn, with music and lyrics by Irving Berlin. Lucille Ball and Betty Grable also appear, in small supporting roles...
(1936). In both of these films Scott played Astaire's
Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire was an American film and Broadway stage dancer, choreographer, singer and actor. His stage and subsequent film career spanned a total of 76 years, during which he made 31 musical films. He was named the fifth Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute...
lunkheaded but likable pal. The other two were among the best in Scott's career: Village Tale (1935), "a touching, still-obscure melodrama about small-town gossip and hypocrisy" directed by John Cromwell
John Cromwell (director)
Elwood Dager Cromwell , known as John Cromwell, was an American film actor, director and producer.-Biography:...
, and She
She (1935 film)
She is a 1935 film produced by Merian C. Cooper. The film is based on H. Rider Haggard's novel of the same name. It stars Helen Gahagan, Randolph Scott and Nigel Bruce, with music by Max Steiner...
(1935), a superb adventure-fantasy adapted from H. Rider Haggard
H. Rider Haggard
Sir Henry Rider Haggard, KBE was an English writer of adventure novels set in exotic locations, predominantly Africa, and a founder of the Lost World literary genre. He was also involved in agricultural reform around the British Empire...
's 1886 novel
She (novel)
She, subtitled A History of Adventure, is a novel by Henry Rider Haggard, first serialized in The Graphic magazine from October 1886 to January 1887. She is one of the classics of imaginative literature, and with over 83 million copies sold in 44 different languages, one of the best-selling books...
.
In 1936 Scott, on loan to independent producer [Edward Small] Edward Small
Edward Small
Edward Small was a film producer from the late 1920s through 1970....
, starred in another adventure classic, The Last of the Mohicans
The Last of the Mohicans (1936 film)
The Last of the Mohicans is a 1936 adventure film adaptation of James Fenimore Cooper's novel of the same name starring Randolph Scott, Binnie Barnes, Henry Wilcoxon and Bruce Cabot....
, adapted from the 1826 novel
The Last of the Mohicans
The Last of the Mohicans: A Narrative of 1757 is a historical novel by James Fenimore Cooper, first published in February 1826. It is the second book of the Leatherstocking Tales pentalogy and the best known...
by James Fenimore Cooper
James Fenimore Cooper
James Fenimore Cooper was a prolific and popular American writer of the early 19th century. He is best remembered as a novelist who wrote numerous sea-stories and the historical novels known as the Leatherstocking Tales, featuring frontiersman Natty Bumppo...
. A big hit in its day, the film "gave Scott his first unqualified 'A' picture success as a lead."
Scott's films at Paramount include the aforementioned Go West, Young Man (1936), which reunited him with director Henry Hathaway
Henry Hathaway
Henry Hathaway was an American film director and producer. He is best known as a director of Westerns, especially starring John Wayne.-Background:...
and is Mae West
Mae West
Mae West was an American actress, playwright, screenwriter and sex symbol whose entertainment career spanned seven decades....
's adaptation of Lawrence Riley
Lawrence Riley
Lawrence Riley was a successful American playwright and screenwriter. He gained fame in 1934 as the author of the Broadway hit Personal Appearance, which was turned by Mae West into the classic film Go West, Young Man , starring herself.-Biography:Riley was a Princeton University alumnus and a...
's Broadway hit comedy Personal Appearance; So Red the Rose
So Red the Rose (1935 film)
So Red the Rose is a 1935 motion picture drama directed by King Vidor. The Civil War-era romance is based on the 1934 novel of the same name by Stark Young.-Primary cast:*Margaret Sullavan - Valette Bedford, a plantation mistress...
(1936), directed by King Vidor
King Vidor
King Wallis Vidor was an American film director, film producer, and screenwriter whose career spanned nearly seven decades...
and starring Margaret Sullavan
Margaret Sullavan
Margaret Brooke Sullavan was an American stage and film actress. Sullavan started her career on the stage in 1929. In 1933 she caught the attention of movie director John M. Stahl and had her debut on the screen that same year in Only Yesterday...
; and High, Wide, and Handsome
High, Wide, and Handsome
High, Wide, and Handsome is a 1937 American musical film starring Irene Dunne, Randolph Scott, Alan Hale, Sr., Charles Bickford, and Dorothy Lamour....
. This last film, a musical directed by Rouben Mamoulian
Rouben Mamoulian
Rouben Mamoulian was an Armenian-American film and theatre director.-Biography:Born in Tbilisi, Georgia to an Armenian family, Rouben relocated to England and started directing plays in London in 1922...
, featured Scott in his "most ambitious performance," The film is …
… set in 1859 in PennsylvaniaPennsylvaniaThe Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
, and follows the exploits of oil prospector Scott as he struggles against various varmints and vested interests out to wreck his business, and tries to keep his marriage to Irene DunneIrene DunneIrene Dunne was an American film actress and singer of the 1930s, 1940s and early 1950s. Dunne was nominated five times for the Academy Award for Best Actress, for her performances in Cimarron , Theodora Goes Wild , The Awful Truth , Love Affair and I Remember Mama...
intact, despite the tempting presence of saloon singer Dorothy LamourDorothy LamourDorothy Lamour was an American film actress. She is best remembered for appearing in the Road to... movies, a series of successful comedies starring Bing Crosby and Bob Hope .-Early life:Lamour was born Mary Leta Dorothy Slaton in New Orleans, Louisiana, the daughter of Carmen Louise Dorothy...
.
