Coordinates	°′″N°′″N
Name	Julian Cope
Background	solo_singer
Landscape	yes
Birth name	Julian David Cope
Origin	Mid Glamorgan, Wales
Birth date	October 21, 1957
Genre	Post-punk, Alternative rock
Occupation	Singer/songwriterAuthorAntiquarian
Years active	1978–present
Instrument	vocals, guitar, bass guitar, organ, piano, Mellotron, synthesizer
First album	''Kilimanjaro''
Notable songs	"World Shut Your Mouth", "Reward"
Label	ZooMercuryIslandDef AmericanEchoHead Heritage
Associated acts	Crucial ThreeThe Teardrop ExplodesQueen ElizabethBrain DonorBlack SheepSunn O)))Donald Ross SkinnerThighpaulsandra
Notable instruments	Fender Jazz Bass
Website	Head Heritage}}

Julian Cope (born Julian David Cope, on 21 October 1957) is a British rock musician, author, antiquary, musicologist, poet and cultural commentator. Originally coming to prominence in 1978 as the singer and songwriter in Liverpool post-punk band The Teardrop Explodes, he has followed a solo career since 1983 and initiated musical side projects such as Queen Elizabeth, Brain Donor and Black Sheep. Additional to his own work as a musician, Cope remains an avid champion of obscure and underground music.

Cope is also a recognised authority on Neolithic culture, an outspoken political and cultural activist, and a fierce critic of contemporary Western society (with a noted and public interest in occultism, paganism and Goddess worship). As an author and commentator, he has written two successive volumes of autobiography called ''Head-On'' (1994) and ''Repossessed'' (1999); two volumes of archaeology called ''The Modern Antiquarian'' (1998) and ''The Megalithic European'' (2004); and three volumes of musicology called ''Krautrocksampler'' (1995), ''Japrocksampler'' (2007) and ''Detroitrocksampler''.

Biography

Early life

Born in Deri, Mid Glamorgan, Julian Cope spent his early life in Wales. Part of his childhood was spent in the Welsh town of Bargoed, adjacent to Aberfan: he has cited the Aberfan disaster of 1966 as a key event of his childhood. Cope’s family later moved to Tamworth, Staffordshire, in the English Midlands, where he spent his adolescence. Despite Cope’s demonstrable intelligence, poor school examination results led to him attending the City of Liverpool College of Higher Education, and it was here that he began his musical career.

Cope as musician (1976-present)

Early bands (1976-1977)

In July 1977, Cope was one of the founders of Crucial Three, a Liverpool punk rock band in which he played bass guitar. Although the Crucial Three lasted for little more than six weeks (and disbanded without ever playing in public), all three members would eventually go on to lead successful Liverpool post-punk bands - singer Ian McCulloch with Echo & the Bunnymen and guitarist Pete Wylie with The Mighty Wah. Post-Crucial Three, Cope and McCulloch initially went on to form other short-lived bands UH? and A Shallow Madness (Cope had also spent time with Wylie in another short-lived band, Nova Mob). When Cope sacked McCulloch from A Shallow Madness, McCulloch would go on to form Echo and the Bunnymen. The two former bandmates would maintain a frequently antagonistic rivalry from then on, often carried out in public or in the press.

The Teardrop Explodes (1978-1983)

In 1978, Cope formed The Teardrop Explodes with drummer Gary Dwyer, organist Paul Simpson and guitarist Mick Finkler, with himself as singer, bass player and principal songwriter. Drawing on a post-punk version of West Coast pop music (which gained the nickname of “bubblegum trance”), the band became part of a wave of neo-psychedelic Liverpool bands. Cope and Dwyer (and later their manager-turned-keyboard player David Balfe, who served both as Cope’s creative foil and his personal antagonist) were the only band constants, although seven other members passed in and out of the lineup during the band’s fractious five-year existence. Several well-received early singles (including "Sleeping Gas" and "Treason") culminated in the band’s biggest hit, "Reward" which hit number 6 in the UK singles chart and took the ''Kilimanjaro'' album to number 24 in the album charts. Cope’s photogenic charm and wild, garrulous interview style helped keep the band in the media eye, and made him a short-lived teen idol during the band’s peak.

Success brought the Teardrops plenty of attention, but no further stability. Their second album ''Wilder'' experimented with different and darker psychedelic styles, as well as delving deeper into Cope’s complicated psyche: it spawned no hits and sold relatively poorly at the time (despite being critically praised in retrospect). Excessive drug use plus continued infighting undermined the band, and a final lineup of Cope, Dwyer and Balfe split apart in 1982 after failed attempts to record a third album and a final disastrous tour.

Despite the relatively short life of the band, The Teardrop Explodes has continued to sustain interest and praise since its demise and the band’s back catalogue of recordings has been reissued several times over the next thirty years. Cope, however, has strenuously resisted taking advantage of any nostalgic and commercial opportunies to reunite the band.

The Mercury years - ''World Shut Your Mouth'' and ''Fried'' (1982-1985)

In 1982 (accompanied by his new American wife Dorian Beslity) Cope had moved to the Warwickshire village of Drayton Bassett (close to his childhood home of Tamworth). Following the dissolution of The Teardrop Explodes, he spent a period in seclusion recovering from the strain of the group’s final year and amassing a collection of vintage toys. Cope’s well-documented Teardrops-era LSD excesses, eccentric behaviour and subsequent retreat had led to him being labelled an "acid casualty" in the vein of Syd Barrett and Roky Erikson, an image which would take him several years to shake off. During this period, Cope befriended a teenaged Drayton Bassett musician called Donald Ross Skinner, who would become his main musical foil for the next twelve years.

Later in 1983 Cope began recording the songs which would make up his first solo album, ''World Shut Your Mouth''. Although the album generally retained the uptempo pop drive of the Teardrops, it was also an introspective and surreal work with many references to childhood. Former Teardrops drummer Gary Dwyer, guitarist Steve Lovell and Dream Academy oboist Kate St. John (although not Skinner) all contributed to the album, which was released on Mercury Records in March 1984. ''World Shut Your Mouth'' was seen as out-of-step with the times gained poor reviews and sold indifferently. A single "Sunshine Playroom", featured a disturbing video directed by David Bailey (featuring Leah Harounoff in her debut role). During a concert at Hammersmith Palais on the subsequent promotional tour, Cope slashed across his bare stomach with a broken microphone stand in an act of frustrated self-mutilation. Although the wounds were superficial, it shocked the audience and resulted in another memorable addition to his reputation for bizarre behaviour.

''World Shut Your Mouth'' was followed just six months later by 1985’s ''Fried'' album for which Cope was joined by Skinner, Lovell, St John, ex-Waterboys drummer Chris Whitten and Wah! guitarist Steve "Brother Johnno" Johnson. The album was much more raw in approach than its predecessor, and although in many respects it prefigured the looser and more mystical style which Cope would follow and be praised for in the next decade, it sold poorly at the time (as did accompanying single "Sunspots"). Notoriously, the sleeve featured a naked Cope crouched on top of the Alvecote Mound slag heap clad only in a large turtle shell. The commercial failure of ''Fried'' led to Polygram dropping Cope. He would subsequently hook up with a new manager – artist and musician-cum-prankster Cally Callomon – and sign a deal with Island Records.

