Aaahh... I Feel Like a Newman...

Surprise, surprise! Things have once again become overwhelming in The Underworld. Almost two weeks ago, one of our fellow employees was escorted off the premises by the police, not in handcuffs, mind you, but nevertheless dramatic. And guess who gets to do her job as well as my own?  That's right! So as I mire through the scads of work that keep pouring my way, I'm going to provide a photo essay, which is always a little easier than an in-depth written post. It's really shocking, when you think about how much I've babbled on here, that there has never been a tribute to Paul Newman, who is easily one of my favorite actors. I have included him in quite a few posts along the way, but today it's all his. I hope you like the pictures I'm sharing of Mr. Blue Eyes. And stay tuned near the end for a hooty Underworld Extra bonus photo!

Born on January 26th, 1925 in an upscale suburb of Cleveland, Ohio, Newman took an early interest in acting and performed in school plays from age seven on.

The world nearly lost Newman in 1945 at age twenty before he'd ever made his mark. As a radioman-tailgunner in U.S. Navy planes during WWII, his aircraft was prevented from joining others on a carrier due to the pilot's ear infection. A few days later the ship was the target of kamikaze attacks and the rest of his unit was decimated.

Newman, majoring in drama and economics, married first wife Jackie in 1949 and by 1951 was living in New York City attempting to act for a living. He worked in live TV to supplement his income, but landed a hit in 1953 when the Broadway play Picnic, with a can't miss cast, ran for well over a year.

Newman had been thisclose to winning the role of James Dean's brother in East of Eden (1955), but instead had to settle for a cinematic debut in The Silver Chalice (1954) opposite Pier Angeli and Virginia Mayo. His first (and last!) experience in a period epic was a huge disappointment to him and it was two years before he worked on the big screen again.

Loathing the material and feeling foolish in his togas (not to mentioned embarrassed by his legs which, in retrospect, really aren't bad!), he famously took out an ad years later apologizing for his performance in the film when it ran on television. Meanwhile, he continued to act on TV in many programs including a notable color, musical rendition of Our Town (1955) which also starred Frank Sinatra as The Stage Manager and Eva Marie Saint as Emily.

He also worked on Broadway again in the successful drama The Desperate Hours, which ran for half a year. Newman's return to the big screen was facilitated by the premature death of James Dean. He inherited Dean's role in the bio-pic of boxer Rocky Graziano, Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956), this time winning acclaim for his work.

Now underway in earnest with a film career, he could back off of television appearances as he appeared in a string of movies including The Rack (1956), The Helen Morgan Story (1957) and Until They Sail (1957.)

Big changes in his personal life were on the way as well. He ended his marriage to Jackie and wed Joanne Woodward, who'd been in Picnic with him (as an understudy.) The two proceeded to work together on many a film project - the first being The Long, Hot Summer (1958) - and were married until Newman's death fifty years later.

Another role he inherited from James Dean was The Left Handed Gun (1958) about western outlaw Billy the Kid.

A huge career stride came, however, with the movie Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) in which he played an alcoholic ex-football player mourning the death of his best friend and anticipating the death of his overbearing father.

Complicating things further was his wife (Elizabeth Taylor) who wanted to have his baby, but was getting nowhere. The story, wrought from the Broadway play, danced around a homosexual subtext due to the constrictions of the time. He earned an Oscar nomination for his work, though it went to David Niven for Separate Tables. To my mind, there has never been a more beautiful cinematic couple than Newman & Taylor. They are just gorgeous together.

In an entirely different direction, he also did the comedy Rally 'Round the Flags Boys in 1958, costarring Woodward, but also featuring their friend Joan Collins. Comedy and Newman were never very easy bedfellows and his were rarely big hits, but he did know how to cut loose and have fun on occasion such as in this drunken scene.

He may even have taught the saucy Collins a thing or two if this pose indicates anything!

In 1959 he did The Young Philadelphians, playing an aspiring lawyer. Here he gets the once over from older woman Alexis Smith.

And in this shot, she closes in for the kill. His real love interest in the movie, however, was played by Barbara Rush. In 1959. Newman went back to Broadway for a third success, this time in Sweet Bird of Youth, which ran for just under a year.

1960 brought the slick soaper From the Terrace, with Woodward, but also the epic Exodus, opposite his costar from Our Town Eva Marie Saint, all about the emergence of the country of Israel. Newman was half-Jewish by birth on his father's side.