Heroes, heavies and "other" men
In 1938 Scott finished his contract with ParamountParamount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
and began freelancing. Some of the roles that he took over the next few years were supporting ones, while his other roles during the same time frame had him occasionally lapse into villainy. One missed opportunity also came about around this time. Due to his Southern background, Scott was considered for the role of Ashley Wilkes
Ashley Wilkes
George Ashley Wilkes is a fictional character in the Margaret Mitchell's 1936 novel Gone with the Wind and the later film of the same name. The character also appears in the 1991 book Scarlett, a sequel to Gone with the Wind written by Alexandra Ripley, and in Rhett Butler's People by Donald...
in Gone with the Wind
Gone with the Wind (film)
Gone with the Wind is a 1939 American historical epic film adapted from Margaret Mitchell's Pulitzer-winning 1936 novel of the same name. It was produced by David O. Selznick and directed by Victor Fleming from a screenplay by Sidney Howard...
, but it was Leslie Howard
Leslie Howard (actor)
Leslie Howard was an English stage and film actor, director, and producer. Among his best-known roles was Ashley Wilkes in Gone with the Wind and roles in Berkeley Square , Of Human Bondage , The Scarlet Pimpernel , The Petrified Forest , Pygmalion , Intermezzo , Pimpernel Smith...
who eventually got the part.
For 20th Century Fox
20th Century Fox
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios...
Scott supported child star Shirley Temple
Shirley Temple
Shirley Temple Black , born Shirley Jane Temple, is an American film and television actress, singer, dancer, autobiographer, and former U.S. Ambassador to Ghana and Czechoslovakia...
in Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1938) and Susanna of the Mounties (1939). For the same studio he played a supporting role in his first Technicolor
Technicolor
Technicolor is a color motion picture process invented in 1916 and improved over several decades.It was the second major process, after Britain's Kinemacolor, and the most widely used color process in Hollywood from 1922 to 1952...
film, Jesse James (1939), a lavish highly romanticized account of the famous outlaw (Tyrone Power
Tyrone Power
Tyrone Edmund Power, Jr. , usually credited as Tyrone Power and known sometimes as Ty Power, was an American film and stage actor who appeared in dozens of films from the 1930s to the 1950s, often in swashbuckler roles or romantic leads such as in The Mark of Zorro, Blood and Sand, The Black Swan,...
) and his brother Frank
Frank James
Alexander Franklin "Frank" James was a famous American outlaw. He was the older brother of outlaw Jesse James.-Childhood:...
(Henry Fonda
Henry Fonda
Henry Jaynes Fonda was an American film and stage actor.Fonda made his mark early as a Broadway actor. He also appeared in 1938 in plays performed in White Plains, New York, with Joan Tompkins...
). Shortly after making this film, Scott portrayed Wyatt Earp
Wyatt Earp
Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp was an American gambler, investor, and law enforcement officer who served in several Western frontier towns. He was also at different times a farmer, teamster, bouncer, saloon-keeper, miner and boxing referee. However, he was never a drover or cowboy. He is most well known...
in Frontier Marshal (1939) and, for Universal
Universal Studios
Universal Pictures , a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, is one of the six major movie studios....
, starred with Kay Francis
Kay Francis
Kay Francis was an American stage and film actress. After a brief period on Broadway in the late 1920s, she moved to film and achieved her greatest success between 1930 and 1936, when she was the number one female star at the Warner Brothers studio, and the highest paid American film actress...
in When the Daltons Rode (1940).
Scott followed this by co-starring with Errol Flynn
Errol Flynn
Errol Leslie Flynn was an Australian-born actor. He was known for his romantic swashbuckler roles in Hollywood films, being a legend and his flamboyant lifestyle.-Early life:...
in Virginia City (1940) and played the "other man" role in the Irene Dunne
Irene Dunne
Irene Dunne was an American film actress and singer of the 1930s, 1940s and early 1950s. Dunne was nominated five times for the Academy Award for Best Actress, for her performances in Cimarron , Theodora Goes Wild , The Awful Truth , Love Affair and I Remember Mama...
–Cary Grant
Cary Grant
Archibald Alexander Leach , better known by his stage name Cary Grant, was an English actor who later took U.S. citizenship...
romantic comedy My Favorite Wife
My Favorite Wife
My Favorite Wife is a 1940 screwball comedy produced and co-written by Leo McCarey and directed by Garson Kanin. The movie stars Irene Dunne as a woman who returns to her husband and children after being shipwrecked on a tropical island for several years, and Cary Grant as her husband...
(1940).
In 1941 Scott returned to Zane Grey
Zane Grey
Zane Grey was an American author best known for his popular adventure novels and stories that presented an idealized image of the Old West. Riders of the Purple Sage was his bestselling book. In addition to the success of his printed works, they later had second lives and continuing influence...
country by co-starring with Robert Young
Robert Young (actor)
Robert George Young was an American television, film, and radio actor, best known for his leading roles as Jim Anderson, the father of Father Knows Best and as physician Marcus Welby in Marcus Welby, M.D. .-Early life:Born in Chicago, Illinois, Young was the son of an Irish immigrant father...
in the Technicolor
Technicolor
Technicolor is a color motion picture process invented in 1916 and improved over several decades.It was the second major process, after Britain's Kinemacolor, and the most widely used color process in Hollywood from 1922 to 1952...
production Western Union, directed by Fritz Lang
Fritz Lang
Friedrich Christian Anton "Fritz" Lang was an Austrian-American filmmaker, screenwriter, and occasional film producer and actor. One of the best known émigrés from Germany's school of Expressionism, he was dubbed the "Master of Darkness" by the British Film Institute...