The Island years part 1: ''Saint Julian'' and ''My Nation Underground'' (1986-1990)

With Cally’s encouragement, Cope made the effort to clean up and compete. He formed a new backing group (informally known as the "Two-Car Garage Band") featuring Skinner, Whitten, former Teardrops associate James Eller on bass guitar, and himself on vocals, rhythm guitar and assorted keyboards (Cope performed the latter under the alias of "Double DeHarrison" until the band hired Richard Frost as full time keyboard player). This band lineup recorded Cope’s third solo album ''Saint Julian'', mostly composed of crisp and memorable rock songs. It was trailed by the single "World Shut Your Mouth", which became Cope’s biggest solo hit, reaching #19 in the UK in 1986 and becoming his only Top 20 solo hit. The parent album was well-received and generated two more singles (“Trampolene” and “Eve’s Volcano”) but the fresh momentum did not last. Cope fell out with Callomon, and the Two-Car Garage band disintegrated as Eller joined The The and Whitten left for Paul McCartney's band.

Back in London, and with only the faithful Skinner remaining, Cope enlisted his A&R; man Ron Fair as producer and recorded a follow-up album called ''My Nation Underground''. This featured a varied lineup of musicians including Fair, Skinner, Danny Thompson, eccentric percussionist Rooster Cosby (who’d remain a close Cope associate) and assorted sessions musicians (some of whom, such as James Eller, had contributed to the previous album). ''My Nation Underground'' produced only one Top 40 single, "Charlotte Anne", which also met with modest American success by reaching the top of the Modern Rock Tracks. Subsequent singles "5 O'Clock World" (a cover of a 1965 Vogues song) and the orchestral pop ballad "China Doll" both charted considerably lower, disappointing Island Records and further discouraging Cope, who had not enjoyed making the record and did not believe that it represented him properly as an artist.

To comfort himself, Cope spent a single illicit weekend at the end of the ''My Nation Underground'' sessions to create a second, lo-fi and unauthorised album called ''Skellington''. Recorded in the same studio used for ''My Nation Underground'' on Island’s money (and predominantly featuring the same core team of Cope, Skinner, Cosby and Fair) it was seen by Cope as a far more genuine artistic statement recorded at a fraction of the money and time. However, neither Island Records nor Cope’s current management team had any desire to release ''Skellington'' and Cope refused to record any other material while he feuded with them to try to get his new work released. Eventually, ''Skellington'' was released on the tiny Zippo label later in 1989, symptomising the poor relations between Cope and Island.

In 1990, Cope followed up ''Skellington'' with a second lo-fi album called ''Droolian'', similarly recorded over three days. It was released only in Texas (on another small label, Mofoco) and the profits were used to aid of one of Cope’s heroes, the former 13th Floor Elevators frontman Roky Erickson, who at that time was in jail without legal representation.

The Island years part 2: ''Peggy Suicide'' & ''Jehovahkill'' (1991-1992)

During this period, Cope discovered the book "Guitar Army: Rock and Revolution with The MC5 and the White Panther Party" by John Sinclair. He would later describe it as his “Holy Book” and enthusiastically embraced its one-take approach to making and recording music (as well as its message of rock- and-roll being a weapon of cultural revolution). This method would typify Cope’s musical approach from then on, as he forever left behind the more measured and constructed approach of ''Saint Julian'' and The Teardrop Explodes in favour of more spontaneous expression.

Having repaired his relationship with Island Records, Cope began recording his next record against the background of the civil demonstrations which became the Poll Tax Riots. Cope himself joined the demonstrations and took a prominent role in proceedings. Wearing a huge theatrical costume throughout the march, he was later featured on the BBC's Poll Tax documentary, a lone protester walking down Whitehall surrounded by seven lines of mounted police.

These (and other) elements fed into the pivotal double album ''Peggy Suicide'', which was released on Island Records in 1991 and was heralded by critics as Cope’s best work to date. On the album’s songs, Cope laid bare many of his personal convictions including his hatred of organized religion and his increasing public interest in women's rights, the occult, alternative spirituality (including paganism and Goddess worship), animal rights, and ecology. Skinner, Rooster Cosby, Ron Fair and former Smiths drummer Mike Joyce all contributed to the record, as did a new sidekick in the shape of future Spiritualized lead guitarist Michael Watts (better known as Mike Mooney or "Moon-eye"). Although the album produced another well-received single ("Beautiful Love") the political content of ''Peggy Suicide'' caused more friction with Island, who had signed Cope as a marketable hit-making alternative rocker but increasingly found themselves dealing with a latter-day counter-culturalist and revolutionary. Cope toured the album, including several dates in Japan which were recorded (although the results were not released until 2004, on the live album ''Live Japan '91''.)

In 1992, Cope released another double album - ''Jehovahkill'' - on Island Records. Musically, the album reflected his interest in Krautrock (though in a more electro-acoustic based form) and his teenage fascination for Detroit hard rock. (A deluxe edition, with a disc of extra material, was released fourteen years later in 2006). Lyrically, the album was fiercely anti-Christian, with such songs as "Poet is Priest", "Julian H. Cope", and the single "Fear Loves This Place" espousing Cope’s paganesque perspective and being highly critical of the established Church. The content (and lack of sales) proved to be too much for Island Records, who dropped Cope from the label in the same week that his three shows sold out at London's 1,800 capacity Town & Country Club. The music press mounted an outcry at Island's decision, with the ''New Musical Express'' (NME) featuring him on their front cover under the headline 'Endangered Species' while ''Select'' magazine started a campaign to have Cope re-signed. Engaged in a tour of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, Cope refused to comment.

On and off the road - ''Rite'' , ''Autogeddon'', ‘’Queen Elizabeth’’, ‘’20 Mothers’’ & ''Interpreter'' (1993-1996)

From this point onwards, Cope began to take greater personal control of his career and business affairs. While he would continue to sign contracts with established record labels, he would begin to release more esoteric projects independently. The first of these projects (issued on Cope’s own K.A.K. label) was a collaboration with Donald Ross Skinner: an album of instrumental jams called ''Rite'', inspired by Krautrock, Sly Stone-styled psychedelic funk and spiritual mysticism. Cope also took the opportunity to issue ''Ye Skellington Chronicles'' (an expanded version of ''Skellington'' along with a follow-up album in the same vein called ''Skellington 2: He's Back ... and this time it's personal'') and would record a number of tracks released eighteen years later as 2011’s ''The Jehovacoat Demos''. During this period, Cope began his work as a writer, completing the first volume of his autobiography and beginning to research works on Krautrock and Neolithic architecture.

Signing to the Def Jam subsidiary American Recordings for a one-off album deal, Cope recorded ''Autogeddon'', which was released in 1994. Continuing to build on the musical approach of ''Peggy Suicide'' and ''Jehovahkill'' but with a greater element of space rock, the album used the automobile as its central metaphor for individual and collective struggles between responsibility and selfishness, along with further stabs at patriarchy. ''Autogeddon'' was the first Cope album to feature synthesizer player Thighpaulsandra, who would become another key Cope collaborator. In the same year, Cope and Thighpaulsandra would form the ambient-electronic project Queen Elizabeth: their eponymous ''Queen Elizabeth'' debut album was released on the Echo Label, Cope’s mainstream home for the next two years.

