Ticket 2 Ride

Twenty-eight years after his death comes Roddy McDowell, An Actor’s Life – From How Green Was My Valley to Lassie to Planet of the Apes (2026, Citadel Press) by Samuel Garza Bernstein.

Roddy McDowell was a busy television and film star in the 1970s and 1980s, but he also had a very successful acting career as a juvenile. Born in England, he had a film career going when he left England for America with his mother and sister during the Nazi blitz of London. Interestingly, within two months of arriving in America, young Roddy already secured his first film role. In 1943, he starred in these films: My Friend Flicka, Lassie Come Home, and On the Sunny Side.

McDowell’s acting career had periods of great success, and a few patches where he had to reinvent himself as he aged and demand for his talents evolved. For example, in the 1950s, after his juvenile film career cooled, he found work in television and the theater. By the early 1960s, his film career heated up again with a starring role in Cleopatra (1963), and appearances in That Darn Cat!, The Longest Day, Shock Treatment, The Loved One, Lord Love a Duck, The Greatest Story Ever Told, Inside Daisy Clover, The Adventures of Bullwhip Griffin, Five Card Stud, and of course, Planet of the Apes.

Here was my take on Roddy McDowell: his adult acting career is one of annoying, egotistical and unsympathetic characters. That’s how I remember him, he specialized in cloying and sardonic roles that made often made him an unlikable character. He was very good at those smug characters parts, and he worked constantly.

My personal view of McDowell aligned with what I saw onscreen, but that was not the real man. According to Bernstein’s book, he was much different from the character roles I mentioned above. He was a beloved and a loyal friend in real life. He established lifelong friendships, was known for the parties he hosted where he mixed Hollywood people with those from other walks of life, and he helped many people without publicizing it. He was an advocate for the early days of Hollywood, continually raising money for the Motion Pictures & Television Fund to benefit those from the industry with medical care and housing. He befriended many from the silent era like actress Louise Brooks, who were forgotten, but still living. The portrait Bernstein paints is of a famous man who was not well known outside of his circle of friends. He kept his sexuality off the radar, but it was known by many.

McDowell made that difficult transition from child actor to adult roles. His seven year contract ended and the studio film jobs dried up. He made the decision to star in a series of B films for Monogram Pictures and undertake summer stock theater. That got him by, but his major decision was relocating to New York which opened up television and stage roles where he found a lot of work. He also found a universe that accepted him, open doors socially and professionally, and broke free from the bounds of his family, although he kept supporting them. He also developed a deep relationship with the troubled actor Montgomery Clift.

People my age remember McDowell from his journeyman actor days, after his early film success and his Broadway stage productions. McDowell worked constantly, when he wasn’t on a film location or in a television studio, he was appearing on Match Game, Password or other game show. He pops up on Fantasy Island, The Love Boat, Hotel, Murder She Wrote, Love American Style, Wonder Woman and scads of other TV shows during the 1970s and 1980s. He moved back and forth between the big screen, the small screen and the stage, doing comedy, drama, horror, fantasy and Shakespeare.

Television did give him some choice roles including the nephew who murders his aunt’s husband in Short Fuse, a season one episode of Columbo. It’s a grand episode.

McDowell was connected to all five of the original Planet of the Apes films and TV shows during. It’s his voice from behind the mask that brings his characters to life. He did a tremendous amount of voice work, particularly in his later years.

He turns up in some interesting roles. That Darn Cat! is just one of the Disney films he made, although his part is small, it’s quite memorable. The same with The Poseidon Adventure, he’s the first of the starring cast to die. As a gossip-writer in Evil Under the Sun, he enjoys being a sarcastic, bad tempered hotel guest.

My wife asks me what I learned when I finish a book. In this case, I learned how I drew the wrong conclusion about someone from my familiarity with their work. While I didn’t like many of his characters, he was quite successful, and what I knew of his life, was only that he was gay. As is often true, people are much more than the thumbnail of information we possess. For example, McDowell was a respected photographer who published several books and hundreds of his photographs were purchased for magazines, portraits and books. Also, McDowell was a collector of Hollywood films and memorabilia, having one of the largest private collections. He also befriended many actors and craftspeople from Hollywood past, and was an ongoing benefactor of the Motion Pictures & Television Fund. He also helped struggling actors find parts on his projects in order to keep their SAG health benefits current.

Bernstein’s book is a deep look at an actor who has been gone for some time, but who bridged the studio era with the new Hollywood. Roddy McDowell lives on through classic TV channels and TCM films, somewhere he’s on right now, playing one of those whinny, smug characters that I despise.