To be perfectly honest, though I always found him attractive, Newman's body type is not the kind I am typically drawn to. I am unlike most people in that I don't really like to see the muscles through one's torso. Today that is the standard and anyone without it is labeled "fat," but I always felt like I was seeing someone's insides when I could make out every ripple. LOL!

Speaking of ripples and seeing things from the inside on the outside, Joanne seems to have discovered something in Paul's trunks here. I'm surprised this one made it to the cover of a magazine with no censoring or airbrushing!

1961 brought another key career role, that of Eddie Felson in The Hustler, a pool shark drama costarring Jackie Gleason and George C. Scott. For this, Newman was again Oscar-nominated, but the statuette went to Maximilian Schell for Judgement at Nuremberg.

His other film that year was Paris Blues, with wife Joanne as well as Sidney Poitier.

in 1962, he was permitted to recreate his stage role in Sweet Bird of Youth along with Geraldine Page, though his love interest, initially portrayed by Diana Hyland, was essayed in the film by our beloved Shirley Knight.

One more of his key roles, this one being one of the most iconic of his, was Hud (1962.) He played a man that he himself considered deplorable, yet audiences gravitated to him, many finding him sexy and some even considering him a role model of sorts! The Oscar went to his recent costar Sidney Poitier for Lilies of the Field.

One of the best things about The Prize (1963), a mystery involving the Nobel prize, was the sequence in which he had to infiltrate a meeting of nudists (!) and wore only a towel for a lengthy period of time. His other movie that year was the colorful romp A New Kind of Love, opposite Woodward.

1964's What a Way to Go had him appearing opposite Shirley MacLaine as one of her bevy of husbands, each one dying and leaving her a wealthy woman. His character was a modernistic painter living in Paris.

Unquestionably, my favorite part was when he and MacLaine took part in a romantic montage during which they lollygagged in a large bathtub, then a smaller bathtub, then a washtub before finally showering together!

His career continued to chug along with movies such as The Outrage (1964), in which he was a Mexican bandit and rapist, Lady L (1965) opposite Sophia Loren, and Harper (1966), with him portraying a rather down and out detective surrounded by an all-star cast. In 1964, he and Woodward headed to Broadway for the cat burglar comedy Baby Want a Kiss, which hinted with bisexuality, but it was only a qualified success at best.

He was selected, along with Julie Andrews, to star in Alfred Hitchcock's 50th film Torn Curtain (1966), but the movie and the pairing did not exactly elicit fireworks. Nevertheless, I like both of these two so much I still like to watch the movie every now and again.

After Hombre (1967), still another important role came with the prison comedy-drama Cool Hand Luke (1967.) I like this foreign poster art.

His role as the star-crossed prisoner and victim of circumstance landed him yet another Oscar nomination, but that year the award was won by Rod Steiger for In the Heat of the Night.

Newman continued starring in movies such as The Secret War of Harry Frigg (1968) and Winning (1969), but also directed Woodward in the acclaimed drama Rachel, Rachel (1968.) The movie was even nominated for Best Picture, but lost to Oliver!

Winning awakened in him a love of car racing and he continued to get behind the wheel for many a risky competition, much to his wife's dismay.

In 1969, he paired up with Robert Redford for the blockbuster Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. It was a monumental success that put him into the top tier of movies stars of the time.

With some less successful/memorable movies in-between such as WUSA (1970), Sometimes a Great Notion (1970), Pocket Money (1972), The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972) and The Mackintosh Man (1973), Newman and Redford teamed up again for another smash hit, The Sting (1973.)

Thus Newman was a top box office draw when he was selected to star in Irwin Allen's mammoth production of The Towering Inferno (1974), the story of a fire in the world's tallest building which required the historic cooperation of two major studios in order to be made. Costarring with him - with staggered billing and the same number of lines down to the sentence - was Steve McQueen, who'd once had a bit role in Newman's Somebody Up There Likes Me and had been eager to match the star's success ever since.

This movie was my introduction to Paul Newman as my seven year-old face sat rapt with attention for 2-1/2 hours in a theater seat as he struggled to save various inhabitants of The Glass Tower. From then on, he would be my ideal movie leading man.

