Robert Michum: The Last Celluloid Desperado
Over at the Beacon Street boundary of the Commons, a sleek black limo driven by a bullet headed Teamster named Harry docks at the curb, and Mitchum alights, wearing pitch-black shades and a dark topcoat. There's a hush as he walks leisurely down the grassy glade toward the camera setup, moving in the loose, powerful stride that's known in the trade as the Mitchum Ramble. On the way, squaring his door-wide shoulders, he surveys the park's gnarled trees, the coveys of pigeons wheeling overhead, the State House dome glowing gold in the distance, the crowd of hushed onlookers in their orange-lined styrofoam parkas. Mitchum is a massive hulk of a man, with a jowly face battered as a used VW bus. Silently, he shakes hands with Yates. "Where we at, dad?" he asks.
As Yates smiles and begins to explain the setup, Mitchum glances around at the individual members of the crew, nodding, counting heads. Portnoy flashes him a sickly smile. Mitchum looks at Portnoy and doesn't see him. Does not see him. Mitchum, it turns out, looks at a lot of people that way.
From “Robert Michum: The Last Celluloid Desperado” by Grover Lewis for Rolling Stone, 1973
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