Cope’s next album under his own name was 1995’s ''20 Mothers'' which revisited many of his existing lyrical preoccupations but with a more sprawling and eclectic musical approach (including stronger elements of pop and folk) and more directly personal and reflective material dealing with Cope’s own family. The album received very positive reviews and also spawned Cope’s last hit to date, the Top 40 single "Try, Try, Try", which led to two Top of the Pops performances. The subsequent British live tour (featuring Cosby, Mooney, Thighpaulsandra, and keyboard-player-turned-bass-guitarist Richard Frost) was fraught with tension, and Mooney would subsequently move on to Spiritualized. Cope had also parted company with his longterm foil Donald Ross Skinner during the recording of ''20 Mothers'', although the parting was relatively amicable.

Having been dropped by Echo when he refused to visit the USA, Cope then signed to Cooking Vinyl and delivered the ''Interpreter'' album in 1996. This continued in a similar but more disciplined vein to its predecessor, with stronger elements of techno and of humour (as exemplified in songs like “Cheap New Age Fix”) amongst the more serious topics, such as those inspired by Cope’s attendance at the Newbury Bypass protests. It was also the first album to feature another ongoing Cope guitar foil, Tony "Doggen" Foster.

Head Heritage, first decade: assorted solo and collaborative work including Brain Donor (1997-2006)

Cope's own ongoing battle with music industry operatives (whom he referred to as "greedheads") saw him finally turn his back on the mainstream music industry from this point onwards. From 1997, Cope opted for full career independence, launching his Head Heritage organisation as combined record label, website and discussion forum. Freed from external disputes and career guidance, he began to fully indulge himself and his core fanbase with a variety of projects.

The first Head Heritage release was 1997’s ''Rite 2'', Cope’s follow up to 1993’s ''Rite'' (with Thighpaulsandra taking over from Donald Ross Skinner as creative foil). It was followed in the same year by the second Queen Elizabeth album,''QE2: Elizabeth Vagina'', which expanded on its predecessor’s cosmic rock experiments. Thighpaulsandra would then follow Michael Mooney into Spiritualized (as would Cope’s string arranger Martin Shellard), once more depriving Cope of a key collaborator. Cope’s next full solo album was 1999’s ''Odin'', which consisted of a single 73-minute mantra for voices and electronics (although Thighpaulsandra has claimed credit for some of the work).

In 1999, Cope launched another side project. This was the garage-rock/heavy metal power trio Brain Donor, which featured Cope on bass, Doggen on guitar and Spiritualized drummer Kevin "Kevlar" Bales. The band was as much theatrical as musical, featuring full face makeup, platform boots and ostentatious double-neck guitars. Cope stated that the band’s aim was to fuse the swaggering arena rock of KISS and Van Halen with elements of Japanese heavy metal, Detroit garage rock and Blue Cheer. He also described Brain Donor as "pure white lightning played by forward-thinking motherfuckers" while also asserting that he loathed the "microcephalous ass (of) real heavy metal", seeing Brain Donor as part of his ongoing shamanic efforts.

In 2000, Cope released another solo album - ''An Audience With The Cope''. While appearing to be pitched as a retrospective live recording, it actually consisted of a series of newly-written psychedelic studio jams.

Since 1998, Cope had developed a parallel reputation as a serious antiquarian. This resulted in his 2001 album ''Discover Odin'' being a limited-edition tie-in with a talk he had given at the British Museum, featuring a mixture of spoken-word tracks exploring Nordic mythology and various musical tracks including a Cope setting of the epic Norse poem "Hávamál". In the same year Head Heritage released the first two Brain Donor singles ("She Saw Me Coming" and "Get Off Your Pretty Face", followed by the debut Brain Donor album ''Love Peace & Fuck''. Cope, Doggen and a returning Thighpaulsandra would also team up as the drummer-less psychedelic/meditational heavy metal group L.A.M.F. who released the ''Ambient Metal'' album the same year. Brain Donor’s "Get Back On It" single followed in 2002, as would the third album in Cope’s ''Rite'' series, ''Rite Now''.

In 2003 Cope performed at the Glastonbury Festival as well as launching his own three-day ''Rome Wasn't Burned In A Day'' event. A tie-in album, also called ''Rome Wasn't Burned In A Day'', was released to mark the event and included an "eight-minute long Armenian epic" called "Shrine of the Black Youth (Tukh Manukh)". The album was recorded by a trio of Cope, synth player Christopher Patrick “Holy” McGrail and Donald Ross Skinner (returning to work with Cope after seven years away). The year also saw more Brain Donor activity via the "My Pagan Ass" single and the album ''Too Freud To Rock'n'Roll, Too Jung To Die''.

Cope released two more albums in 2005. The first of these was the long-delayed ''Citizen Cain'd'', an album which Cope had promised for several years and now delivered as a short double album (71 minutes over two discs) sold at a single album price. (According to Cope, the two-disc format was due to some of the songs being "too psychologically exhausting" to fit together onto a single album). The second album, ''Dark Orgasm'' was a forthright hard-rock exercise which Cope described as "a violent sequence of outcast broadsides leveled at the coming new 21st-century conservatism." Meanwhile, Brain Donor (proving to be an enduring Cope project) was presented to America via a self-titled compilation album. Plans to tour the United States were dropped because the INS refused to grant Cope a visa.

2006 saw the release of the third proper Brain Donor album (''Drain'd Boner'') and the fourth album in the ''Rite'' series (''Rite Bastard'').

Head Heritage, second decade: ''Black Sheep'' and beyond (2007-present)

Cope’s 2007 album, ''You Gotta Problem With Me'', was something of a return to his early solo material: more post-punk styled, and featuring swathes of Mellotron and orchestral percussion. Conceptually, it continued his attacks on religion, bigotry, corporate greed and environmental destruction. As with ''Citizen Cain'd'', Cope divided the fifty-six minutes of material across two CDs and also included lavish packaging including printed poems.

''You Gotta Problem With Me'' was followed by 2008’s ''Black Sheep'', which Cope described as "a musical exploration of what it is to be an outsider in modern Western Culture" and which featured his most outrightly anarchic pronouncements to date. Dominated by Mellotron, hand drums and acoustic guitars, the album also featured Doggen and McGrail plus new recruits Michael O’Sullivan and Ady "Acoustika" Fletcher. In November 2008, Cope released the "Preaching Revolution EP", mingling acoustic protest songs with rockabilly pieces: along with material from the unreleased "Diggers, Ranters, Levellers EP", these songs would be reissued on Cope’s limited-edition Cope solo album, ''Julian Cope Presents The Unruly Imagination''.

Cope, McGrail, O’Sullivan and Acoustika would go on to form a new ten-piece Cope side project (also called Black Sheep) which included new cohorts such as drummer Antony "Antronhy Oh" Hodgkinson, "Fat Paul" Horlick and former Universal Panzies leader Christophe F. To date, Black Sheep has generated two further albums, both released in 2009 - ''Kiss My Sweet Apocalypse'' and ''Black Sheep at the BBC''. 2009 also saw the release of a fourth Brain Donor album (''Wasted Fuzz Excessive'') and the third Queen Elizabeth recording (''Queen Elizabeth Hall'').

