Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Robert Mitchum's Nuts


Rolling Stone, 15 March 1973, p. 36

The Last Celluloid Desperado

By Grover Lewis

[Actor Robert Mitchum, "visibly sloshed" after a late lunch, clowns around outside his camper on the set of The Friends of Eddie Coyle. With him are the director, Peter Yates, actor Alex Rocco and Tim Wallace, "his long-time stand-in and constant crony."]

"Listen, you guys, I gotta tell this story on Bob here. He was ballin' this babe one time, see. He was in the saddle, see, and his nuts was swingin' back and forth in the air, see. And this babe's dog jumps up on the bed and takes his nuts in his mouth, see. Big sonofabitch -- "

"The dog was like half Great Dane and half bull mastiff," Mitchum muses. "Like a pony."

"Huge sonofabitch."

Mitchum nods. "Yeah, big yellow-eyed mother."

"So I walk into the room by accident, see, and this dog has hold of Bob's nuts like a retriever would hold a bird. I couldn't help it -- I started laughin' -- "

Mitchum grins. "I told him, don't laugh. I very slowly got, uh...disengaged. And I smacked that motherin' dog -- whap! -- clear across the room. I woulda shot it if I'd had a gun."

"I tellya, I had water in my eyes from laughin' so hard at 'im. There was water all over the place, in fact. The bed was wet, you can bet your sweet ass on that." Wallace cackles shrilly, then fixes the writer with a stern glare: "Don't put that in your fuckin' magazine, friend. It's a true fuckin' story, but jeez -- Bob's wife, you know..."