Van Heflin(1908-1971)
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Craggy-faced, dependable star character actor Van Heflin never quite
made the Hollywood "A" list, but made up for what he lacked in
appearance with hard work, charisma and solid acting performances. He
was born Emmett Evan Heflin in Oklahoma in December 1908, the son of
Fanny Bleecker (Shippey) and Emmett Evan Heflin, a dental surgeon. When
his parents separated his brother and sister stayed with his mother,
while he was farmed out to his grandmother in California. He was never
quite settled and his restless spirit led him to ship out on a tramp
steamer after graduating from school. After a year at sea he studied
for a law degree at the University of Oklahoma, but after two years he
decided he had enough and went back to sailing the Pacific. When he
returned he decided to try his hand at acting and enrolled at the
prestigious Yale School of Drama. His first foray into theatre was the
comedy "Mister Moneypenny" (1928) (credited as "Evan Heflin"). It was
indifferently received and Van went back to sea, this time for three
years. In 1934 he returned to the stage in the plays "The Bride of
Torozko" and "The Night Remembers", both outright disasters.
His big break came in 1936, when he landed a good leading role as a
radical leftist at odds with the established elite in the
S.N. Behrman comedy of manners, "End of
Summer" at the Guild Theatre. Critic
Brooks Atkinson, praising the play and
the actors, commended the "sparkling dialogue" and "fluent and sunny
performance" (New York Times, February 18 1936).
Katharine Hepburn, who saw him on
stage, then persuaded Van to take a swing at film acting and finagled a
role for him alongside her in the
Pandro S. Berman production
A Woman Rebels (1936). Van spent a
year at RKO in forgettable films, with roles ranging from a reverend in
The Outcasts of Poker Flat (1937)
to a top-billed part as a burnt-out quarterback in
Saturday's Heroes (1937). By
1939 Van was back on stage, rather more successfully, in "The
Philadelphia Story" at the Shubert Theatre. The hit play, which also
starred Vera Allen,
Shirley Booth and
Joseph Cotten, ran for 417
performances, closing in March 1940. That same year he appeared for
Warner Brothers in the entertaining but historically inaccurate western
Santa Fe Trail (1940),
Bosley Crowther describing his
performance, above other cast members, as containing "the sharpest
punch" (New York Times, December 21 1940).
On the strength of these performances, Van was signed to a contract at
MGM, where he remained for eight years (1941-49). His tenure was
interrupted only by two years of wartime service as a combat
photographer with the U.S. 9th Air Force, First Motion Picture Unit,
which produced training and morale-boosting short films. Back at MGM,
his third assignment at the studio,
Johnny Eager (1941), had proved an
excellent showcase for his acting skills. He played Jeff Hartnett,
right-hand man of the titular crime figure
(Robert Taylor), a complex,
sardonic character, at once loyal soldier yet abjectly self-loathing.
For his role as the heavy-drinking, Shakespeare-quoting mobster with a
conscience, Van got the Academy Award as Best Supporting Actor in 1942.
He was immediately cast in the leading role as a forensically-minded
detective in
Kid Glove Killer (1942), a film
which marked the debut of Fred Zinnemann
as a feature director. This was in turn followed by another B-movie
whodunit,
Grand Central Murder (1942).
The prestigious--but not always accurate--historical drama
Tennessee Johnson (1942) saw
Van playing Andrew Johnson, the 17th US president. While the film was a
critical success, it did less well at the box office. The New York
Times commented on the "sincerity and strength" of his performance,
adding "Mr. Heflin, in a full-bodied, carefully delineated portrait of
a passionate man, gives decisive proof that his talents have thus far
been haphazardly used" (January 13, 1943). In between wartime service
and two musicals,
Presenting Lily Mars (1943)
and the Jerome Kern biopic
Till the Clouds Roll By (1946),
Van appeared in the excellent film noir
The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946)
with Barbara Stanwyck (as the
inevitable femme fatale) and
Kirk Douglas (as an alcoholic
district attorney). As the sympathetic gambler Sam who returns to his
home town, ostensibly to expose the dirty secrets of the main
protagonists, Van had more on-screen time than his illustrious co-stars
and some good lines to boot. Van put his tough-guy screen persona to
good use in enacting Raymond Chandler's
wisecracking gumshoe Philip Marlowe on NBC radio from June 1947, with
19 real-life Los Angeles detectives among the live audience.
