Last month,
Claude Jarman Jr. died at the age of 90. Growing up poor, in Nashville, the son
of a railroad worker, in 1945, 10-year-old 5th-grader Claude loved
going to the movies, but becoming a movie star was the last thing on his mind.
And then 6-time Oscar nominee Clarence Brown, one of MGM’s top directors, came
to Claude’s school, looking for an untrained, natural, blond southern boy to
star opposite both Gregory Peck, and a new-born fawn, in the film of Marjorie
Kinnan Rawlings’ novel, The Yearling. For his performance, he would
receive a miniature Oscar (which would later be replaced with the full-sized
statuette) as the Outstanding Child Actor of 1946.
In his excellent 2018 autobiography, My Life and the Final Days of Hollywood, Jarman tells not only the story of his brief -- by choice -- but distinguished acting career, but also the story of the final great days of Hollywood in general, and Metro Goldwyn Mayer in particular. You can buy it from Amazon HERE, or elsewhere.
In October of 2022, at The
Lone Pine Film Festival, in Lone Pine, California, I had the pleasure of
interviewing Claude onstage, after a screening of one of my favorite Westerns,
and one of Claude’s best films, 1949’s Roughshod. One of the first and
finest noirish post-war Westerns, it was directed by Mark Robson, who
had previously directed 5 films for Val Lewton. Its story was by the writer of
Hitchcock’s Saboteur, and Eastwood’s White Hunter, Black Heart, Peter
Viertel. The screenplay is by Daniel Mainwaring, who wrote Out of the Past,
and would write Invasion of the Body Snatchers; and Hugo Butler, Oscar-nominated
for Best Writing, Original Story for Edison, the Man.
The film stars Robert
Sterling, later famous as George Kirby on Topper, and Claude, as
brothers transporting horses to their ranch near Sonora. En route they run into
four saloon girls stranded by a crippled wagon: Gloria Grahame, Jeff Donnell,
Martha Hyer, and Myrna Dell. Knowing he’s being hunted by three escaped
convicts, led by John Ireland, the last thing Sterling wants is the added
responsibility of the women.
One more reason that I
was excited to be interviewing Claude was that one of the four women, Myrna
Dell, had been a good friend of us both.
Henry Parke: Back in
1945, Metro Goldwyn Mayor Studios held a nationwide talent search to select a
young man to play Jody Baxter in the film of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings’ Pulitzer
Prize-winning novel, The Yearling. Twelve-year-old Claude Jarman Jr. was
discovered in Nashville, and went to Hollywood to star opposite Gregory Peck
and Jane Wyman. If you haven't seen it, you must. It's a beautiful, joyful,
heartbreaking classic. And for this first professional performance, Jarman was
presented with a miniature Oscar. As his career continued, he'd be adopted by
Jeanette McDonald in The Sun Comes Up, grow up to be Ben Johnson in High
Barbaree, grow up to be David Bryan in Inside Straight. But much of
his best work has been in Westerns. He stars with Joel McCrea in The Outriders,
with Randolph Scott in Hangman's Knot, with Fess Parker in The Great Locomotive
Chase. He plays John Wayne’s and Maureen O’Hara’s son for John Ford in Rio
Grande, and we’ve just seen him as kid brother to Robert Sterling in one of
the really fine noir westerns, 1949's Roughshod. It's my pleasure
to introduce to you, Claude Jarman Jr.
Claude Jarman Jr.: Yeah.
After talking about all these Westerns, I forgot to wear my Western hat again. At
any rate, it was interesting that Roughshod was where I really learned
to ride. We spent two and a half months living in tents up in Bridgeport. Every
day you saw a lot of activities with the horses. And every day I would ride
with the wranglers. And I really learned how to ride during that, and it
certainly paid off later, when I made Westerns, particularly with Rio Grande,
where I did a lot of horseback riding. At any rate, it was a fun movie. The
people were very talented, and they were all just at the beginning of their
careers, which I think was really remarkable. And it was for that reason, we
were all a very happy, happy group on location. And the people were wonderful
to be with. The women were great. Myrna Dell, who played the one who wanted to
stay with the miner, she was a real kick. She decided she wanted to be an
actress, but she did not want to be someone who was a beauty queen. She wanted to
just be somebody who could be the dance hall girl. That way she could have a
full career. She'd end up making about a hundred movies doing that sort of
thing. (Note: The Falcon’s Adventure, Fighting Father Dunne, The Bowery Boys
– Here Come the Marines, etc.) And we sort of kept in touch. Every now and
then, I would get a letter from her. In 2001 I was at the Academy Awards. That
was the year that everyone who had received one was on stage. So I was on stage,
and she wrote me a letter and she said, “I just saw you, on stage at the
Academy Awards, and you looked terrific. All I can tell you is, when we made
the movie together, you were too young for me then, but you're too old for me
now.”
Henry Parke: Myrna told
me that story, too.
