About the Author

Lee Server is the author of the critically acclaimed Danger Is My Business; Sam Fuller: Film Is a Battleground; Over My Dead Body; and other works on cinema history and popular culture.

Reviews

"This is a well-researched, highly entertaining, and revealing biography that contextualizes Mitchum in the broader world of industry and national economics, business and politics." --Publishers Weekly "Server sustains a fascination for his subject that is broad enough to encompass the man's miserable behavior alongside [Server's] vast admiration for Mitchum's body of work and hugely iconic personality." --The New York Times "Robert Mitchum: "Baby, I Don't Care" is the big Robert Mitchum book cultists have been waiting for. . . . He was a man's man in a profession of pretenders, a genuine badass, and the undisputed Boss of Cool. Lee Server captures Mitchum completely, and honors him with this fine piece of work." --George P. Pelecanos, author of Right as Rain

"This is a well-researched, highly entertaining, and revealing biography that contextualizes Mitchum in the broader world of industry and national economics, business and politics." --Publishers Weekly "Server sustains a fascination for his subject that is broad enough to encompass the man's miserable behavior alongside [Server's] vast admiration for Mitchum's body of work and hugely iconic personality." --The New York Times "Robert Mitchum: Baby, I Don't Care is the big Robert Mitchum book cultists have been waiting for. . . . He was a man's man in a profession of pretenders, a genuine badass, and the undisputed Boss of Cool. Lee Server captures Mitchum completely, and honors him with this fine piece of work." --George P. Pelecanos, author of Right as Rain

"Never forget that one of the biggest stars in the world was Rin Tin Tin, and she was a four-legged bitch," was tough guy Robert Mitchum's stock response when asked what it felt like to be a movie star. While many Hollywood personalities and stars now attempt to maintain their personal privacy, Mitchum gloried in the seamless meld between his lives on and off screen. Born in 1917 to a railroad worker and a mother with intellectual, even bohemian, inclinations, Mitchum lost his father early, and ran off when he was 14 to hop freight cars during the Depression. After gigs as a boxer, stevedore and union worker (perhaps even joining the Communist Party), he tried acting and finally got a break in Hollywood. After playing a cowboy in a 1943 Hopalong Cassidy serial, he made another 18 film appearances that year. In 1945, his performance in G.I. Joe made him a star. He perfected his tough guy image by the late 1940s, playing variations on this part (often comic as his career waned) until his last film, in 1995. In his heyday, Mitchum made headlines by suing Confidential magazine for libel, getting arrested on a marijuana drug change and generally acting rowdy. Server (Danger Is My Business) is at his best describing Mitchum's fine actingÄespecially in the 1955 Night of the HunterÄand his struggles to remain independent in an industry that demanded conformity. This is a well-researched, highly entertaining and revealing biography that contextualizes Mitchum in the broader world of industry and national economics, business and politics. (Mar.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.