During the next few years the versatile Heflin dealt capably with a
wide variety of assignments. He appeared as a jilted lover in the
expensively-produced costume drama
Green Dolphin Street (1947);
he was Athos, one of
The Three Musketeers (1948)
and an ex-GI on the trail of a psychopathic prison camp informer in
Fred Zinnemann's
Act of Violence (1948); poignant
as the unloved Monsieur Bovary in
Madame Bovary (1949); an ex-cop in
love with a high-flying socialite in the melodrama
East Side, West Side (1949);
and a cop whose affair with a married woman leads to a plot to kill her
husband in The Prowler (1951).
The 1950s saw Van's progression from leading man to star character
actor. Having left MGM in 1949, he was signed in this capacity to
several short-term contracts by Universal (1951-54), 20th Century Fox
(1954), Columbia (1957-59) and Paramount (1959-60). Apart from the
big-business drama Patterns (1956), he
is best remembered in this decade for his portrayal of western
characters with integrity and singularity of purpose: as the struggling
homesteader at the mercy of a ruthless cattle baron who befriends
Shane (1953); the desperate, single-minded
rancher trying to get a captured outlaw on the
3:10 to Yuma (1957); and the tough,
uncompromisingly stern father forced to kill his errant son in
Gunman's Walk (1958).
With the possible exception of his sympathetic German captain of a
World War II surface raider in the offbeat international co-production
Under Ten Flags (1960)
(aka "Under Ten Flags"), Heflin had few roles of note in the 1960s. He
appeared in the calamitous flop
The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965)
and the equally disastrous
Stagecoach (1966) remake. One of his
last performances was as the deranged bomber in
Airport (1970). His final curtain call on
stage was as Robert Sloane in "A Case of Libel" (1963-64) on Broadway.
Unlike many of his peers, Van shunned the limelight and was never a
part of the Hollywood glamour set. A well-liked, introspective and
talented performer, he died of a heart attack in July 1971, aged just
62.
made the Hollywood "A" list, but made up for what he lacked in
appearance with hard work, charisma and solid acting performances. He
was born Emmett Evan Heflin in Oklahoma in December 1908, the son of
Fanny Bleecker (Shippey) and Emmett Evan Heflin, a dental surgeon. When
his parents separated his brother and sister stayed with his mother,
while he was farmed out to his grandmother in California. He was never
quite settled and his restless spirit led him to ship out on a tramp
steamer after graduating from school. After a year at sea he studied
for a law degree at the University of Oklahoma, but after two years he
decided he had enough and went back to sailing the Pacific. When he
returned he decided to try his hand at acting and enrolled at the
prestigious Yale School of Drama. His first foray into theatre was the
comedy "Mister Moneypenny" (1928) (credited as "Evan Heflin"). It was
indifferently received and Van went back to sea, this time for three
years. In 1934 he returned to the stage in the plays "The Bride of
Torozko" and "The Night Remembers", both outright disasters.
His big break came in 1936, when he landed a good leading role as a
radical leftist at odds with the established elite in the
S.N. Behrman comedy of manners, "End of
Summer" at the Guild Theatre. Critic
Brooks Atkinson, praising the play and
the actors, commended the "sparkling dialogue" and "fluent and sunny
performance" (New York Times, February 18 1936).
Katharine Hepburn, who saw him on
stage, then persuaded Van to take a swing at film acting and finagled a
role for him alongside her in the
Pandro S. Berman production
A Woman Rebels (1936). Van spent a
year at RKO in forgettable films, with roles ranging from a reverend in
The Outcasts of Poker Flat (1937)
to a top-billed part as a burnt-out quarterback in
Saturday's Heroes (1937). By
1939 Van was back on stage, rather more successfully, in "The
Philadelphia Story" at the Shubert Theatre. The hit play, which also
starred Vera Allen,
Shirley Booth and
Joseph Cotten, ran for 417
performances, closing in March 1940. That same year he appeared for
Warner Brothers in the entertaining but historically inaccurate western
Santa Fe Trail (1940),
Bosley Crowther describing his
performance, above other cast members, as containing "the sharpest
punch" (New York Times, December 21 1940).