Cope has continued to perform live in the UK and Europe: despite travelling to Armenia in 2003 for research, he has not toured professionally beyond Europe for several years. He was chosen by Belle & Sebastian to perform at their second Bowlie Weekender festival presented by All Tomorrow's Parties in the UK in December 2010.

Cope as author (1992 –present)

Autobiography

In the course of one of his many record company stand-offs, Cope began to write his first autobiographical book, ''Head-On'' which covered the years 1976 to 1982, focusing on Cope's time before and during the life of The Teardrop Explodes and ending with the break-up of the band. This was followed a few years later by ''Repossessed'', covering the years 1983 to 1989 and the recording of Cope's first series of solo albums, as well as the writing of ''Head-On'' (The books were republished in one volume in 2000, titled ''Head-On/Repossessed'').

Music commentary

Cope has long been noted as an avid champion of obscure and underground music. While still a member of The Teardrop Explodes, he was instrumental in the critical rehabilitation of the reclusive singer Scott Walker, compiling ''Fire Escape in the Sky: The Godlike Genius of Scott Walker'' for release by Bill Drummond's Zoo Records. This sparked renewed interest in the work of Walker (although years later Cope would comment that the singer’s "Pale White Intellectual" outlook on life no longer held any fascination for him).

''Krautrocksampler'', released in 1996 and now out of print, covers the German krautrock musical movement. Reviews at the time were ecstatic, Rolling Stone citing it as "a work of real passion and scholarship". ''NME'' agreed: "This is a superb book ... this is an extraordinary book." ''Mojo'' went further, writing: "Brilliantly researched, Krautrocksampler abounds with revelations, and Cope's enthusiasm verges on the lethal ... a sort of lysergic Lester Bangs." In the ''Sunday Times'', the reviewer wrote: "German 1970s minimalism is invading the British rock scene ... an Englishman is to blame ... Krautrocksampler is a lively history of a fascinating period, half encyclopedia, half psychedelic detective story." Before the publication of this book the genre itself had all but disappeared off the musical map; both the phrase and the genre are now firmly ingrained and have subsequently been heralded in the likes of Mojo and ''The Wire''. The book was also the subject of fierce controversy due to Cope's outspoken remarks that Can's ''Bel-Air'' was a "shambles" (though Can's drummer Jaki Liebezeit concurred with Cope's opinion). In the years to come, ''Krautrocksampler'' was also published in German, French and Italian language editions.

In October 2007, ''Japrocksampler'' was released, subtitled ''How the post war Japanese blew their minds on rock and roll''. This much larger hard back book (304 pp) was written in a similar style to ''Krautrocksampler'', but was a far more detailed study and took in the years 1951-78. It has been translated into Italian and Japanese.

His Album of the Month reviews on the Unsung section of his website have promoted bands such as Comets on Fire, Sunn O))) (with whom he performed a guest vocal on their White1 album) and several Japanese bands which feature in ''Japrocksampler''. Unsung is another community-based site that invites contributors' reviews, and Cope and the site's numerous contributors have been instrumental in kick-starting the interest in bands like Sir Lord Baltimore, Blue Cheer, Les Rallizes Denudes, Tractor and the Groundhogs. Cope is also considered to be one of the first bloggers; he has been airing his sometimes controversial views since 1998 via his website's "Address Drudion" on the first day of each month.

Archaeology and antiquarianism

1998 saw the release of Cope's long-awaited and widely-acclaimed bestseller ''The Modern Antiquarian'', a large and comprehensive full-colour 448-page work detailing stone circles and other ancient monuments of prehistoric Britain, which sold out of its first edition of 20,000 in its first month of publication and was accompanied by a BBC Two documentary. ''The Times'' called the book: "A ripping good read ... it is deeply impressive ... ancient history: the new rock 'n' roll." ''The Independent'' said: "A unique blend of information, observation, personal experience and opinion which is as unlike the normal run of archaeology books as you can imagine." The historian Ronald Hutton went further, calling the book: "the best popular guide to Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments for half a century."

''The Modern Antiquarian'' was followed in 2004 with an even larger 484-page study of similar monuments across Europe entitled ''The Megalithic European'', the most extensive study of European megalithic sites to date. In addition to his books on prehistoric monuments, Cope hosts a community-based Modern Antiquarian website that invites contributors to add their own knowledge of the ancient sites of the United Kingdom and Ireland. Cope has lectured nationally on the subject of prehistory, and also at the British Museum on the subjects of Avebury and Odin.

Personal life

Julian Cope lives near Avebury, Wiltshire with his wife, Dorian, and their two daughters, Albany (born 10 August 1991) and Avalon (born 29 April 1994).

Discography

Albums

1984 ''World Shut Your Mouth'' (UK #40)

1984 ''Fried'' (UK #87)

1987 ''Saint Julian'' (UK #11)

1988 ''My Nation Underground'' (UK #42)

1989 ''Skellington''

1990 ''Droolian''

1991 ''Peggy Suicide'' (UK #23), reissued with a second disc of extra material in 2009

1991 ''Peggy Suicide Radio Sessions'' (Japan)

1992 ''Jehovahkill'' (UK #20), reissued with a second disc of extra material in 2006

1993 ''Rite'' credited to Julian Cope and Donald Ross Skinner

1993 ''Ye Skellington Chronicles'' (an expanded version of ''Skellington'' along with the sequel ''Skellington 2'')

1994 ''Autogeddon'' (UK #16)

1995 ''20 Mothers'' (UK #20)

1996 ''Interpreter'' (UK #39)

1997 ''Rite 2''

1999 ''Odin''

2000 ''An Audience With the Cope 2000/2001''

2001 ''Discover Odin''

2002 ''Rite Now''

2003 ''Rome Wasn't Burned In A Day''

2004 ''Live Japan '91''

2005 ''Citizen Cain'd''

2005 ''Dark Orgasm''

2006 ''Rite Bastard''

2007 ''You Gotta Problem With Me''

2008 ''Black Sheep''

2009 ''Julian Cope Presents The Unruly Imagination''

2011 ''The Jehovacoat Demos''

Compilations

1992 ''Floored Genius - The Best Of Julian Cope And The Teardrop Explodes 1979-91'' (UK #22)

1993 ''Floored Genius 2 - Best of the BBC Sessions 1983-91'' (compilation of material recorded for BBC Radio)

1997 ''The Followers Of Saint Julian'' (rarities compilation)

1997 ''Leper Skin - An Introduction To Julian Cope'' ("best of")

2000 ''Floored Genius 3 - Julian Cope's Oddicon Of Lost Rarities & Versions 1978-98'' (rarities)

2002 ''The Collection'' (1983-1992)

2007 ''Christ vs Warhol'' (rarities)

2009 ''Floored Genius 4 - The Best of Foreign Radio, Rare TV Appearances, Festival Songs & Miscellaneous Lost Classics 1983-2009'' (rarities)

1986 "World Shut Your Mouth" (UK #19, Canada #97, US #84)

