Editing Robert Mitchum (section)

==Early life==
[[File:Robert Mitchum by László Josef Willinger, 1946.jpg|left|thumb|175px|Mitchum in 1946]]

Robert Charles Durman Mitchum was born in [[Bridgeport, Connecticut]], on August 6, 1917, into a [[Methodist]] family of [[Scotch-Irish Americans|Scots-Irish]], [[Native Americans in the United States|Native American]], and [[Norwegians|Norwegian]] descent.{{sfn|Roberts|1992|p=12}}{{sfn|Server|2001|p=5}}<ref name="LAT2001">{{cite news |last1=Thomson |first1=David |title=The Man With the Immoral Face |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-may-06-bk-59811-story.html |access-date=February 5, 2024 |work=[[Los Angeles Times]] |date=May 6, 2001 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220829183356/https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-may-06-bk-59811-story.html |archive-date=August 29, 2022 |url-status=live}}</ref> His father, James Thomas Mitchum, a shipyard and railroad worker, was of Scots-Irish and Native American descent,{{sfn|Roberts|1992|p=12}}{{sfn|Server|2001|p=3}}<ref name="LAT2001"/>{{refn|group=note|According to Mitchum, his Native American ancestors came from [[South Carolina]] and both his paternal grandparents were half-[[Blackfoot Confederacy|Blackfoot Indian]].{{sfn|Cavett|1971}}{{sfn|Roberts|2000|p=115}}}} and his mother, Ann Harriet Gunderson, was a Norwegian immigrant and [[sea captain]]'s daughter.{{sfn|Server|2001|p=3}}<ref name="LAT2001"/> His older sister, Annette (known as [[Julie Mitchum]] during her acting career),{{sfn|Server|2001|p=68}} was born in 1914.{{sfn|Server|2001|p=4}} James was crushed to death in a railyard accident in [[Charleston, South Carolina]], in February 1919.{{sfn|Server|2001|pp=5–6}} Ann was pregnant at the time, and was awarded a government pension. She returned to [[Connecticut]] after staying for some time in her husband's hometown of [[Lane, South Carolina]]. Her third child, [[John Mitchum|John]], was born in September 1919.{{sfn|Server|2001|pp=5–6}}{{refn|group=note|John later also became an actor.<ref>{{cite news |last1=McLellan |first1=Dennis |title=Actor John Mitchum, 82, Dies |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/2001/12/03/actor-john-mitchum-82-dies/a00f4c93-5fc2-42e7-bd3b-a68158e5edf0/ |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |access-date=August 2, 2023 |date=December 3, 2001}}</ref>}}

When all of the children were old enough to attend school, Ann found employment as a [[linotype machine|linotype]] operator for the ''[[Connecticut Post|Bridgeport Post]]''.{{sfn|Server|2001|p=8}} She married Lieutenant Hugh "The Major" Cunningham Morris, a former [[Royal Naval Reserve]] officer. They had a daughter, Carol Morris, born {{circa|1928|lk=no}} on the family farm in [[Delaware]].{{sfn|Tomkies|1973|pp=5–6}}

As a child, Mitchum was known as a prankster, often involved in fistfights and mischief.<ref name="SatEvePost"/>{{sfn|Server|2001|pp=11, 14–15}} In 1926, his mother sent him and his younger brother to live with her parents on a farm near [[Woodside, Delaware]].{{sfn|Roberts|1992|p=12}}{{sfn|Server|2001|p=12}} He attended Felton High School,{{sfn|Server|2001|p=13}} where he was expelled for mischief.{{sfn|Server|2001|pp=17–18}} During his years at the Felton school, he ran away from home for the first time at age 11.{{sfn|Roberts|1992|pp=12, 25}}{{sfn|Server|2001|p=16}}
 
In 1929, Mitchum and his younger brother were sent to [[Philadelphia]] to live with their older sister, Julie,{{sfn|Roberts|1992|p=25}} who had started her career as a performer in vaudeville acts on the [[East Coast of the United States|East Coast]].{{sfn|Server|2001|p=19}} The following year, he and the rest of the family moved to [[New York City|New York]] with Julie, sharing an apartment in [[Manhattan]]'s [[Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan|Hell's Kitchen]] with her and her husband.{{sfn|Roberts|1992|p=25}}{{sfn|Server|2001|pp=19–20}} Mitchum attended [[Haaren High School]]{{sfn|Server|2001|p=20}} but was eventually expelled.{{sfn|Tomkies|1973|pp=7–8}}