That his love interest was Faye Dunaway, in a goddessy, gossamer dress, only cemented my fixation on the movie. While Newman and Taylor remain my idea of the screen's most beautiful couple, Newman and Dunaway represent a meeting of my two favorite "contemporary" actors (now vintage, since the movie and I are growing ever older!) and are my favorite couple, period, despite a limited amount of screen time together.

Newman was at that sweet stage when his name on a project meant that it would be made and he could balance fun movies that he wanted to so with more serious fare that expressed his personal sentiments. He also continued his ever-increasing interest in auto racing.

After The Drowning Pool (1975), the sequel to Harper, a cameo in Silent Movie (1976) and Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson (1976), he enjoyed the popular success of the (then) raunchy hockey comedy Slap Shot (1977.)

The perplexing arctic mystery Quintet (1979), a box office bust, was followed up by a picture he owed producer Irwin Allen from their prior Inferno contract. When Time Ran Out... (1980) was a dismal failure that threatened his position as a movie star to contend with.

Fortunately, he was back on track the very next year with two well-received films, the crime drama Fort Apache the Bronx and Absence of Malice, in which he played a man tormented by the journalistic endeavors of reporter Sally Field. The second film won him his first Oscar nomination for acting in fourteen years. This time he lost to Henry Fonda in On Golden Pond.

The Verdict (1982), about an alcoholic lawyer trying to redeem himself, truly seemed as if it would be the one which finally won him an Oscar as Best Actor. However, it was still not to be as Ben Kingsley took home the prize for Gandhi. In 1986, the Academy bestowed Newman with an Honorary Oscar for his body of work, likely feeling - as he did by now - that a competitive award would never come his way for whatever reason.

In a bizarre turn of events, however, the very next year brought forth a sequel to The Hustler in which Martin Scorcese directed Newman to an acclaimed performance as his character from a quarter of a century before. The Color of Money (1986) resulted in a Best Actor Oscar for Newman.

Newman continued to work in projects that appealed to him, still working with Woodward whenever possible, and also working hard on a charitable company, Newman's Own, that he had begun back in 1982 with a bottled version of a salad dressing he'd perfected at home. The staggeringly successful enterprise branched out into other food products and has raised over $430 million for a wide variety of causes since its inception.

In 1992, Newman reunited with Elizabeth Taylor to present that year's Best Picture Oscar (to Silence of the Lambs.) I have always wished that the producers would do more of this with the presenters, such as pairing up Beatty & Dunaway, Douglas & Close, Streep & Redford - WHOEVER - instead of trotting out flavors of the month playing dress-up, awkwardly delivering horrible scripted banter. Look how fun it was the year Fred & Ginger got back together momentarily. These are moments.

So I promised to provide a little bonus to my faithful readers. Ever since I first saw Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in 1988 (which was brought to my attention by - of all things - Michael Jackson's video for "Leave Me Alone"), I was captivated by the look of the film and its stars. Years later in 2001, a local theatre group was doing the show and by then I'd been acting for several years. I thought, "Wow! I should audition for Gooper!" thinking I'd have no trouble at all portraying an unloved, misfit son.

You can imagine my surprise when the director wanted me to play Brick and would not take no for an answer. It wound up being, if not the most-fulfilling role of my on-stage career, then certainly among the top three. It also gave me a momentary, albeit far-removed, brush with my adored Paul Newman in some way. I didn't (couldn't!) be like him in the part, but my costar and I found our own groove and it was a big success with all four leads winning awards for "Excellence in Acting."

Now back to the real star at hand... Newman was given the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in 1994 for his incredible charity endeavors. Then with 1994's Nobody's Fool, earned yet another Best Actor nomination (which went to Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump.) A Supporting Actor nod came later for Hanks' movie Road to Perdition (2002), but that went to Chris Cooper for Adaptation. That same year, he headed back to Broadway to perform as The Stage Manager in Our Town. Paul Newman, a lifelong smoker, died of lung cancer in 2008 at the age of eighty-three. He left behind a massive legacy of screen work and social work and will always have a special place in our heart at Poseidon's Underworld.

The End

Oh, What a Character! Part Nine: You Don't Know Jack!

It's time for another one of my little tributes to classic character actors. Not everyone may be able to instantly recognize today's actor's name, but his face ought to be familiar to fans of movies from the late 1930s through the late 1950s. A tall, physically-daring guy (most often with a smile on his face), he worked alongside some of the greatest stars of his era and managed to appear in close to a hundred movies (along with some television!) in that roughly two-decade period. The busy, always entertaining Jack Carson is the man of whom I speak.