Claude Jarman Jr.: Did
she? Anyway, it was Gloria Grahame who went on to win an Academy Award. (Note:
Nominated in 1948 as Best Supporting Actress in Crossfire; won in 1953
as Best Supporting Actress in The Bad and the Beautiful.) She was 25
years old, so they were all very young. Martha Hyer, who played the first one
to leave the group, to go back with her mother. She kept acting (Note:
Nominated in 1959 as Best Supporting Actress in Some Came Running), and
then she ended up marrying Hal Wallis, who was one of the great producers in
Hollywood (Note: The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, True Grit, etc.),
and I think she just passed on in the last couple of years. So everyone had a
career. They all had something that they grew into. It was wonderful. It was
really a good experience. It was funny because that was the fourth movie that I
made. First I made The Yearling, High Barbaree, and then the Lassie
movie, The Sun Comes Up. I was still at MGM, but they loaned me out to
RKO. That was one of the unique things that they would do. They wanted
somebody, they would loan them, they would pay MGM; not me. At any rate, it was
a great experience. And I think the movie still kind of looks pretty good.
Henry Parke: Really good.
Did you audition for the role of Steve?
Claude Jarman Jr.: No, I
did not. I was just told I was gonna work at RKO. I remember at that time,
there was a wonderful little school at MGM. I was a student with Elizabeth
Taylor and Jane Powell. There was one little student in there all by herself,
and that was Natalie Wood. Somehow, she was there by herself.
Henry Parke: Your
director, Mark Robson, had gone from assistant director on Citizen Kane,
to director of five films for RKO horror czar Val Lewton. And just before Roughshod,
he directed Kirk Douglas to an Oscar nomination in Champion. What was he
like to work with?
Claude Jarman Jr.: It was
obvious to me that he was a very hands-on director who knew what he was doing,
because he had just started, this was like his third or fourth film. He knew
exactly what he wanted, and how to get a performance out of the actors. It was
not surprising he went on to have a very successful career, and he was a very
nice man, too. (Note: Best Director Oscar Nominee for 1958’s Peyton Place,
and 1959’s Inn of the Sixth Happiness.)
Henry Parke: Now, Robert Sterling, I think a lot of us
grew up watching him and his later wife, Anne Jeffries, as George and Marion
Kerby on the TV series Topper. He had a film career, just prior to the
war, (Note: Two-Faced Woman, Johnny Eager, etc.) when he was married to
Ann Southern, when they had met on one of her Maisie films, Ringside
Maisie. But then he'd been away in the war. He'd joined the Army Air Corps
and trained pilots in London. And so this was his big sort of comeback film.
Claude Jarman Jr.: Yeah.
But he was a good actor. He was good looking, came across as being very
attractive. I'm surprised he didn't have a longer career than he did. Although
I guess the TV thing was something that went on for a while. Then Jeff Donnell,
who played the other woman who was sick, who got left behind, she went on and
she had a TV career also. (Note: In a Lonely Place, The George Gobel Show,
General Hospital, etc.) Everyone there ended up working. Except me.
<laugh>.
Henry Parke: Myrna Dell was a good friend of mine. She told me a story about something that happened when Gloria Grahame's husband visited the set unexpectedly. She was married to the actor Stanley Clements. A tough guy in films, he's probably best remembered for taking over from Leo Gorcey in the Bowery Boys films, playing Stash. And Gloria was not that enamored with him at that point. She used to introduce him by saying, “This is my husband Stanley Clements, or as I call him, Humphrey Bogart after taxes.” Anyway, he dropped in on the set, and caught Gloria with Robert Sterling, who was still married to Ann Southern, and Sterling took the hills, and Clement slapped his wife Gloria around. And Myna said they had to use make-up to cover up the marks.
Claude Jarman Jr.: News
to me.
Henry Parke: Do you have
any thoughts on the villain of the piece, John Ireland?
Claude Jarman Jr.: That
was the only time I worked with him. I thought he was a very good actor. My
favorite actor after that was Lee Marvin, who was in Hangman’s Knot.
Henry Parke: One last
question. Do you have any favorite memories from making the film?
Claude Jarman Jr.: I
loved being outdoors; the summertime, the Highs Sierras and Mono Lake. It was
just heaven to a kid at that age. And I didn't have to go to school in the
summer, so I didn't have to worry about that. It was a wonderful, wonderful
experience for me. Anyway, thank you very much, folks!
Henry Parke: And thank
you!
I’ll soon be posting my
interview with actress and martial arts legend Cynthia Rothrock about her new
Western, Black Creek, which is True West’s Editor’s Choice for Best Western to
Stream (although it’s not available to stream yet)!
Here’s a glimpse of Billy
the Kid: Blood and Legend, the new Western from director Michael Feifer, which
has just started post production. I interviewed Mike just before he rolled
camera, and that interview is coming soon to the pages!
Finally, back in 2021, an
excellent Western was made in Australia, which has gone under two titles, The
Legend of Molly Johnson, and The Drover’s Wife. Based on an 1892 story by
Australian writer Harry Lawson, it’s about a pregnant mother at home alone on
her farm in the Outback, caring for her children, and waiting for her husband’s
return. It stars, and is written and directed by Leah Purcell, and it is an
absolute knock-out. I interviewed Purcell back in 2021, but I never ran it
because the movie was never released in the U.S., but it’s now running on
Amazon Prime, and I’ll be posting the interview very soon!
…And that’s a wrap!
If you’re wondering why I
haven’t mentioned the blockbuster miniseries American Primeval yet, I’m deep
into an article about it for True West Magazine! Speaking of which, please
check out our Annual January/February “Best of the West” issue, with my selections
for the best Western movies, DVDs, and TV shows of the year!
Have a great February!
Henry
All Original Content Copyright February 2025 by Henry C. Parke - All Rights Reserved