1987 "Trampolene" (UK #31)

1987 "Eve's Volcano (Covered in Sin)" (UK #41)

1988 "Charlotte Anne" (UK #35)

1988 "5 O'Clock World" (UK #42)

1988 "China Doll" (UK #53)

1991 "Beautiful Love" (UK #32)

1991 "Safesurfer"

1991 "East Easy Rider" (UK #51)

1991 "Head" (UK #57)

1992 "World Shut Your Mouth" (re-issue) (UK #44)

1992 "Fear Loves This Place" (UK #42)

1994 "Paranormal In The West Country"

1995 "Try, Try, Try" (UK #24)

1996 "I Come From Another Planet Baby" (UK #34)

1996 "I Come From Another Planet, Baby (Ambulence Remix)"

1996 "Planetary Sit-In" (UK #34)

1996 "Radio Sit-In"

1997 "Propheteering" (limited edition 7")

2008 "Preaching Revolution" EP (limited edition 7")

References

External links

Head Heritage - Julian Cope's own site

The Modern Antiquarian - An online community and resource on ancient sites in the UK & Ireland, inspired by Cope's book of the same name

Category:1957 births Category:English bass guitarists Category:English male singers Category:English songwriters Category:Music from Liverpool Category:People from Tamworth Category:Alumni of Liverpool John Moores University Category:Living people Category:Crucial Three members Category:The Teardrop Explodes members Category:English vegetarians Category:Scouse culture of the early 1980s

de:Julian Cope el:Τζούλιαν Κόουπ es:Julian Cope fr:Julian Cope it:Julian Cope ru:Коуп, Джулиан

In the English language, black sheep is an idiom used to describe an odd or disreputable member of a group, especially within a family. The term has typically been given negative implications, implying waywardness. It derived from the atypical and unwanted presence of other black individuals in flocks of white sheep.

The idiom is also found in other languages, e.g., French, Serbian, Bulgarian, Hebrew, Portuguese, Bosnian, Greek, Turkish, Dutch, Afrikaans, Swedish, Danish, Spanish, Czech, Slovak, Romanian and Polish. The same concept is illustrated in some other languages by the phrase "white crow": for example ''belaya vorona'' (белая ворона) in Russian and ''kalag-e sefid'' (کلاغ سفید) in Persian.

Idiomatic usage

The term originated from the occasional black sheep which are born into a flock of white sheep due to a genetic process of recessive traits. Black wool was considered commercially undesirable because it could not be dyed. In 18th and 19th century England, the black color of the sheep was seen as the mark of the devil. In modern usage, the expression has lost some of its negative connotations, though the term is usually given to the member of a group who has certain characteristics or lack thereof deemed undesirable by that group.

A variant form, "the red sheep of the family", was used by Jessica Mitford to describe herself, a communist in a family of aristocratic fascists.

Biological origin

In sheep, a white fleece is not albinism but a dominant gene that actively switches color production off, thus obscuring any other color that may be present. As a result, a black fleece in most sheep is recessive, so if a white ram and a white ewe are each heterozygous for black, in about 25% of cases they will produce a black lamb. In fact in most white sheep breeds only a few white sheep are heterozygous for black, so black lambs are usually much rarer than this. Some breeds of sheep (such as the Hebridean, Ouessant and Black Welsh Mountain) are normally black.

Other uses

In psychology, the ''black sheep effect'' refers to the tendency of a group to treat or evaluate members of one's own group who behave in a way such as to jeopardize the group's image, more harshly than similarly unlikable members of another group, while considering the former group as a whole to be superior to, or better or more deserving than the latter.

See also

Black swan theory

The Ugly Duckling

Scapegoat

Glossary of sheep husbandry: see entry for "black wool".

References

External links

Exploration of the etymology of the phrase "black sheep of the family."

Category:English idioms Category:Pejorative terms for people Category:Social psychology

de:Schwarzes Schaf es:Oveja negra fr:Mouton noir gl:Ovella negra it:Pecora nera pt:Ovelha negra ru:Белая ворона sv:Svart får

Coordinates	°′″N°′″N
name	Robert Mitchum
birth name
birth date	August 06, 1917
birth place	Bridgeport, Connecticut, U.S.
death date	July 01, 1997
death place	Santa Barbara, California, U.S.
occupation	Actor, author, composer, singer
years active	1942–96
spouse	Dorothy Spence (1940–97) }}

Robert Charles Durman Mitchum (August 6, 1917 – July 1, 1997) was an American film actor, author, composer and singer and is #23 on the American Film Institute's list of the greatest male American screen legends of all time. Mitchum rose to prominence for his starring roles in several major works of the film noir style, and is considered a forerunner of the anti-heroes prevalent in film during the 1950s and 1960s.

Early life and career

Mitchum was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, into a Methodist family. His mother, Ann Harriet (née Gunderson), was a Norwegian immigrant and sea captain's daughter, and his father, James Thomas Mitchum, was a shipyard and railroad worker. A sister, Annette, (known as Julie Mitchum during her acting career) was born in 1913. James Mitchum was crushed to death in a railyard accident in Charleston, South Carolina, in February 1919, when his son was less than 2 years old. After his death, Ann Mitchum was awarded a government pension, and soon realized she was pregnant. She returned to her family in Connecticut, and married a former British Army major who helped her care for the children. In September 1919 a second son, John, was born. When all of the children were old enough to attend school, Ann found employment as a linotype operator for the ''Bridgeport Post''.

Throughout Mitchum's childhood, he was known as a prankster, often involved in fistfights and mischief. When he was 12, his mother sent Mitchum to live with his grandparents in Felton, Delaware, where he was promptly expelled from his middle school for scuffling with a principal. A year later, in 1930, he moved in with his older sister, in New York's Hell's Kitchen. After being expelled from Haaran High School, he left his sister and traveled throughout the country on railroad cars, taking a number of jobs including as a ditch-digger for the Civilian Conservation Corps and as a professional boxer. He experienced numerous adventures during his years as one of the Depression era's "wild boys of the road." At age 14 in Savannah, Georgia, he was arrested for vagrancy and put on a local chain gang. By Mitchum's own account, he escaped and returned to his family in Delaware. It was during this time, while recovering from injuries that nearly lost him a leg, that he met the woman he would marry, a teenaged Dorothy Spence. He soon went back on the road, eventually riding the rails to California.

Mitchum arrived in Long Beach, California, in 1936, staying again with his sister Julie. Soon the rest of the Mitchum family joined them in Long Beach. During this time he worked as a ghostwriter for astrologer Carroll Righter. It was sister Julie who convinced him to join the local theater guild with her. In his years with the Players Guild of Long Beach, he made a living as a stagehand and occasional bit player in company productions. He also wrote several short pieces which were performed by the guild. According to Lee Server's biography (''Robert Mitchum: Baby, I Don't Care''), Mitchum put a talent for poetry to work writing song lyrics and monologues for his sister Julie's nightclub performances. In 1940 he returned East to marry Dorothy, taking her back to California. He remained a footloose character until the birth of their first child, Jim, nicknamed Josh (two more children would follow, Christopher and Petrine). Mitchum then got a steady job as a machine operator with the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation.