Born in Carman, Manatoba, Canada on October 27th, 1910, John Elmer Carson (soon to be nicknamed “Jack”) was the son of Elmer and Elsa Carson. The third of four children, he had an older brother and sister and one younger sister. While he was still a very young boy, the family relocated to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a place Carson always considered his hometown (though he apparently never became a naturalized U.S. citizen.) First attending high school, he later attended a military academy before enrolling at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota. The husky, 6' 2” young man found himself portraying Hercules in one of the school's dramatic productions.

In an event that foreshadowed his later Hollywood career, Carson tripped, lost his balance and keeled over, knocking the better part of the set down! One of his friends doubled over at the hilarity of this sight and convinced Carson to join him in a Vaudeville act, which they then took on the road. Dave Willock was the friend's name and “Willock and Carson” took pains to perfect their routine. As Vaudeville was becoming increasingly diminished by the popularity of radio and movies, the duo headed to Hollywood seeking work.

Not only did the two find sporadic work on radio, but the burly Carson began to land bit parts in movies. He was already nearing twenty-seven years of age by now. His very first role came courtesy of director Fritz Lang who cast him as a gas station attendant in the Sylvia Sidney-Henry Fonda RKO drama You Only Live Once in 1937. That same year, he appeared in a dozen more films in all! His parts were often small ones like “Truck Driver,” “Cop,” “Taxicab Driver” or “Football Coach,” but he was learning, making plenty of contacts and getting to work with such stars as Humphrey Bogart, Leslie Howard, Fred Astaire, Joan Fontaine and Ann Sothern. His most famous movie of 1937 was Stage Door, which starred no less than Katharine Hepburn and Ginger Rogers.


1938 proved to be an even busier year for him, with parts in fifteen (!) movies. Some of these are long-forgotten B-films, but at least one – Bringing Up Baby, with Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant – is now considered a sparkling classic. His parts ranged from small supporting to outright bits such as “Rollercoaster Ride Attendant” and “Waiter Captain.” Lucille Ball, James Stewart, Douglas Fairbanks Jr, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers were among the stars of his films that year. (He would work with Rogers seven times in all, eventually rising up to the status of her costar!)

As is often the case when a bit player begins to earn better roles, his output decreased some in 1939. He was beginning to emerge as a reliable, often amusing, character performer. In what is frequently described as one of Hollywood's greatest years in terms of quality film-making, he had roles in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and Destry Rides Again, both classics of their respective genres. Somehow, between 1938 and 1939, he managed to sneak in a quick marriage and divorce to a dancer named Betty Lindy during this frenetic period.

Still, he was hardly a household name. 1940 brought plenty of supporting parts in B-movies balanced with small roles in more prestigious pictures like I Take This Woman with Spencer Tracy and Hedy Lamarr. He also married for the second time, to singer Kay St. Germain, who would give him two children. Things began to turn a corner career-wise in 1941 when he landed several amusing featured roles. Still free to work at various studios, he made the rounds of 20th Century Fox, MGM, Paramount and Warner Brothers (where he would ultimately be given a contract.)

He was fourth-billed in Alfred Hitchcock's comedy (a rare genre for the director) Mr. & Mrs. Smith, starring Robert Montgomery and Carole Lombard. He also rubbed elbows with James Cagney, Olivia de Havilland and Rita Hayworth in The Strawberry Blonde, though Cagney had initially balked at working opposite a man nearly eight inches taller than he. A very funny role came his way in the wild comedy Love Crazy with William Powell and Myrna Loy. In it, his blowhard character repeatedly delivers the self-introduction, “Willoughby, Ward Willoughby” no matter the cirmcumstances.

There was also The Bride Came C.O.D. Which placed him in the company of James Cagney again along with Miss Bette Davis. He played Davis' fiance who's only moderate interest in her leads to interest from Cagney. Carson was swiftly becoming a go-to guy for third-wheel types (aka – jilted boyfriends, past lovers back on the scene or stalwart pals who the girl doesn't recognize as the right one for her.) In 1942's The Male Animal with Henry Fonda and Olivia de Havilland, he played the ex-football hero and ex-lover of de Havilland who comes along right when Fonda is feeling insecure about his marriage.

