Bruce Cabot

Bruce Cabot
Bruce Cabot in Sinners in Paradise (1938)
Born Etienne Pelissier Jacques de Bujac
(1904-04-20)April 20, 1904
Carlsbad, New Mexico, United States
Died May 3, 1972(1972-05-03) (aged 68)
Woodland Hills, California, United States
Occupation Actor
Years active 1931–71
Spouse(s)
Gracy Mary Mather Smith
(m. 1926; div. 1930)

Adrienne Ames
(m. 1933; div. 1937)

Francesca De Scaffa
(m. 1950; div. 1957)

Bruce Cabot (born Étienne de Pelissier Bujac Jr., April 20, 1904 – May 3, 1972) was an American film actor, best remembered as Jack Driscoll in King Kong (1933) and for his roles in films such as The Last of the Mohicans (1936), Fritz Lang's Fury (1936) and the western Dodge City (1939). He was also known as one of "Wayne's Regulars", appearing in a number of John Wayne films beginning with Angel and the Badman (1947).

Early life

Cabot was born in Carlsbad, New Mexico to a prominent local lawyer, Major Étienne de Pelissier Bujac, Sr. and Julia Armandine Graves, who died shortly after giving birth to her son. Étienne, Sr., was the son of John James Bujac, a lawyer and mining expert in Baltimore, Maryland. Étienne, Sr., graduated from Cumberland School of Law near Nashville, Tennessee, and served in the United States army during the Spanish–American War and the Philippine–American War before settling in Carlsbad.[1][2]

Cabot graduated from Sewanee Military Academy in 1921 and briefly attended the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee, but left without graduating.[3] He worked at many jobs, including as a sailor, an insurance salesman, oil worker, surveyor, and prize fighter; he also sold cars, handled real estate, and worked at a slaughterhouse. A meeting with David O. Selznick at a Hollywood party started his acting career.

Acting career

Cabot appeared in nearly one hundred feature films. He made his debut in 1931 in an uncredited bit part in an episode of the serial Heroes of the Flames. In Ann Vickers (1933), he portrays a soldier who seduces a naive woman (Irene Dunne) and gets her pregnant as he leaves for the war. He then appeared in King Kong (1933), which became an enormous success and established Cabot as a star.

He also played villains, appearing as a gangster boss in Let 'Em Have It (1935) and as the Huron warrior Magua opposite Randolph Scott in The Last of the Mohicans (1936). He starred with Spencer Tracy, playing the leader of a lynch mob in Fritz Lang's first Hollywood film, Fury (1936), and with Errol Flynn in Michael Curtiz's epic western Dodge City (1939), which became one of Warner Bros.'s biggest hits.

He tested for the lead role of The Ringo Kid in John Ford's Stagecoach (1939), but John Wayne got the part.[4] A consistent box office draw, Cabot appeared in many movies at many studios before leaving Hollywood to serve in World War II.

World War II

Cabot enlisted in December 1942 and, after Officer Training School in Miami Beach, became a first lieutenant in the U.S. Army Air Force.

Return to Hollywood

Cabot headed back to Hollywood and fell in with John Wayne (whose career was then in the ascendant, and who would become a major force in American film-making over the next two decades) on the set of Angel and the Badman (1947) and became part of Wayne's circle, this relationship paying off in the 1960s when Wayne cast him in ten of his films: The Comancheros (1961), Hatari! (1962), McLintock! (1963), In Harm's Way (1965), The War Wagon (1967), The Green Berets (1968), Hellfighters (1968), The Undefeated (1969), Chisum (1970), and Big Jake (1971).

Cabot's final screen appearance was in the 1971 James Bond film Diamonds Are Forever.

He was inducted into the New Mexico Entertainment Hall of Fame in 2012.

Television

Bruce Cabot starred in a number of the Tales of Tomorrow episodes (1952–53), television's first sci-fi drama and an early hit for ABC.

He also appeared on other television series such as:

  • Burke's Law - "Who Killed Holly Howard?" - Thomas Matherson (1963)
  • Bonanza! - "A Dime's Worth of Glory" - Sheriff Reed Carrimore (1964)
  • Daniel Boone - "The Devil's Four" - Simon Bullard (1965)

Personal life

Cabot was married three times, in Florida to Mary Mather Smith with whom he divorced prior to moving to Hollywood, and to actresses Adrienne Ames and Francesca De Scaffa.

He was one of Errol Flynn's social pack for several years but they fell out during the production of the unfinished The Story of William Tell. Flynn was producing the film and asked Cabot, whom he described as "an old, old pal," to perform in it, knowing that Cabot was finding it hard to get work in Hollywood at that time. However, when Flynn's production partners defaulted, the production halted, leaving Flynn stranded in Rome facing financial ruin. Cabot, in an attempt to get paid when other cast members were working without pay, had Flynn's and his wife Patrice Wymore's personal cars and clothing in their Rome hotel seized. Flynn wrote angrily in his autobiography of what he termed Cabot's "betrayal."[5] Eleven years after Flynn's death, in an interview in England in 1970, Cabot paid tribute to him as a critically underestimated actor, but said that Flynn had destroyed himself through narcotic addiction.

Death

Cabot died in 1972 at the Motion Picture Country Home at Woodland Hills, California from lung cancer[6] and was buried in his hometown of Carlsbad, New Mexico.

Filmography

Cabot and Gene Tierney in a scene from the 1941 film Sundown.
Cabot in a scene from the 1947 western Angel and the Badman
Cabot and Maureen O'Hara in a scene from the 1963 film McLintock!.

References

  1. ↑ Twitchell, Ralph Emerson (1917). The Leading Facts of New Mexican History, Vol. III. Cedar Rapids, Iowa: The Torch Press. pp. 235–236. Retrieved 21 May 2017.
  2. ↑ Birchell, Donna Blake (2015). Legendary Locals of Carlsbad, New Mexico. Charleston, South Carolina: Arcadia Publishing. p. 73. Retrieved 21 May 2017.
  3. ↑ "Bruce Cabot, Actor, Is Alumnus" (PDF). Sewanee Alumni News (Vol. VII, No. IV, p. 4). Associated Alumni of the University of the South. August 1941. Retrieved 21 May 2017.
  4. ↑ True West Magazine
  5. ↑ Flynn, Errol (1959). My Wicked, Wicked Ways. Dell. pp. 10&ndash, 11, 362.
  6. ↑ Bruce Cabot, Film Actor, Dies; Played the Hero in King Kong, New York Times, May 4, 1972; retrieved Oct. 9, 2017
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