. Scott played a "good bad man" in this film and gave one of his finest performances. Bosley Crowther
Bosley Crowther
Bosley Crowther was a journalist and author who was film critic for The New York Times for 27 years. His reviews and articles helped shape the careers of actors, directors and screenwriters, though his reviews, at times, were unnecessarily mean...
of the New York Times wrote:
Randolph Scott, who is getting to look and act more and more like William S. HartWilliam S. HartWilliam Surrey Hart was an American silent film actor, screenwriter, director and producer. He is remembered for having "imbued all of his characters with honor and integrity."-Biography:...
, herein shapes one of the truest and most appreciable characters of his career as the party's scout.
Also in 1941 Scott co-starred with a young Gene Tierney
Gene Tierney
Gene Eliza Tierney was an American film and stage actress. Acclaimed as one of the great beauties of her day, she is best remembered for her performance in the title role of Laura and her Academy Award-nominated performance for Best Actress in Leave Her to Heaven .Other notable roles include...
, in another western, Belle Starr
Belle Starr (film)
Belle Starr is a 1941 20th Century Fox production directed by Irving Cummings loosely based on the life of a real American outlaw Belle Starr. Starring Gene Tierney, Randolph Scott and Dana Andrews-Plot summary:...
. Scott's only role as a truly evil villain was in Universal
Universal Studios
Universal Pictures , a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, is one of the six major movie studios....
's The Spoilers
The Spoilers (1942 film)
The Spoilers is a 1942 film directed by Ray Enright. The movie is set in Nome, Alaska during the Nome Gold Rush, with Marlene Dietrich as Cherry Malotte, Randolph Scott as Alexander McNamara, and John Wayne as Roy Glennister, and culminates in a spectacular saloon fistfight between McNamara and...
, a rip-roaring adaptation of Rex Beach
Rex Beach
Rex Ellingwood Beach was an American novelist, playwright, and Olympic water polo player.- Biography :...
's 1905 tale of the Alaskan gold rush
Klondike Gold Rush
The Klondike Gold Rush, also called the Yukon Gold Rush, the Alaska Gold Rush and the Last Great Gold Rush, was an attempt by an estimated 100,000 people to travel to the Klondike region the Yukon in north-western Canada between 1897 and 1899 in the hope of successfully prospecting for gold...
co-starring Marlene Dietrich
Marlene Dietrich
Marlene Dietrich was a German-American actress and singer.Dietrich remained popular throughout her long career by continually re-inventing herself, professionally and characteristically. In the Berlin of the 1920s, she acted on the stage and in silent films...
and John Wayne
John Wayne
Marion Mitchell Morrison , better known by his stage name John Wayne, was an American film actor, director and producer. He epitomized rugged masculinity and became an enduring American icon. He is famous for his distinctive calm voice, walk, and height...
. The movie's climax featured Scott and Wayne
John Wayne
Marion Mitchell Morrison , better known by his stage name John Wayne, was an American film actor, director and producer. He epitomized rugged masculinity and became an enduring American icon. He is famous for his distinctive calm voice, walk, and height...
(and their stunt doubles) in one of the most spectacular fistfights ever filmed. The Dietrich
Marlene Dietrich
Marlene Dietrich was a German-American actress and singer.Dietrich remained popular throughout her long career by continually re-inventing herself, professionally and characteristically. In the Berlin of the 1920s, she acted on the stage and in silent films...
-Scott-Wayne
John Wayne
Marion Mitchell Morrison , better known by his stage name John Wayne, was an American film actor, director and producer. He epitomized rugged masculinity and became an enduring American icon. He is famous for his distinctive calm voice, walk, and height...
combination worked so well that Universal
Universal Studios
Universal Pictures , a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, is one of the six major movie studios....
recast the trio the following year in Pittsburgh, a war-time action-melodrama which had Wayne
John Wayne
Marion Mitchell Morrison , better known by his stage name John Wayne, was an American film actor, director and producer. He epitomized rugged masculinity and became an enduring American icon. He is famous for his distinctive calm voice, walk, and height...
and Scott slugging it out once more.
In 1943 Scott starred in The Desperados, Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...
' first feature in Technicolor
Technicolor
Technicolor is a color motion picture process invented in 1916 and improved over several decades.It was the second major process, after Britain's Kinemacolor, and the most widely used color process in Hollywood from 1922 to 1952...
. The film was produced by Harry Joe Brown
Harry Joe Brown
Harry Joe Brown was a movie producer and supervisor who was also a theatre and film director...
, with whom Scott would form a business partnership several years later.
The real war
Shortly after the United States entered World War II Scott attempted to obtain an officer's commission in the Marines but, due to his back injury from years earlier he was turned down. However, he did his part for the war effort by touring in a comedy act with Joe DeRita (who later became a member of The Three Stooges) for the Victory Committee showcases, and he also raised food for the government on a ranch that he owned.In 1942 and 1943 Scott appeared in several war movies, notably To the Shores of Tripoli
To the Shores of Tripoli
To the Shores of Tripoli is a Technicolor 1942 film starring John Payne, Maureen O'Hara, Randolph Scott, Nancy Kelly and Minor Watson. The film was directed by H...
, Bombardier
Bombardier (film)
Bombardier is a 1943 film war drama about the training program for bombardiers of the United States Army Air Forces. The film stars Pat O'Brien and Randolph Scott. Bombardier was nominated for an Academy Award in 1944 for the special effects used in the film...