A fine cast including Edward G. Robinson, Broderick Crawford, Anthony Quinn and Jane Wyman populated Larceny, Inc., about a trio of crooks who decide to purchase a luggage shop for the express purpose of robbing the bank next door only to find themselves making a decent living from the store itself! Still in 1942 came Gentleman Jim, a wonderful Errol Flynn movie about boxing legend Jim Corbett in which Carson played his longtime pal.

In 1943, Carson was given his own radio show, which allowed his effusive and effervescent personality shine through. By then, Willock and Carson as such had gone the way of the dinosaur, but Carson and his old partner remained friends. The two had appeared in six of the same movies from 1939 to 1943 and Willock played Carson's smart-aleck nephew on his popular radio show. For his own part, though he never reached the heights of fame that Carson eventually did, Willock enjoyed a career as a supporting actor up until the early 1980s including films as varied as 1955's Revenge of the Creature (if you can force your eyes past John Bromfield's hunky body!) and 1964's Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte (with Carson's frequent costar Olivia de Havilland) among many others. He died in 1990 at the age of eighty-one of a stroke.

Carson, a large man by Hollywood standards, was not fat so much as husky and built.  He worked out regularly with a trainer in order to stay trim (though as he grew older, he became decidedly thicker around the middle.)

Carson's movies in 1943 included Princess O' Rourke with Bob Cummings and Olivia de Havilland and The Hard Way with Ida Lupino and Dennis Morgan. Carson and Morgan would soon be teamed in a number of films together in an effort to steal away some of the thunder of Paramount's Bob Hope and Bing Crosby semi-musical comedies. The 1944 musical Shine on Harvest Moon had Morgan and Carson teaming with Ann Sheridan. At last he won top-billing that same year in Make Your Own Bed with (a rather glitzy-looking!) Jane Wyman costarring.

It was Wyman again, this time as his wife, in the same year's The Doughgirls, with Ann Sheridan and Alexis Smith starring as well. In his other 1944 film, he played a befuddled policeman in Arsenic and Old Lace, though this one had actually been filmed in '41. It was contractually prevented from being released until the Broadway show had closed, but since the show was such a rousing success, it took that long before it could be shown!

Though he only made two movies in 1945, they were both terrific. In Roughly Speaking, he played the zany, inventive, rowdy husband of Rosalind Russell, a previously divorced mother of four whose life has been a rollercoaster of highs and lows. The two demonstrated incredible chemistry together (in their only pairing) and very effectively delivered the movie's seriocomic content.

His other film that year was Mildred Pierce. He was second-billed in the now-classic movie about a woman left to raise two daughters when her husband walks out on her for another woman. The mother (played by Miss Joan Crawford in her Oscar-winning role) goes into business for herself as a restaurateur with sturdy pal Carson's help. Still, he's the odd man out as Crawford turns to slimy Zachary Scott for affection. In light of his dynamic work here, Mildred Pierce is probably the film he won the best notices for and may be best known for.

As a tall, strapping, manly gent, Carson was frequently the butt of amusing sight gags such as rigging him out in an apron as shown here. Do note the proliferation of pies in the kitchen. As you many recall, Crawford's ungrateful wretch of a daughter says, “My mother, a common waitress...Aren't the pies enough? Do you have to degrade us?” only to later come back for the spare with “With this money I can get away from you. From you and your chickens and your pies and your kitchens and everything that smells of grease. I can get away from this shack with its cheap furniture. And this town and its dollar days, and its women that wear uniforms and its men that wear overalls.”

Here are a few more shots (from various movies or shows) of the hefty Mr. Carson being festooned with an apron:

The aforementioned push to make Carson and Dennis Morgan happen emerged in full force during 1946 when each one of Carson's films was opposite (higher-billed) Morgan. One More Tomorrow, Two Guys From Milwaukee and The Time, the Place and the Girl might have pleased audiences to a varying degree at the time, but have not endured with nearly the same amount of fame (right or wrong) as the Hope/Crosby Road movies. Here, Carson works on a sign for Milwaukee while a canine pal looks on.  If you ever read my post here on movie dogs, you know I have a soft spot for pooches.

Carson traded in Morgan (and won top-billing for himself) in 1947's Love and Learn, which put Robert Hutton in the co-lead spot. The two played aspiring songwriters (and are reportedly upstaged by supporting players that included Martha Vickers, Janis Paige - seen canoodling with him here, Otto Kruger and Florence Bates.) That was his only movie that year. In 1948, he and Ann Sothern played a married song-and-dance duo in April Showers. Carson appeared in clown-face here and, in a little-known fact, used to run off for weeks at a time in order to perform anonymously as a clown with The Clyde Beatty Circus, with only his wife knowing where he was!