Mitchum left home at age 14{{sfn|Server|2001|pp=23–24}} and traveled throughout the country, [[Freighthopping|hopping freight cars]]{{sfn|Server|2001|pp=25–26}} and taking a number of jobs, including ditch digging, fruit picking, and dishwashing.<ref name="SatEvePost"/>{{sfn|Server|2001|p=28}} In the summer of 1933, he was arrested for vagrancy in [[Savannah, Georgia]] and put in a local [[chain gang]].<ref name="SatEvePost">{{cite magazine | last = Davidson | first = Bill | date = August 25, 1962 | title = The Many Moods of Robert Mitchum | magazine = [[The Saturday Evening Post]] | location = Indianapolis, Indiana | publisher = [[Curtis Publishing Company]] | issn = 0048-9239 | pages = 58–70|url=http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/wp-content/uploads/satevepost/robert-mitchum-1962.pdf|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130726034508/http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/wp-content/uploads/satevepost/robert-mitchum-1962.pdf|archive-date=July 26, 2013|url-status=live}}</ref>{{sfn|Roberts|1992|p=13}}<ref name="LAT1994">{{cite news |last1=Champlin |first1=Charles |title=One Icon, Hard-Boiled |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-10-02-ca-45639-story.html |access-date=August 25, 2023 |work=[[Los Angeles Times]] |date=October 2, 1994 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230328205918/https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-10-02-ca-45639-story.html |archive-date=March 28, 2023|url-status=live}}</ref>{{refn|group=note|Mitchum talked about his chain gang experience in the 1962 ''[[Saturday Evening Post]]'' interview: "I had hopped a freight train with about seventeen other kids and headed South. In my pocket I had thirty-eight dollars – all I had in the world. When we reached Savannah, I was cold and hungry. So I dropped off to get something to eat. The big fuzz grabbed me. 'For what?' I asked. He grinned. 'Vagrancy – we don't like Yankee bums around here.' When I told him I had thirty-eight dollars, he just called me a so-and-so wise guy and belted me with his club and ran me in."<ref name="SatEvePost"/>}} By Mitchum's account, he escaped and hitchhiked to [[Rising Sun, Delaware]], where his family had moved.<ref name="SatEvePost"/>{{sfn|Eells|1984|pp=29–30}} That fall, at age 16, while recovering from injuries that nearly cost him a leg, he met 14-year-old Dorothy Spence, whom he would later marry.{{sfn|Tomkies|1973|pp=22–24}}{{sfn|Roberts|1992|p=13}}<ref name="variety"/>

Mitchum worked for the [[Civilian Conservation Corps]] for a few months, digging ditches and planting trees, before going back on the road in July 1934.{{sfn|Tomkies|1973|pp=24–25}}<ref name="SatEvePost"/> He headed for [[Long Beach, California]], where his older sister had moved with her husband.{{sfn|Server|2001|pp=32, 35–37}}<ref name="Biography">{{cite web|url=https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/person/133126%7C132297/Robert-Mitchum|title=Biography: Robert Mitchum|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170622034520/http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/person/133126%7C132297/Robert-Mitchum/ |archive-date=June 22, 2017|website=[[Turner Classic Movies]]|access-date=March 20, 2015|url-status=live}}</ref> The rest of the family soon also arrived and moved in with Julie.{{sfn|Server|2001|p=39}} For the next three years, Mitchum continued traveling across the country and taking various jobs.{{sfn|Server|2001|p=40}} He participated in 27 professional boxing matches but retired from the ring after a fight that broke his nose and left a scar on his left eye.<ref name="time1968">{{cite magazine |title=Actors: Waiting for a Poisoned Peanut |url=https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,838572-1,00.html |access-date=July 12, 2024 |magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]] |date=August 16, 1968 |pages=54–55}}</ref>{{sfn|Tomkies|1973|pp=32–33}}{{refn|group=note|Later, when asked by a casting office if he had considered having his nose surgically fixed, Mitchum replied, "It's already been fixed, by about four left hooks."<ref name="LAT1994"/>}}