A nervous breakdown (which resulted in temporary blindness), apparently from job-related stress, led Mitchum to look for work as an actor or extra in movies. An agent he had met got him an interview with the producer of the ''Hopalong Cassidy'' series of B-westerns; he was hired to play the villain in several films in the series during 1942 and 1943. He continued to find further work as an extra and supporting actor in numerous productions for various studios. After impressing director Mervyn LeRoy during the making of ''Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo,'' Mitchum signed a seven-year contract with RKO Radio Pictures. He found himself groomed for B Western stardom in a series of Zane Grey adaptations.

Following the moderately successful western ''Nevada'', Mitchum was lent from RKO to United Artists for the William Wellman-helmed ''The Story of G.I. Joe''. In the film, he portrayed war-weary officer Bill Walker (based on Captain Henry T. Waskow), who remains resolute despite the troubles he faces. The film, which followed the life of an ordinary soldier through the eyes of journalist Ernie Pyle (played by Burgess Meredith), became an instant critical and commercial success. Shortly after making the film, Mitchum himself was drafted into the U.S. Army, serving at Fort MacArthur, California. At the 1946 Academy Awards, ''The Story of G.I. Joe'' was nominated for four Oscars, including Mitchum's only nomination for Best Supporting Actor. He finished the year off with a western (''West of the Pecos'') and a story of returning Marine veterans (''Till the End of Time''), before filming in a genre that came to define Mitchum's career and screen persona: film noir.

Work in film noir

Mitchum was initially known for his work in the film noir genre. His first entry into this world of dark crime stories was the well-regarded B-movie, ''When Strangers Marry'', about a serial killer. One of Mitchum's early film noir outings, ''Undercurrent,'' featured him playing against type as a troubled, sensitive man entangled in the affairs of his brother (Robert Taylor) and his brother's suspicious wife (Katharine Hepburn). The ill-received film was director Vincente Minnelli's only film noir.

John Brahm's ''The Locket'' (1946) featured Mitchum as a bitter ex-husband to Laraine Day's ''femme fatale'', while the Raoul Walsh directed ''Pursued'' (1947) combined the western with film noir, with Mitchum's character trying to remember his past and find those responsible for killing his family. ''Crossfire'' (also 1947), featured Mitchum as a member of a group of soldiers, one of whom killed a Jew. It featured themes of anti-Semitism and the failings of military training. The film, directed by Edward Dmytryk, gained five Academy Award nominations.

Following ''Crossfire,'' Mitchum starred in ''Out of the Past'' (aka ''Build My Gallows High''), directed by Jacques Tourneur and benefiting from the cinematography of Nicholas Musuraca. Mitchum played Jeff Markham, a small-town gas station owner whose unfinished business with gambler Whit Sterling (Kirk Douglas) and ''femme fatale'' Kathie Moffett (Jane Greer), comes back to haunt him. Though ignored by most critics on its release, the film was a modest box office hit at the time and has received a positive reappraisal. Mitchum was photographed again by Musuraca in the Robert Wise "psychological western" ''Blood on the Moon'' the following year.

On September 1, 1948, after a string of successful films for RKO, Mitchum and actress Lila Leeds were arrested for possession of marijuana. The arrest was the result of a sting operation designed to capture other Hollywood partiers as well, but Mitchum and Leeds did not receive the tip-off. After serving a week at the county jail, (he described the experience to a reporter as being "like Palm Springs, but without the riff-raff") Mitchum spent 43 days (February 16 to March 30) at a Castaic, California, prison farm, with ''Life'' magazine photographers right there taking photos of him mopping up in his prison uniform. The arrest became the inspiration for the exploitation film ''She Shoulda Said No!'' (1949), which starred Leeds. The arrest did little to affect Mitchum's career in the long term, but was seen as an embarrassment by his studio, who ordered Mitchum to clean up his act. The conviction was later overturned by the Los Angeles court and District Attorney's office on January 31, 1951, with the following statement, after it was exposed as a set-up:

Despite troubles with the law and his studio, the films released immediately after his arrest were box-office hits. ''Rachel and the Stranger'' (1948) featured Mitchum in a supporting role as a mountain man competing for the hand of Loretta Young, the indentured servant and wife of William Holden, while he appeared in the film adaptation of John Steinbeck's novella ''The Red Pony'' (1949) as a trusted cowhand to a ranching family.

Mitchum returned to true ''film noir'' in ''The Big Steal'' (also 1949), where he again joined Jane Greer in an early Don Siegel film.

Career in the 1950s and 1960s

In ''Where Danger Lives'' (1950) he played a doctor who comes between a mentally unbalanced Faith Domergue and cuckolded Claude Rains. ''The Racket'' was a noir remake of the early crime drama of the same name and featured Mitchum as a police captain fighting corruption in his precinct. The Josef von Sternberg film ''Macao'' (1952) saw Mitchum a victim of mistaken identity at an exotic resort casino, playing opposite Jane Russell. Otto Preminger's ''Angel Face'' was the first of three collaborations between Mitchum and British stage actress Jean Simmons. In the film, Simmons plays an insane heiress who plans to use young ambulance driver Mitchum to kill for her.

Mitchum's cynical, mischievous attitude through his career had led him to shrug off fame as a fluke. His expulsion from ''Blood Alley'' (1955) is frequently attributed to his pranks, especially one in which he reportedly threw the film's transportation manager into San Francisco Bay. According to Sam O'Steen's memoir, ''Cut to the Chase'', Mitchum showed up on set after a night of drinking and tore apart a studio office when they didn't have a car ready for him. Mitchum walked off the set of the third day of filming ''Blood Alley'', claiming he could not work with the director. Because he was showing up late and behaving erratically, producer John Wayne, after failing to obtain Humphrey Bogart as a replacement, took over the role himself.

Following a series of conventional westerns and films noirs, including the Marilyn Monroe vehicle ''River of No Return'' (1954), he appeared in Charles Laughton's only film as director, ''The Night of the Hunter'' (1955). Based on a novel by Davis Grubb, the film noir thriller starred Mitchum as a monstrous criminal posing as a preacher to find money hidden by his cellmate in the cellmate's home. His performance as Reverend Harry Powell is considered by many to be one of the best of his career. Stanley Kramer's melodrama ''Not as a Stranger'' though, also released in 1955, was a box office hit for Mitchum. The film starred Mitchum against type, as an idealistic young doctor, who marries an older nurse (Olivia de Havilland), only to question his morality many years later. However, the film was not well received, with most critics pointing out that Mitchum, Frank Sinatra and Lee Marvin were all too old for their characters.

Following a succession of average westerns and the poorly received ''Foreign Intrigue'' (1956), Mitchum starred in the first of three films with British actress Deborah Kerr. The John Huston war drama ''Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison'' starred Mitchum as a marine corporal shipwrecked on a Pacific Island with a nun, Sister Angela (Deborah Kerr), being his sole companion. In this character study they struggle to resist the elements and the invading Japanese army. The film was nominated for two Academy Awards, including Best Actress and Best Adapted Screenplay. For his role, Mitchum was nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Foreign Actor.