Also in '48, he starred in Romance on the High Seas with a newcomer to films, band singer Doris Day. Not only did she later credit Carson for helping her to learn the ropes (such as finding her marks without looking at them, securing the most facial exposure to the camera in scenes, etc...), but she also developed an attraction to him that would soon develop into a relationship. By now, his 1940 marriage to Kay St. Germain was coming unglued and they divorced in 1950. Still in 1948, he did another picture with Dennis Morgan, Two Guys from Texas.

1949 brought John Loves Mary with Ronald Reagan and Patricia Neal. There was also My Dream is Yours with Doris Day. Here, he took part in the highly unusual number which placed Day and him in oversized bunny rabbit costumes (as such Warner Brothers cartoon characters as Bugs Bunny and Tweety Bird joined in!) By now, Carson and Day had been involved in a fairly serious romance, but Day was unhappy with the amount of drinking that Carson did in his off hours. She ultimately broke up with him to marry Marty Melcher (who later created no small amount of trouble for her, career-wise and financially.)

Carson starred in The Good Humor Man in 1950 which, as you might guess, concerned an ice cream truck driver/salesman who loves Lola Albright, a young lady who won't marry him because she has a young brother she has to support. Carson and Albright hit is off rather well together. So well, in fact, that they would be married within two years. 1950 also marked the year that Carson made the leap to television. He appeared as a guest on Your Show of Shows, acted on an episode of The Ford Theater Hour and proceeded to host a program called All Star Revue. He, Jimmy Durante, Ed Wynn and Danny Thomas took turns helming the comedy program, something he did until 1952.

Then there was Bright Leaf, a tobacco-farming yarn starring Gary Cooper, Lauren Bacall and Patricia Neal. His part in this one (as Cooper's friend and business partner) was rather negligible. In 1951, Carson was forty-one and though he could still win top-billing in a minor comedy, the prestige factor was often close to nil. He had the lead in Mr. Universe, which co-starred Janis Paige, Bert “The Cowardly Lion” Lahr, Robert Alda and a heavily-peroxided Vince Edwards (in practically his first screen role.)

As usual, Carson worried not about physical pratfalls and bodily contortions (see above his pretzel-like pose.) Anything for a laugh. It probably meant quite little to him, but I would probably have found it fun to give a young, fit, scantily-clad Edwards a rubdown as he's shown doing here! Do take note that on these two lobby cards, the figure in the bottom right (in red) is not female. 

After having worked in so many Ginger Rogers films, often in unbilled bits, Carson was elevated to costarring level in The Groom Wore Spurs. (Of course, by now it could have been argued that she had descended to costarring level with him! Now a decade after her Oscar win, she would only make movies for about five or six more years before exiting the screen, returning occasionally every great once in a while.)

Mr. Carson headed to Broadway in 1952 to headline a revival of the George and Ira Gershwin musical Of Thee I Sing (directed by George Kaufman, who directed the 1931 original and the previous 1933 revival.) This time, though, the show didn't catch on and was closed after a couple of months.


The next phase of Carson's career was in providing comic support in slightly more distinguished and colorful films than he had been appearing in just previously. 1953's Dangerous When Wet was an Esther Williams vehicle which had her portraying a farm girl who is convinced by Carson (as a health tonic salesman) to swim the English Channel.

In 1954, he was teamed with Rosemary Clooney in the musical Red Garters, the only film she ever did in which she was the primary focus. The extraordinarily colorful film was a spoofy sort of inverted version of The Taming of the Shrew (with Clooney taming a man), but failed to light much of a fire at the box office. More popular (despite studio tampering and various other troubles) was A Star is Born in which he was third-billed beneath Judy Garland and James Mason.

He rounded out 1954 with the Jack Lemmon-Judy Holliday marital comedy Phffft in which he played Lemmon's friend who also has a serious interest in Lemmon's estranged wife Holliday. The following year, he worked with Rory Calhoun, Piper Laurie and Mamie Van Doren in a now-forgotten musical called Ain't Misbehavin', all about a college girl dating an older, wealthy man.