, the Canadian warship drama Corvette K-225
Corvette K-225
Corvette K -225 is a 1943 film starring Randolph Scott and Ella Raines. It was released in the UK as The Nelson Touch. Tony Gaudio was nominated for the 1943 Academy Award for Best Cinematography for his work on the film....
, Gung Ho!
Gung Ho! (1943 film)
Gung Ho! is a 1943 war film starring Randolph Scott. The story is based on the real-life World War II Makin Island raid led by Lieutenant Colonel Evans Carlson's 2nd Marine Raider Battalion.-Plot:The film begins with a tough Greek Lieutenant Gung Ho! (full title: Gung Ho!: The Story of Carlson's...
, and China Sky
China Sky
China Sky is a novel by Pearl S. Buck published in 1941. The story centers around love, honor, and wartime treachery in an American-run hospital in the fictional town of Chen-li, China, during the Japanese invasion....
.
Tall in the saddle
In 1946, after playing roles that had him wandering in and out of the saddle for many years, including a role alongside Charles Laughton in the cheaply made production Captain Kidd (1945), Scott appeared in Abilene Town, a UAUnited Artists
United Artists Corporation is an American film studio. The original studio of that name was founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charles Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks....
release which cast him in what would become one of his classic images, the fearless lawman cleaning up a lawless town. The film "cemented Scott's position as a cowboy hero" and from this point on all but two of his starring films would be Westerns. The Scott Westerns of the late 1940s would each be budgeted around US$1 million.
Scott renewed his acquaintance with producer Harry Joe Brown
Harry Joe Brown
Harry Joe Brown was a movie producer and supervisor who was also a theatre and film director...
and together they began producing many of Scott's Westerns, including several that were shot in the two-color Cinecolor
Cinecolor
Cinecolor was an early subtractive color-model two color film process, based upon the Prizma system of the 1910s and 1920s and the Multicolor system of the late 1920s and 1930s. It was developed by William T. Crispinel and Alan M...
process. Their collaboration produced the superior Coroner Creek (1948) with Scott as a vengeance-driven cowpoke who "predates the Budd Boetticher
Budd Boetticher
Oscar "Budd" Boetticher, Jr. was a film director during the classical period in Hollywood most famous for the series of low-budget Westerns he made in the late 1950s starring Randolph Scott.Known for their sparse style, dramatic rocky locations near Lone Pine, California, and recurring stories of...
/Burt Kennedy
Burt Kennedy
Burt Kennedy was an American screenwriter and director known for mainly directing film Westerns.After World War II service in the 1st Cavalry Division, Muskegon, Michigan-born Kennedy found work writing for radio, then used his training as a cavalry officer to secure a job as a fencing trainer and...
heroes by nearly a decade," Gunfighters
Gunfighters (film)
Gunfighters is a 1947 American film directed by George Waggner.The film is also known as The Assassin in the United Kingdom.- Cast :*Randolph Scott as Brazos Kane*Barbara Britton as Bess Banner*Bruce Cabot as Bard Macky...
(1947) based on the Zane Grey
Zane Grey
Zane Grey was an American author best known for his popular adventure novels and stories that presented an idealized image of the Old West. Riders of the Purple Sage was his bestselling book. In addition to the success of his printed works, they later had second lives and continuing influence...
novel Two Sombreros and The Walking Hills (1949), a modern-day tale of gold
Gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...
hunters.
Scott also made Westerns for Nat Holt. Some of these movies, Badman's Territory, Return of the Badmen, Trail Street, and Rage At Dawn
Rage at Dawn
Rage at Dawn is a 1955 American Western film by RKO Pictures starring Randolph Scott and Forrest Tucker, and featuring Denver Pyle, Edgar Buchanan, and J. Carrol Naish...
were released by RKO
RKO Pictures
RKO Pictures is an American film production and distribution company. As RKO Radio Pictures Inc., it was one of the Big Five studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Keith-Albee-Orpheum theater chains and Joseph P...
, while others, like Fighting Man of the Plains
Fighting Man of the Plains
Fighting Man of the Plains is a 1949 film directed by Edwin L. Marin. It stars Randolph Scott and Bill Williams.-Cast:*Randolph Scott as Jim Dancer*Bill Williams as Marshal Johnny Tancred*Victor Jory as Dave Oldham*Jane Nigh as Florence Peel...
, Canadian Pacific
Canadian Pacific (film)
Canadian Pacific is a 1949 historical Western, directed by Edwin L. Martin and starring Randolph Scott and Jane Wyatt. Filmed in Cinecolor on location in the Canadian Rockies, it spins a fanciful account of the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway....
, and The Cariboo Trail
The Cariboo Trail
The Cariboo Trail is a 1950 film directed by Edwin L. Marin. It stars Randolph Scott and George 'Gabby' Hayes.-Cast:*Randolph Scott as Jim Redfern*George 'Gabby' Hayes as Oscar Winters*Bill Williams as Mike Evans, Redfern's Partner...
were released by Twentieth Century Fox.
In the late 1940s and early 1950s Scott's films were made mainly for Columbia
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...
or Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
His salary for the latter studio was US$100,000 per picture.
Scott's pictures from this period include the 1950 Colt .45, the 1951 films Fort Worth, Man in the Saddle and Carson City, and the 1952 films Hangman's Knot
Hangman's Knot
Hangman's Knot is a 1952 western movie written and directed by Roy Huggins and starring Randolph Scott and Donna Reed.-Plot:Matt Stewart leads an ambush and robbery of a military gold train. It is 1865 in Nevada and Major Stewart's band is a unit of Rebels...
with Claude Jarman, Jr. and Lee Marvin
Lee Marvin
Lee Marvin was an American film actor. Known for his gravelly voice, white hair and 6' 2" stature, Marvin at first did supporting roles, mostly villains, soldiers and other hardboiled characters, but after winning an Academy Award for Best Actor for his dual roles in Cat Ballou , he landed more...