Thunder Road (1958) was loosely based on an incident in which a driver transporting moonshine was said to have crashed to his death on Kingston Pike in Knoxville, Tennessee somewhere between Bearden Hill and Morrell Road. According to Metro Pulse writer Jack Renfro, the incident occurred in 1952 and may have been witnessed by James Agee, who passed the story on to Mitchum–who not only starred in the movie, but also produced the film, co-wrote the screenplay, and is rumored to have directed much of the film himself. Mitchum also co-wrote (with Don Raye) the theme song, "The Ballad of Thunder Road."

Mitchum and Kerr reunited for the Fred Zinnemann film, ''The Sundowners'' (1960), where they played husband and wife struggling in Depression-era Australia. Opposite Mitchum, Kerr was nominated for yet another Academy Award for Best Actress, while the film was nominated for a total of five Oscars. Robert Mitchum was awarded that year's National Board of Review award for Best Actor for his performance. The award also recognized his superior performance in the Vincente Minnelli western drama ''Home from the Hill'' (also 1960). He was teamed with both Kerr and previous leading lady Jean Simmons as well as Cary Grant for the extremely offbeat Stanley Donen ensemble comedy ''The Grass Is Greener'' the same year.

Mitchum's performance as the menacing southern rapist Max Cady in ''Cape Fear'' (1962) brought him even more attention and furthered his renown as playing cool, predatory characters. The 1960s were marked by a number of lesser films and missed opportunities. Among the films Mitchum passed on during the decade was John Huston's ''The Misfits'', the last film of its stars Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe, the Academy Award–winning ''Patton'', and ''Dirty Harry''. The most notable of his films in the decade included the war epics ''The Longest Day'' (1962) and ''Anzio'' (1968), the Shirley MacLaine comedy-musical ''What a Way to Go!'' (1964), and the Howard Hawks western ''El Dorado'' (1966), a remake of ''Rio Bravo'' (1959), in which Mitchum took over Dean Martin's role of the drunk who comes to the aid of John Wayne.

Music career

One of the lesser known aspects of Mitchum's career was his forays into music, both as singer and composer

Mitchum's voice was often used instead of that of a professional singer when his characters sang in his films. Notable productions featuring Mitchum's own singing voice included ''Rachel and the Stranger'', ''River of No Return'' and ''The Night of the Hunter''. After hearing traditional calypso music and meeting artists such as Mighty Sparrow and Lord Invader while filming ''Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison'' in the Caribbean island of Tobago, he recorded ''Calypso — is like so...'' in March 1957. On the album, released through Capitol Records, he emulated the calypso sound and style, even adopting the style's unique pronunciations and slang. A year later he recorded a song he had written for the film ''Thunder Road'', titled "The Ballad of Thunder Road". The country-styled song became a modest hit for Mitchum, reaching #69 on the Billboard Pop Singles Chart. The song was included as a bonus track on a successful reissue of ''Calypso...'' and helped market the film to a wider audience.

Though Mitchum continued to use his singing voice in his film work, he waited until 1967 to record his follow-up record, ''That Man, Robert Mitchum, Sings''. The album, released by Nashville-based Monument Records, took him further into country music, and featured songs similar to ''The Ballad of Thunder Road''. "Little Old Wine Drinker Me," the first single, was a top ten hit at country radio, reaching #9 there, and crossed over onto mainstream radio, where it peaked at #96. Its follow-up, "You Deserve Each Other," also charted on the Billboard Country Singles Chart.

Mitchum also co-wrote and composed the music for an oratorio which was produced by Orson Welles at the Hollywood Bowl.

Albums

! Year	! Album	! width="45"	! Label
1957	''Calypso — is like so...''		Capitol
1967	''That Man Robert Mitchum...Sings''		Monument

Singles

Year	Single	Chart Positions		Album
		! width="50"	! width="50"
1958	"The Ballad of Thunder Road"
1962	"The Ballad of Thunder Road" (re-release)
	"Little Old Wine Drinker Me"
"You Deserve Each Other"

Later career

Mitchum made a departure from his typical screen persona with the 1970 David Lean film ''Ryan's Daughter'', in which he starred as Charles Shaughnessy, a mild-mannered schoolmaster in World War I era Ireland. Though the film was nominated for four Academy Awards (winning two) and Mitchum was much publicized as a contender for a Best Actor nomination, he was not nominated. George C. Scott won the award for his performance in ''Patton,'' a project which Mitchum had rejected for ''Ryan's Daughter.''

The 1970s featured Mitchum in a number of well-received crime dramas. ''The Friends of Eddie Coyle'' (1973) saw the actor playing an aging Boston hoodlum caught between the Feds and his criminal friends. Sydney Pollack's ''The Yakuza'' (1975) transplanted the typical film noir story arc to the Japanese underworld. Mitchum's stint as an aging Philip Marlowe in the Raymond Chandler adaptation ''Farewell, My Lovely'' (1975) was well-received by audiences and critics. He also appeared in 1976's ''Midway'' about an epic 1942 World War II battle. He reprised the Marlowe role in 1978's ''The Big Sleep''.

In 1982, Mitchum went on location to Scranton, Pennsylvania, to play Coach Delaney in the film adaptation of playwright/actor Jason Miller's 1973 Pulitzer Prize winning play ''That Championship Season''. He played a hard-boiled, bigoted coach whose former star players continue to swear allegiance to him, with one exception.

Mitchum expanded into the medium of television with the 1983 miniseries ''The Winds of War''. The big-budget Herman Wouk story aired on ABC and starred Mitchum as naval officer "Pug" Henry, and examined the events leading up to America's involvement in World War II. He followed it in 1988 with ''War and Remembrance'', which followed America through the war, and returned to the big screen for a memorable supporting role in Bill Murray's ''Scrooged''.

In 1987, Mitchum was the guest host on ''Saturday Night Live'' where he played private eye Phillip Marlowe for the last time in the parody sketch, "Death Be Not Deadly". The show also ran a short comedy film he made (written and directed by his daughter, Trina) called ''Out of Gas''. This was a mock sequel to his 1947 classic ''Out of the Past''. Jane Greer reprised her role from the original film.

In 1991, he won a lifetime achievement award from the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures and the Cecil B. DeMille Award from the Golden Globe Awards in 1992.

Though Mitchum continued to appear in films throughout the 1990s, such as ''Tombstone'', Jim Jarmusch's ''Dead Man,'' and appeared in contrast to his role as the antagonist in the original, a protagonist police detective in Martin Scorsese's remake of ''Cape Fear'', the actor gradually slowed his workload. His last film appearance was in the television biopic, ''James Dean: Race with Destiny.'' His last starring role was in the 1995 Norwegian movie ''Pakten''.

Death

Mitchum died on July 1, 1997, in Santa Barbara, California, due to complications of lung cancer and emphysema. He was survived by his wife of 57 years, Dorothy Mitchum, and actor sons, James Mitchum, Christopher Mitchum, and daughter Petrina (Trina) Mitchum. His grandchildren, Bentley Mitchum and Carrie Mitchum, are also actors, as was his younger brother John Mitchum, who died in 2001. His other grandson, Kian Mitchum, is a successful model.