In 1956, Carson played an Arizona blowhard who becomes embroiled in the problems of (unlikely) brothers Joseph Cotten and Van Johnson in Bottom of the Bottle. Then he starred in Magnificent Roughnecks, an oil wildcatting romp which costarred Mickey Rooney. 1957 brought The Tattered Dress, in which he played the villain, a devious and deadly sheriff who has it in for attorney Jeff Chandler (seen here along with Jeanne Crain.)

At this point, Carson was also appearing quite a bit on TV in shows such as Screen Director's Playhouse, Lux Video Theatre and Climax! He got to work for the creative Douglas Sirk in 1957's The Tarnished Angels, a William Faulkner-based drama that starred Rock Hudson, Robert Stack and Dorothy Malone.

In 1958, he landed what is probably one of his better remembered parts these days, that of Gooper Pollitt in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. He played the older brother of star Paul Newman, whose marriage to Elizabeth Taylor is in the midst of turmoil and speculation on the day that his and Newman's father Burl Ives has come home from the hospital following a cancer scare.

The film, which was modified from its roots as a Tennessee Williams play in order to avoid outright suggestion of homosexuality, couldn't quite overcome being hamstrung, yet remained a significant hit thanks to the gorgeous leads (both at the peak of their beauty) and the roll call of terrific actors in the cast. Apart from Newman, Taylor, Ives and Carson, there was also Madeleine Sherwood as Carson's catty wife and Dame Judith Anderson as his mother.

Somehow, the casting manages to work even though Carson was fifteen years Newman's senior, but only one year Ives' junior! Anderson was thirteen years Carson's senior. The picture was one of only several opportunities in his career for him to explore drama versus comedic and/or musical material.


That same year, he worked with Newman again in the strained comic film Rally 'Round the Flag, Boys. Here, he had the opportunity to work with Miss Joan Collins, as seen below. Also, Carson's marriage to Lola Albright ended at this time.

1960's The Bramble Bush was a tangled soap opera that starred Richard Burton as a doctor who aids an old friend through euthanasia. Also starring were Barbara Rush as the patient's impatient wife, Angie Dickinson as a nurse with feelings for Burton and Carson as Dickinson's lover, a shady lawyer who doesn't want to give her up.

Carson continued to work very busily as an actor, with 1961 an especially prolific year when it came to television appearances. Among the many programs he did was one episode of The Twilight Zone. In it, he played a smarmy used car salesman who comes upon a car that forces him to speak the truth at all times, sort of a decades prior precursor to Jim Carrey's Liar, Liar.


He married for the fourth time in 1961 to Sandra Jolley Tucker, the former wife of Forrest Tucker (divorced eleven years prior.) Still working constantly, Carson was rehearsing for the play Critic's Choice when he was felled by a stomach ailment, causing him to collapse. After recovering from that, he proceeded to work on an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and the Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color production of Sammy, The Way-Out Seal, not without some difficulty.

What no one knew except for a handful of people was that Carson had terminal stomach cancer. Often one to play his cards close to the vest, he had opted to keep his condition a secret. Thus, it came as an incredible shock to many when he died on January 2nd, 1963 at only the age of fifty-two. His relatively new wife was devastated at the loss (and, in fact, his mother was still alive as well. She had already buried one daughter in 1956 and would herself live until 1971.) Producer-actor Dick Powell died the exact same day at age fifty-eight.

Jack Carson didn't always completely overcome his propensity for Vaudeville-era hamming and mugging, but was nevertheless an amiable, often hilarious, and surprisingly versatile performer who, as I mentioned earlier, worked with some of the greatest screen actors ever. Two quotes are attributed to him that, as a performer myself, I appreciate a lot. I can also say that they have both proven true for me and I do so with full awareness of how horribly egotistical one of them makes me look! The truth is the truth though and I commend him for recognizing that.


“Fans are people who let an actor know he's not alone in the way he feels about himself.” - Jack Carson

“People will always laugh at somebody else's discomfort. But they only laugh because they have suffered the same indignity themselves or known darn well how it feels. Being a comedian is almost like being a doctor--the more troubles you discover and understand, the more gladness you can bring to an audience.” - Jack Carson

An insightful man who put a great deal of thought into what he was doing and who loved to discuss various philosophies with other introspective people, he was in the process of writing a book on religion when he died. Thanks to his premature death, he was robbed of the chance to age into an even greater character actor, but he left behind a considerable amount of work, tightly crammed into a couple of decade's time.