(which Scott produced), Man Behind the Gun, The Stranger Wore a Gun (filmed in 3-D
3-D film
A 3-D film or S3D film is a motion picture that enhances the illusion of depth perception...
), and Thunder Over the Plains. Also in 1953, Scott appeared in Riding Shotgun, an unusual Western
Western (genre)
The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...
that presents (probably unintentionally) some McCarthyistic
McCarthyism
McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence. The term has its origins in the period in the United States known as the Second Red Scare, lasting roughly from the late 1940s to the late 1950s and characterized by...
overtones. Most of these films were directed by Andre De Toth
André De Toth
André de Toth was a Hungarian-American filmmaker, born and raised in Makó, Csongrád, Kingdom of Hungary Austro-Hungarian Empire. He directed the 3-D film House of Wax, despite being unable to see in 3-D himself, having lost an eye at an early age. He is known for his gritty B movies in the western...
.
He also did Rage at Dawn in 1955 for Nat Holt, which was released by RKO
RKO Pictures
RKO Pictures is an American film production and distribution company. As RKO Radio Pictures Inc., it was one of the Big Five studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Keith-Albee-Orpheum theater chains and Joseph P...
starring Scott and Forrest Tucker
Forrest Tucker
Forrest Tucker was an American actor in both movies and television from the 1940s to the 1980s. Tucker, who stood 190 cm tall and weighed 93 kg , appeared in nearly 100 action films in the 1940s and 1950s.-Early life:Forrest Meredith Tucker was born in Plainfield, Indiana, a son of...
, and featuring Denver Pyle
Denver Pyle
Denver Dell Pyle was an American film and television actor. He is best remembered for playing Uncle Jesse in The Dukes of Hazzard .-Early life:...
, Edgar Buchanan
Edgar Buchanan
Edgar Buchanan was an American actor with a long career in both film and television, most familiar today as Uncle Joe Carson from the Petticoat Junction, Green Acres and The Beverly Hillbillies television sitcoms of the 1960s...
, and J. Carrol Naish
J. Carrol Naish
Joseph Patrick Carrol Naish was an American character actor born in New York City. Naish was twice nominated for an Academy Award for film roles, and he later found fame in the title role of CBS Radio's Life With Luigi , which was also on CBS Television .Naish appeared on stage for several years...
. It purports to tell the true story of the Reno Brothers
Reno Gang
The Reno Brothers Gang, also known as the Reno Gang and The Jackson Thieves, were a group of criminals that operated in the Midwestern United States during and just after the American Civil War. Though short-lived, they carried out the first three peacetime train robberies in U.S. history...
, an outlaw gang which terrorized the American Midwest, particularly Southern Indiana
Indiana
Indiana is a US state, admitted to the United States as the 19th on December 11, 1816. It is located in the Midwestern United States and Great Lakes Region. With 6,483,802 residents, the state is ranked 15th in population and 16th in population density. Indiana is ranked 38th in land area and is...
, soon after the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
.
Also of interest is Shootout at Medicine Bend shot in 1955, but released in 1957, which was Scott's last movie in black and white. The movie co-stars James Garner
James Garner
James Garner is an American film and television actor, one of the first Hollywood actors to excel in both media. He has starred in several television series spanning a career of more than five decades...
and Angie Dickinson
Angie Dickinson
Angie Dickinson is an American actress. She has appeared in more than fifty films, including Rio Bravo, Ocean's Eleven, Dressed to Kill and Pay It Forward, and starred on television as Sergeant Suzanne "Pepper" Anderson on the 1970s crime series Police Woman.-Early life:Dickinson, the second of...
By 1956 Scott was 58 years old, an age where the careers of most leading men would be winding down. Scott, however, was about to enter his finest and most acclaimed period.
The Boetticher and Kennedy films
In 1955 screenwriter Burt KennedyBurt Kennedy
Burt Kennedy was an American screenwriter and director known for mainly directing film Westerns.After World War II service in the 1st Cavalry Division, Muskegon, Michigan-born Kennedy found work writing for radio, then used his training as a cavalry officer to secure a job as a fencing trainer and...
wrote a script entitled Seven Men from Now
Seven Men from Now
Seven Men from Now is a 1956 Western film directed by Budd Boetticher and produced by John Wayne's Batjac Productions.-Plot summary:Ben Stride walks into an encampment in the desert at night during a rainstorm. He encounters two men taking shelter next to a fire and asks to join them...
which was scheduled to be filmed by John Wayne
John Wayne
Marion Mitchell Morrison , better known by his stage name John Wayne, was an American film actor, director and producer. He epitomized rugged masculinity and became an enduring American icon. He is famous for his distinctive calm voice, walk, and height...
's Batjac Productions
Batjac Productions
Batjac Productions is an independent film production company founded by John Wayne in the early 1950s as a vehicle for Wayne to produce as well as star in movies. Its first release was Big Jim McLain with Warner Brothers in 1952, and its final film was also with Warner Brothers, McQ, in 1974...
with Wayne as the film's star and Budd Boetticher
Budd Boetticher
Oscar "Budd" Boetticher, Jr. was a film director during the classical period in Hollywood most famous for the series of low-budget Westerns he made in the late 1950s starring Randolph Scott.Known for their sparse style, dramatic rocky locations near Lone Pine, California, and recurring stories of...
as its director. However, Wayne was already committed to John Ford
John Ford
John Ford was an American film director. He was famous for both his westerns such as Stagecoach, The Searchers, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, and adaptations of such classic 20th-century American novels as The Grapes of Wrath...