On the strength of these performances, Van was signed to a contract at
MGM, where he remained for eight years (1941-49). His tenure was
interrupted only by two years of wartime service as a combat
photographer with the U.S. 9th Air Force, First Motion Picture Unit,
which produced training and morale-boosting short films. Back at MGM,
his third assignment at the studio,
Johnny Eager (1941), had proved an
excellent showcase for his acting skills. He played Jeff Hartnett,
right-hand man of the titular crime figure
(Robert Taylor), a complex,
sardonic character, at once loyal soldier yet abjectly self-loathing.
For his role as the heavy-drinking, Shakespeare-quoting mobster with a
conscience, Van got the Academy Award as Best Supporting Actor in 1942.
He was immediately cast in the leading role as a forensically-minded
detective in
Kid Glove Killer (1942), a film
which marked the debut of Fred Zinnemann
as a feature director. This was in turn followed by another B-movie
whodunit,
Grand Central Murder (1942).
The prestigious--but not always accurate--historical drama
Tennessee Johnson (1942) saw
Van playing Andrew Johnson, the 17th US president. While the film was a
critical success, it did less well at the box office. The New York
Times commented on the "sincerity and strength" of his performance,
adding "Mr. Heflin, in a full-bodied, carefully delineated portrait of
a passionate man, gives decisive proof that his talents have thus far
been haphazardly used" (January 13, 1943). In between wartime service
and two musicals,
Presenting Lily Mars (1943)
and the Jerome Kern biopic
Till the Clouds Roll By (1946),
Van appeared in the excellent film noir
The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946)
with Barbara Stanwyck (as the
inevitable femme fatale) and
Kirk Douglas (as an alcoholic
district attorney). As the sympathetic gambler Sam who returns to his
home town, ostensibly to expose the dirty secrets of the main
protagonists, Van had more on-screen time than his illustrious co-stars
and some good lines to boot. Van put his tough-guy screen persona to
good use in enacting Raymond Chandler's
wisecracking gumshoe Philip Marlowe on NBC radio from June 1947, with
19 real-life Los Angeles detectives among the live audience.
During the next few years the versatile Heflin dealt capably with a
wide variety of assignments. He appeared as a jilted lover in the
expensively-produced costume drama
Green Dolphin Street (1947);
he was Athos, one of
The Three Musketeers (1948)
and an ex-GI on the trail of a psychopathic prison camp informer in
Fred Zinnemann's
Act of Violence (1948); poignant
as the unloved Monsieur Bovary in
Madame Bovary (1949); an ex-cop in
love with a high-flying socialite in the melodrama
East Side, West Side (1949);
and a cop whose affair with a married woman leads to a plot to kill her
husband in The Prowler (1951).
The 1950s saw Van's progression from leading man to star character
actor. Having left MGM in 1949, he was signed in this capacity to
several short-term contracts by Universal (1951-54), 20th Century Fox
(1954), Columbia (1957-59) and Paramount (1959-60). Apart from the
big-business drama Patterns (1956), he
is best remembered in this decade for his portrayal of western
characters with integrity and singularity of purpose: as the struggling
homesteader at the mercy of a ruthless cattle baron who befriends
Shane (1953); the desperate, single-minded
rancher trying to get a captured outlaw on the
3:10 to Yuma (1957); and the tough,
uncompromisingly stern father forced to kill his errant son in
Gunman's Walk (1958).
With the possible exception of his sympathetic German captain of a
World War II surface raider in the offbeat international co-production
Under Ten Flags (1960)
(aka "Under Ten Flags"), Heflin had few roles of note in the 1960s. He
appeared in the calamitous flop
The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965)
and the equally disastrous
Stagecoach (1966) remake. One of his
last performances was as the deranged bomber in
Airport (1970). His final curtain call on
stage was as Robert Sloane in "A Case of Libel" (1963-64) on Broadway.
Unlike many of his peers, Van shunned the limelight and was never a
part of the Hollywood glamour set. A well-liked, introspective and
talented performer, he died of a heart attack in July 1971, aged just
62.