Legacy

Mitchum is regarded by critics as one of the finest actors of the Golden Age of Hollywood. Roger Ebert called him 'the soul of film noir'. Mitchum himself, however, was self-effacing; in an interview with Barry Norman for the BBC about his contribution to cinema, Mitchum stopped Norman in mid flow and in his typical phlegmatic style said, "Look! I have two kinds of acting. One on a horse and one off a horse. That's it." He had also succeeded in annoying some of his fellow actors by voicing his puzzlement at those who viewed the profession as challenging and hard work, saying that acting was actually very simple and that his job was to "show up on time, know his lines, hit his marks, and go home."

Interviewer Larry King has said on a number of occasions that Mitchum's interview was his most challenging. Mitchum, a man of few words, tended to answer simply "Yes" or "No" to many of King's questions.

He was the voice of the famous American Beef Council commercials that touted "''Beef . . . it's what's for dinner''", from the early 1980s, until his death.

Filmography

Features

''Hoppy Serves a Writ'' (1943)

''The Human Comedy'' (1943)

''Aerial Gunner'' (1943)

''Border Patrol'' (1943)

''Follow the Band'' (1943)

''Leather Burners'' (1943)

''Colt Comrades'' (1943)

''We've Never Been Licked'' (1943)

''Lone Star Trail'' (1943)

''Beyond the Last Frontier'' (1943)

''Corvette K-225'' (1943)

''Bar 20'' (1943)

''Doughboys in Ireland'' (1943)

''False Colors'' (1943)

''Minesweeper'' (1943)

''The Dancing Masters'' (1943)

''Cry 'Havoc''' (1943) (uncredited)

''Riders of the Deadline'' (1943)

''Gung Ho!'' (1943)

''Johnny Doesn't Live Here Any More'' (1944)

''Mr. Winkle Goes to War'' (1944)

''When Strangers Marry'' (1944)

''Girl Rush'' (1944)

''Thirty Seconds over Tokyo'' (1944)

''Nevada'' (1944)

''The Story of G.I. Joe'' (1945)

''West of the Pecos'' (1945)

''Till the End of Time'' (1946)

''Undercurrent'' (1946)

''The Locket'' (1946)

''Pursued'' (1947)

''Crossfire'' (1947)

''Desire Me'' (1947)

''Out of the Past'' (1947)

''Rachel and the Stranger'' (1948)

''Blood on the Moon'' (1948)

''The Red Pony'' (1949)

''The Big Steal'' (1949)

''Holiday Affair'' (1949)

''Where Danger Lives'' (1950)

''My Forbidden Past'' (1951)

''His Kind of Woman'' (1951)

''The Racket'' (1951)

''Macao'' (1952)

''One Minute to Zero'' (1952)

''The Lusty Men'' (1952)

''Angel Face'' (1952)

''White Witch Doctor'' (1953)

''Second Chance'' (1953)

''She Couldn't Say No'' (1954)

''River of No Return'' (1954)

''Track of the Cat'' (1954)

''Not as a Stranger'' (1955)

''The Night of the Hunter'' (1955)

''Man with the Gun'' (1955)

''Foreign Intrigue'' (1956)

''Bandido'' (1956)

''Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison'' (1957)

''Fire Down Below'' (1957)

''The Enemy Below'' (1957)

''Thunder Road'' (1958)

''The Hunters'' (1958)

''The Angry Hills'' (1959)

''The Wonderful Country'' (1959)

''Home from the Hill'' (1960)

''A Terrible Beauty'' (1960)

''The Sundowners'' (1960)

''The Grass Is Greener'' (1960)

''The Last Time I Saw Archie'' (1961)

''Cape Fear'' (1962)

''The Longest Day'' (1962)

''Two for the Seesaw'' (1962)

''The List of Adrian Messenger'' (1963)

''Rampage'' (1963 film)

''Man in the Middle'' (1963)

''What a Way to Go!'' (1964)

''Mister Moses'' (1965)

''El Dorado'' (1966)

''The Way West'' (1967)

''Villa Rides'' (1968)

''Anzio'' (1968)

''5 Card Stud'' (1968)

''Secret Ceremony'' (1968)

''Young Billy Young'' (1969)

''The Good Guys and the Bad Guys'' (1969)

''Ryan's Daughter'' (1970)

''Going Home'' (1971)

''The Wrath of God'' (1972)

''The Friends of Eddie Coyle'' (1973)

''The Yakuza'' (1974)

''Farewell, My Lovely'' (1975)

''Midway'' (1976)

''The Last Tycoon'' (1976)

''The Amsterdam Kill'' (1977)

''The Big Sleep'' (1978)

''Matilda'' (1978)

''Breakthrough'' (1979)

''Agency'' (1980)

''Nightkill'' (1980)

''That Championship Season'' (1982)

''One Shoe Makes It Murder'' (1982) (TV)

''The Ambassador'' (1984)

''A Killer In the Family'' (1983) (TV)

''The Winds of War'' TV mini-series (1983)

''Maria's Lovers'' (1984)

''Reunion at Fairborough'' (1985)

''Remembering Marilyn'' (1987) (documentary)

''War and Remembrance'' TV mini-series (1988)

''Mr. North'' (1988)

''Scrooged'' (1988)

''Brotherhood of the Rose'' (1989) TV movie

''John Huston: The Man, the Movies, the Maverick'' (1989) (documentary)

''Midnight Ride'' (1990)

''Supposedly Dangerous'' (1990)

''Cape Fear (1991)

''The Seven Deadly Sins'' (1992)

''Woman of Desire'' (1993)

''Tombstone'' (1993) (narrator)

''Backfire!'' (1995)

''Dead Man'' (1995)

''Waiting for Sunset'' (1995)

''Wild Bill: Hollywood Maverick'' (1996) (documentary)

Short subjects

''The Magic of Make-up'' (1942)

''Screen Snapshots: Hollywood Goes to Bat'' (1950)

''Waiting for the Wind'' (1990)

Discography

Albums

''Calypso — is like so...'' (1957, Capitol)

''That Man, Robert Mitchum, Sings'' (1967, Monument) Country: #35

Singles

"The Ballad of Thunder Road" (1958, Capitol) Pop: #62

"Little Old Wine Drinker Me" (1967, Monument) Country: #9 Pop: #96

"You Deserve Each Other" (1967, Monument) Country: #55

Further reading

Mike Tomkies ''The Robert Mitchum Story, "It Sure Beats Working"'' Ballantine Books, 1972, ISBN 0-345-23484-7

John Mitchum ''Them Ornery Mitchum Boys, The Adventures of Robert and John Mitchum'', Creatures at Large, 1989, ISBN 0-940064-07-3

TCM Film Guide, "Leading Men: The 50 Most Unforgettable Actors of the Studio Era", Chronicle Books, San Francisco, California, 2006, ISBN 0-8118-5467-1

References

External links

Profile @ Turner Classic Movies

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Photographs and literature

Category:1917 births Category:1997 deaths Category:American Methodists Category:Actors from Connecticut Category:American film actors Category:Cancer deaths in California Category:Cecil B. DeMille Award Golden Globe winners Category:Civilian Conservation Corps people Category:Deaths from emphysema Category:Deaths from lung cancer Category:American people of Norwegian descent Category:People from Bridgeport, Connecticut Category:Western (genre) film actors

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