's The Searchers
The Searchers (film)
The Searchers is a 1956 American Western film directed by John Ford, based on the 1954 novel by Alan Le May, and set during the Texas–Indian Wars...
. Wayne therefore suggested Scott as his replacement. The resulting film, released in 1956, did not make a great impact at the time but is now regarded by many as one of Scott's best, as well as the one that launched Scott and Boetticher into a successful collaboration that totaled seven films. Kennedy scripted four of them. In these films …
Boetticher achieved works of great beauty, formally precise in structure and visually elegant, notably for their use of the distinctive landscape of the California Sierras. As the hero of these "floating poker games" (as Andrew SarrisAndrew SarrisAndrew Sarris is an American film critic and a leading proponent of the auteur theory of criticism.-Career:Sarris is generally credited with popularizing the auteur theory in the U.S...
calls them), Scott tempers their innately pessimistic view with quiet, stoical humour, as he pits his wits against such charming villains as Richard BooneRichard BooneRichard Allen Boone was an American actor who starred in over 50 films and was notable for his roles in Westerns and for starring in the TV series Have Gun – Will Travel.-Early life:...
in The Tall TThe Tall TThe Tall T is a 1957 western film directed by Budd Boetticher. It stars Randolph Scott, Richard Boone, Maureen O'Sullivan and Henry Silva. The film was adapted by Burt Kennedy from an Elmore Leonard short story, "The Captives."...
and Claude AkinsClaude AkinsClaude Marion Akins was an American actor with a long career on stage, screen and television.Powerful in appearance and voice, Akins could be counted on to play the clever tough guy, on the side of good or bad, in movies and television. He is best remembered as Sheriff Lobo in the 1970s TV series...
in Comanche StationComanche StationComanche Station is a 1960 American CinemaScope western film. This was the last of Budd Boetticher's late 1950s Ranown Cycle western films starring Randolph Scott.-Plot:...
.
Scott and Boetticher films:
- Seven Men from NowSeven Men from NowSeven Men from Now is a 1956 Western film directed by Budd Boetticher and produced by John Wayne's Batjac Productions.-Plot summary:Ben Stride walks into an encampment in the desert at night during a rainstorm. He encounters two men taking shelter next to a fire and asks to join them...
(1956) - The Tall TThe Tall TThe Tall T is a 1957 western film directed by Budd Boetticher. It stars Randolph Scott, Richard Boone, Maureen O'Sullivan and Henry Silva. The film was adapted by Burt Kennedy from an Elmore Leonard short story, "The Captives."...
(1956) - Decision at SundownDecision at SundownDecision at Sundown is a 1957 western directed by Budd Boetticher and starring Randolph Scott.One of seven Boetticher/Scott western collaborations that also includes Seven Men from Now, The Tall T, Buchanan Rides Alone, Westbound, Ride Lonesome and Comanche Station.-Plot synopsis:Bart Allison ...
(1957) - Buchanan Rides AloneBuchanan Rides AloneBuchanan Rides Again is a 1958 western film directed by Budd Boetticher and starring Randolph Scott. It is based on the 1956 William Ard novel The Name's Buchanan.-Plot:...
(1958) - WestboundWestbound (film)Westbound was the sixth to be released of seven western films starring Randolph Scott and directed by Budd Boetticher. The cast also included Virginia Mayo, Karen Steele, Andrew Duggan and Michael Pate....
(1958) - Ride LonesomeRide LonesomeRide Lonesome is a a 1959 Eastmancolor film; one of Budd Boetticher's "Ranown" westerns starring Randolph Scott and part of a series of films that began with Seven Men from Now...
(1959) - Comanche StationComanche StationComanche Station is a 1960 American CinemaScope western film. This was the last of Budd Boetticher's late 1950s Ranown Cycle western films starring Randolph Scott.-Plot:...
(1960)
Ride the High Country (1962)
In 1962 Scott made his final film appearance in Ride the High CountryRide the High Country
Ride the High Country is a noted 1962 American Western film. It stars Joel McCrea, Randolph Scott, Ron Starr, Edgar Buchanan and Mariette Hartley. It was written by N.B...
, a film now regarded as a classic. It was directed by Sam Peckinpah
Sam Peckinpah
David Samuel "Sam" Peckinpah was an American filmmaker and screenwriter who achieved prominence following the release of the Western epic The Wild Bunch...
and co-starred Joel McCrea
Joel McCrea
Joel Albert McCrea was an American actor whose career spanned 50 years and appearances in over 90 films.-Early life:...
, an actor who had a screen image similar to Scott's and who also from the mid-1940s on devoted his career almost exclusively to Westerns.
Scott and McCrea'sJoel McCreaJoel Albert McCrea was an American actor whose career spanned 50 years and appearances in over 90 films.-Early life:...
farewell Western is characterized by a nostalgic sense of the passing of the Old West; a preoccupation with the emotionality of male bonding and of the experiential 'gap' between the young and the old; and the fearful evocation, in the form of the Hammonds (the villains in the film), of these preoccupations transmuted into brutal and perverse forms.
