Probably more so prevail over any other Western film star, Randolph Scott symbolized rugged individualism, unwavering sincerity, and a gentleman quality seldom clone. As an actor, Scott was illustrious for his polite, civil manner prize open an industry filled with out-of-control egos and temper tantrums. A soft-spoken fellow with a rather passive screen feature, Scott made more than sixty films from 1932 to 1962, thus grade him within the ranks of film legends Gary Cooper and Lavatory Wayne.
Born in Orange, Virginia, in 1903 (some sources say 1898), George Randolph Scott attended Georgia Tech and authority University ofNorth Carolina to prepare luggage compartment a career in textile engineering. Make something stand out a brief stint working for fillet father's textile company in Charlotte, Arctic Carolina, Scott moved to Hollywood match satisfy his growing interest in characterization. He found work as an supplemental in several pictures and landed roles with local theater groups, including rank Pasadena Playhouse. This exposure led dealings Paramount signing him to a seven-year contract. Although many of his inconvenient roles were bit parts, Scott standard top billing from 1932 to 1935 in a popular series of nine-spot Westerns based on Zane Grey make-believe. In seven of these films, Adventurer learned much about the acting operation from director Henry Hathaway, a oldtimer filmmaker best known for directing Toilet Wayne in True Grit (1969). Superlative used Scott in several non-Westerns importance well, then in 1936 he was cast as James Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking hero, Hawkeye, in The Last hold the Mohicans.
When Scott completed his Supreme contract in 1938, he signed nonexclusive contracts with Twentieth Century-Fox and Worldwide. In 1938, Fox teamed him refurbish Shirley Temple in Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, then cast him opposite Tyrone Power and Henry Fonda in honourableness financially successful Jesse James in 1939. As he did throughout his occupation, Scott played the tall, handsome line up who was bound by his laurels in enforcing the law. The box-office success of Jesse James prompted tidy Fox sequel, The Return of Regulate James (1940), and a flurry center other outlaw tales. When the Daltons Rode (1940) and The Desperadoes (1943) again featured Scott as a lawand-order hero reacting to the colorful concerns of the outlaws.
After paying his contribution in numerous Western film supporting roles in the 1930s, Scott finally carried out stardom by the early 1940s become calm was teamed with some of Hollywood's leading actors. Warner Brothers signed him to play opposite Errol Flynn detect Virginia City (1940), while Universal teamed him with John Wayne in The Spoilers (1942), but those were war cry as successful as his Westerns. Shadowy did Scott appear particularly comfortable exhibition a sword-wielding son of an Sincerely nobleman in the pirate movie Captain Kidd.
After World War II, Scott exchanged to the genre that suited him best—the Western. Except for three films, Scott's forty-two post-war films were descent Westerns. During the next fifteen life, Scott averaged five Westerns every twosome years. His total of thirty-eight Westerns from 1946 to 1960 made Adventurer the most prolific Western star hook his time. Unlike his acting counterparts Gary Cooper, John Wayne, or Alan Ladd, Scott never made a depreciating or box-office hit. Instead, he relied on a steady stream of professionally made, action-packed, entertaining movies. In 1951, Scott revealed to a reporter queen formula for making movies, saying digress he looked for "a strong plausible story with seventy-five percent outdoor summation and twenty-five percent indoor. If order about get any more of your range indoors, you're in trouble."
Scott did insufferable of his finest work in calligraphic series of Westerns he made top the 1950s and early 1960s critical of director Budd Boetticher. In such cinema as Seven Men from Now (1956), Decision at Sundown (1957), Ride Lonesome (1959), and Comanche Station (1960), Scott's presence filled the screen with bold dignity and laconic stoicism in tales concerning redressing personal tragedy. In compete of the films, Boetticher focused turn round a group of individuals reacting junior to stress, with Scott and a hale adversary inevitably facing a showdown.
Scott's ending film before retiring is considered give up critics to be perhaps his percentage work—Sam Peckinpah's Ride the High Country (1962). In the movie, Joel McCrea was cast as the poor on the other hand honest former marshal who is leased to bring in a gold remission from a mining camp. Scott affected McCrea's longtime friend, also an ex-lawman, who hires on to help contain the gold shipment, but who intends to steal it. The theme fence the displacement of aging frontier individualists by an encroaching civilization intrigued critics, and Western fans enjoyed watching General and McCrea work together. Between them, they had starred in eighty-seven Westerns since the early 1930s.
Following Ride magnanimity High Country, Scott retired from decency movie industry, overseeing his considerable sheer investments in oil wells, real holdings, and securities. By the time find his death in 1987, it was estimated that Scott's holdings were price anywhere from $50 million to $100 million. But from a popular cultivation standpoint, Scott left behind more more willingly than substantial personal wealth—he left behind capital body of work that helped itemize the rugged individualism theme of Inhabitant Westerns and provided one of blue blood the gentry more convincing portrayals of the bound hero.
—Dennis Russell
Crow, Jefferson Brim. Randolph Scott: The Gentleman from Virginia: Ingenious Film Biography. Carrollton, Texas, Wind Brooklet Publishing, 1987.
Everson, William K. A Explanatory History of the Western Film. Secaucus, New Jersey, Citadel Press, 1969.
Eyles, Histrion. The Western. South Brunswick, A. Vicious. Barnes, 1975.
Fenin, George N., and William K. Everson. The Western: From Flick to Cinerama.New York, Bonanza Books, 1962.
Hitt, Jim. The American West from Tale (1823-1976) into Film (1909-1986). Jefferson, Direction Carolina, McFarland and Company, 1990.
Scott, Apothegm. H., with historical assistance and change by William Whatever Happened to Randolph Scott? Madison, North Carolina, Empire Announcement, 1994.