Actors: Waiting for a Poisoned Peanut

"Every two or three years, I knock off for a while," drawls Robert Mitchurn. "That way I'm constantly the new girl in the whorehouse." By that bizarre standard, this has been the bordello's busy season. This summer, three of Mitchum's features are on the circuit. In Anzio, a 1944 comic-strip war picture that happened to be filmed in 1967, he plays a hard-nosed, softhearted war correspondent. In 5 Card Stud, he is a murderous preacher who totes a pistol in a hollowed-out Bible. Villa Rides!, a Mexican western, displays Mitchum as an aviator of fortune who pilots a biplane for the bandoleros.

All three films do nothing to disturb the widespread image of Mitchum as a handsome side of beef, a kind of swaggering, heavy-lidded Victor Mature. That may be the public's view of Mitchum, but Hollywood knows better. At 51, after 64 pictures, Mitchum is still a star to contend with. More than that, he is one of the most respected professionals in the business, a no-nonsense actor who is never late on the set and knows his lines cold. Directors, writers and other stars admire the force and the surprising nuances he can bring to even the tackiest one-dimensional role. Just about the only one who continually puts Mitchum down is Mitchum himself. In Arizona, on the set of his new film, Who Rides with Kane, he derided his familiar part (a vengeful hired gun) in an interview with TIME Correspondent Tim Tyler.

"Every time the same role," complained Mitchum. "I'm wearing the same damn hat and the same damn boots I wore in 5 Card Stud." The money—he will earn $200,000 in salary, plus 27% of the gross—and the attendant fame are so many pebbles in his boots, he insists. "The Man takes the money in taxes. I live in a cage. Some day somebody's going to feed me a poisoned peanut."

Sticky Label. Like a drunken cowpoke shooting up the town, Mitchum likes to spatter his remarks through a boozy haze. Sometimes he misses. Sometimes he hits. But he never runs out of ammunition. A new script? "I just look at the contract and see how many days off I get." His favorite picture? "I don't go to the movies." Acting schools? "I suppose it keeps them off the streets." The Method? "Today every fruit figures he must be an actor. So he gets a diploma from Lee Strasberg. But how many have you heard of?" Movie fans? "There are the peekers and the doers." The implication is clear. Almost everyone else peeks. Mitchum does.

Surprisingly, the label sticks. Mitchum has been doing for a long time. The son of a Bridgeport, Conn., railroad switchman, he kicked around as a deck hand, a coal miner and a CCC ditch digger, and even turned professional boxer for 27 fights. In his final match, an opponent inadvertently made Mitchum a star. "That guy had my nose over to one side," he recalls, "gave me a scar on my left eye, had me all messed up, so I quit." The slightly dented face helped him win a job as a light heavy in a Hopalong Cassidy picture. He soon rose to a major role in The Story of G.I. Joe and won an Oscar nomination. Characteristically, he refused to show up for the ceremonies. There have been no other nominations for him.