Final years
Following Ride the High Country, Scott retired from film at the age of 64. Having made shrewd investments throughout his life, he eventually accumulated a fortune worth a reputed US$100 million.During his retirement years he remained friends with Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire was an American film and Broadway stage dancer, choreographer, singer and actor. His stage and subsequent film career spanned a total of 76 years, during which he made 31 musical films. He was named the fifth Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute...
and also became friends with the Reverend Billy Graham
Billy Graham
William Franklin "Billy" Graham, Jr. is an American evangelical Christian evangelist. As of April 25, 2010, when he met with Barack Obama, Graham has spent personal time with twelve United States Presidents dating back to Harry S. Truman, and is number seven on Gallup's list of admired people for...
. Scott was described by his son Christopher as being a deeply religious man. He was an Episcopalian and a member of St. Peter's Episcopal Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, where he was buried. He was also a York Rite
York Rite
The York Rite or American Rite is one of several Rites of the worldwide fraternity known as Freemasonry. A Rite is a series of progressive degrees that are conferred by various Masonic organizations or bodies, each of which operates under the control of its own central authority...
Freemason.
Scott died of heart and lung ailments in 1987 at the age of 89 in Beverly Hills, California
Beverly Hills, California
Beverly Hills is an affluent city located in Los Angeles County, California, United States. With a population of 34,109 at the 2010 census, up from 33,784 as of the 2000 census, it is home to numerous Hollywood celebrities. Beverly Hills and the neighboring city of West Hollywood are together...
. He was interred at Elmwood Cemetery in Charlotte, North Carolina
Charlotte, North Carolina
Charlotte is the largest city in the U.S. state of North Carolina and the seat of Mecklenburg County. In 2010, Charlotte's population according to the US Census Bureau was 731,424, making it the 17th largest city in the United States based on population. The Charlotte metropolitan area had a 2009...
.
Marriages
Scott married twice. In 1936 he became the second husband of heiress Marion duPont, daughter of William Du Pont, Sr. and great-granddaughter of Éleuthère Irénée Du Pont de Nemours, the founder of the E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company. Marion had previously married George Somerville, with Randolph Scott serving as Best Man at the wedding. Reputedly the couple spent little time together and the marriage ended in divorce three years later. Prior to and between his first and second marriages Scott was romantically linked with several prominent film actresses, including Lupe VélezLupe Vélez
Lupe Vélez was a Mexican film actress. Vélez began her career in Mexico as a dancer, before moving to the U.S. where she worked in vaudeville. She was seen by Fanny Brice who promoted her, and Vélez soon entered films, making her first appearance in 1924. By the end of the decade she had...
, Sally Blane
Sally Blane
Sally Blane was an American actress. Blane was the sister of actresses Polly Ann and Loretta Young, and half-sister to actress Georgiana Young, the wife of actor Ricardo Montalban...
, Claire Trevor
Claire Trevor
Claire Trevor was an Academy Award-winning American actress. She was nicknamed the "Queen of Film Noir" because of her many appearances in "bad girl” roles in film noir and other black-and-white thrillers...
, and Dorothy Lamour
Dorothy Lamour
Dorothy Lamour was an American film actress. She is best remembered for appearing in the Road to... movies, a series of successful comedies starring Bing Crosby and Bob Hope .-Early life:Lamour was born Mary Leta Dorothy Slaton in New Orleans, Louisiana, the daughter of Carmen Louise Dorothy...
. In 1944 Scott married Patricia Stillman, with whom he adopted two children. The marriage lasted until Scott's 1987 death.
Sexual orientation
Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire was an American film and Broadway stage dancer, choreographer, singer and actor. His stage and subsequent film career spanned a total of 76 years, during which he made 31 musical films. He was named the fifth Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute...
and Cary Grant
Cary Grant
Archibald Alexander Leach , better known by his stage name Cary Grant, was an English actor who later took U.S. citizenship...
. He met Grant on the set of Hot Saturday
Hot Saturday
Hot Saturday is Cary Grant's first movie as leading man. The movie was directed by William A. Seiter and based on a novel written by Harvey Fergusson...
and shortly afterwards they began rooming together in a beach house in Malibu that became known as "Bachelor Hall." According to biographer Robert Nott, "They lived together on and off for about ten years, because they were friends and wanted to save on living expenses (they were both considered to be notorious tightwads)."
In his book, Cary Grant: Grant's Secret Sixth Marriage (2004), Marc Eliot claims Grant had a sexual relationship with Scott after they met on the set of Hot Saturday. In Hollywood Gays (1996), Boze Hadleigh
Boze Hadleigh
Boze Hadleigh aka George Hadley-Garcia is an American journalist writer of celebrity gossip and entertainment.-Biography:...
, author of numerous books purporting to "out" the sexual orientation of celebrities, makes various claims for Scott's homosexuality. He cites homosexual director George Cukor
George Cukor
George Dewey Cukor was an American film director. He mainly concentrated on comedies and literary adaptations. His career flourished at RKO and later MGM, where he directed What Price Hollywood? , A Bill of Divorcement , Dinner at Eight , Little Women , David Copperfield , Romeo and Juliet and...
who said about the homosexual relationship between the two: "Oh, Cary won't talk about it. At most, he'll say they did some wonderful pictures together. But Randolph will admit it – to a friend." There is considerable disagreement over the veracity of Hadleigh's claims about alleged homosexuals in Hollywood. According to William J. Mann
William J. Mann
William J. Mann is an American novelist, biographer, and Hollywood historian best known for his 2006 biography of Katharine Hepburn, Kate: The Woman Who Was Hepburn...
