Christopher Mitchum

The reluctant Western star shares memories of his acting career.

- Henry C. Parke

"Dad started acting just about the time I was born, in 1943, Christopher Mitchum recalls. "His first 14 films, he was uncredited; he was a bad guy in Hopalong Cassidy movies. Then William Boyd gave him a break, his first line, in Hoppy Serves a Writ. He took off from there." While Robert Mitchum's older son Jim had a film career that was blessed and cursed by his startling resemblance to his father, Christopher Mitchum, with blond hair in a bowl cut, had a look distinctly his own.

He grew up at the studios. “Dad'd take us to the set, but he'd usually drop me off in the prop room. I'd be playing with five-foot-long remote control battleships, King Kong, and things like that. I just thought he worked in a great toy shop."

When did Christopher decide to become an actor? “I didn't. I was planning on teaching and writing.” While completing his degree at the University of Arizona, he and his wife worked at Old Tucson, “as extras, for $13.80 a day and a free lunch"

“I ended up as a gopher, " on his father's film, Young Billy Young, and played his father's murdered son in flashbacks. On Bigfoot, “I was second assistant director. They lost their lead; Jody McCrea, Joel's son, wanted $5,000 a week. They said, 'We only have $500. Do you wanna play the part?' I said, 'Sure! I'm making $150 a week as a second AD. Then I was working in accounting on Suppose They Gave a War and Nobody Came? The director told me, 'We have a part for a hippie GI; you'd be perfect. Wanna do it?" Like it or not, Mitchum was an actor.