's book, Behind the Screen: How Gays and Lesbians Shaped Hollywood, 1910–1969, photographer Jerome Zerbe
Jerome Zerbe
Jerome Zerbe was one of the originators of a genre of photography that is now utterly common: celebrity paparazzi. Zerbe was a pioneer in the 1930s of shooting photographs of the famous at play and on-the-town...
spent "three gay months" in the movie colony taking many photographs of Grant and Scott, "attesting to their involvement in the gay scene." In 1995, Richard Blackwell
Richard Blackwell
Richard Blackwell was an American fashion critic, journalist, television and radio personality, artist, former child actor and former fashion designer, sometimes known just as Mr. Blackwell. He was the creator of the "Ten Worst Dressed Women List", an annual awards presentation he unveiled in...
published his autobiography From Rags to Bitches, where he declared he was a lover of both Grant and Scott.
In 1944 Scott and Grant stopped living together but remained close friends throughout their lives. Grant's insistence that he had "nothing against gays, I'm just not one myself", is treated at length in Peter Bogdanovich
Peter Bogdanovich
Peter Bogdanovich is an American film historian, director, writer, actor, producer, and critic. He was part of the wave of "New Hollywood" directors, which included William Friedkin, Brian De Palma, George Lucas, Martin Scorsese, Michael Cimino, and Francis Ford Coppola...
's book of essays about actors, Who the Hell's in It. Scott's adopted son, Christopher, also challenged the rumors. Following Scott's death, Christopher wrote a book entitled, Whatever Happened to Randolph Scott?, in which he rebuts rumors of his father's alleged homosexuality. Budd Boetticher
Budd Boetticher
Oscar "Budd" Boetticher, Jr. was a film director during the classical period in Hollywood most famous for the series of low-budget Westerns he made in the late 1950s starring Randolph Scott.Known for their sparse style, dramatic rocky locations near Lone Pine, California, and recurring stories of...
, the director most often linked with Scott's work, had this to say about the rumors: "Bullshit."
Cultural references
Scott is the putative subject of the 1974 Statler BrothersStatler Brothers
The Statler Brothers were an American country music vocal group founded in 1955 in Staunton, Virginia.Originally performing gospel music at local churches, the group billed themselves as The Four Star Quartet, and later The Kingsmen...
song "Whatever Happened to Randolph Scott?", lamenting the passing of Western films.
He is mentioned in the film Blazing Saddles
Blazing Saddles
Blazing Saddles is a 1974 satirical Western comedy film directed by Mel Brooks. Starring Cleavon Little and Gene Wilder, the film was written by Brooks, Andrew Bergman, Richard Pryor, Norman Steinberg, and Al Uger, and was based on Bergman's story and draft. The movie was nominated for three...
when Sheriff Bart tries to convince the reluctant citizens of Rock Ridge to support his plan to save the town. He says that they "would do it for Randolph Scott" and they rise, putting their hands to their hearts and saying reverently "Randolph Scott", echoed by an off-screen chorus.
Randolph Scott and To the Shores of Tripoli
To the Shores of Tripoli
To the Shores of Tripoli is a Technicolor 1942 film starring John Payne, Maureen O'Hara, Randolph Scott, Nancy Kelly and Minor Watson. The film was directed by H...
are referred to in Tom Lehrer
Tom Lehrer
Thomas Andrew "Tom" Lehrer is an American singer-songwriter, satirist, pianist, mathematician and polymath. He has lectured on mathematics and musical theater...
's song "Send the Marines."
Awards
In 1975 Scott was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage MuseumNational Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum
The National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum is a museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, with more than 28,000 Western and American Indian art works and artifacts. The facility also has the world's most extensive collection of American rodeo, photographs, barbed wire, saddlery, and early rodeo trophies...
in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Oklahoma City is the capital and the largest city in the state of Oklahoma. The county seat of Oklahoma County, the city ranks 31st among United States cities in population. The city's population, from the 2010 census, was 579,999, with a metro-area population of 1,252,987 . In 2010, the Oklahoma...
, United States. He also received an In Memoriam Golden Boot Award
Golden Boot Awards
The Golden Boot Awards honor actors, actresses, and crew members who have made significant contributions to the genre of Western television and movies. The award is sponsored and presented by the Motion Picture & Television Fund...
for his work in Westerns.
For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Randolph Scott has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
Hollywood Walk of Fame
The Hollywood Walk of Fame consists of more than 2,400 five-pointed terrazzo and brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along fifteen blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in Hollywood, California...
at 6243 Hollywood Blvd.
Further reading
- Crow, Jefferson Brim, III. Randolph Scott: The Gentleman From Virginia. Wind River Publishing, 1987. ISBN 0-940375-00-1
- Everson, William K. The Hollywood Western. New York. Citadel Press, 1969/1992.
- Nott, Robert. The Films of Randolph Scott. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2004. ISBN 0-7864-1797-8
- Nott, Robert. Last of the Cowboy Heroes – The Westerns of Randolph Scott, Joel McCreaJoel McCreaJoel Albert McCrea was an American actor whose career spanned 50 years and appearances in over 90 films.-Early life:...
, and Audie MurphyAudie MurphyAudie Leon Murphy was a highly decorated and famous soldier. Through LIFE magazine's July 16, 1945 issue , he became one the most famous soldiers of World War II and widely regarded as the most decorated American soldier of the war...
. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2000 - Scott, C.H. Whatever Happened to Randolph Scott? Empire Publishing, 1994. ISBN 0-944019-16-1