Robert Mitchum Drug Bust: The bad boy of the movies On August 6, 1917, Robert Mitchum was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut. From 1944 through 1995, he appeared in more than 100 films. In addition to The Story of G.I. Joe (for which he received only one Academy Award Nomination), River of No Return, The Night of the Hunter, Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison, The Enemy Below, Thunder Road, Home from the Hill, The Sundowners, Cape Fear.
The Longest Day, and The Friends of Eddie Coyle, Mitchum has starred in a slew of other films, too numerous to mention. He was named the Most Uncooperative Actor of 1950.
Robert Mitchum and Lila Leeds during the 1948 pot bust
Mitchum’s rebel reputation had a lot to do with what happened to him on Aug. 31, 1948, when he, actress Lila Leeds and two others were “booked on suspicion of violating state and federal narcotics laws” at Leeds’ Laurel Canyon house on Ridpath Dr., where a “marijuana smoking party” was taking place, according to a newspaper report. The tea pad was under police surveillance for “two and a half hours through a rear bedroom window,” according to LAPD. Thirteen “reefers” (joints) were seized from Mitchum during the operation.
Mitchum was subsequently arrested and charged with both possession of marijuana and conspiracy to do so. He allegedly informed the police after the bust: “Yes, boys, I was smoking the marijuana cigarette when you came in. I’m guessing it’s time to call it a day. I’ve been smoking marijuana for years. The last time I smoked was roughly a week ago. I knew I would get caught sooner or later. This is the terrible end of my career. I’m ruined.”
Mitchum in court with Lila Leeds at left, 1948
Mitchum and Leeds received 60-day terms, plus probation. Both were jailed up first at the L.A. county jail. After the trial, Mitchum (he pled no defense) served 59 days at a prison farm in Castaic, California jail and was freed in 1949. That year, Leeds played the lead in the anti-pot film She Shoulda Said No. This was not Mitchum’s first arrest. After running away from home, he was busted for vagrancy in Savannah, Georgia, and then escaped from the chain gang when he was just 16. “I learned about the fuzz and the inside of jails,” he told The Saturday Evening Post in 1962. “When I was too cold and hungry, I’d check-in at the local police station. They’d throw me in a cell overnight.”
Mitchum first tried pot in 1936 when he was 19. “It was an isolated event when I was working in Toledo, Ohio,” he stated. By the time he got married and relocated to California, he started smoking regularly in 1947 and 1948. “I was never a proven smoker of marijuana and never purchased any marijuana for usage by myself,” he explained. “The only explanation I have for the usage of marijuana is the fact that when you are in the company of individuals who use it, it is easier to go along with them than not to. I was absurdly naïve.”
Mitchum on weed:
“The only explanation I have for the usage of marijuana is the fact that when you are in the company of individuals who use it, it is easier to go along with them than not to.”
Mitchum also served time at the Sheriff’s Honor Farm north of Los Angeles. Most of Mitchum’s day was spent working on the farm making concrete blocks. The actor would wake at 5 am, have breakfast, work until a short lunch break, and then go back to work until the evening. During Mitchum’s jail time, Howard Hughes, who was then in charge of RKO studios where Mitchum was under contract, was preparing Mitchum’s post-jail career.
Mitchum famously mops in prison, in 1948
Mitchum went into considerable detail about the 1948 cannabis bust in The Saturday Evening Post article: “Miss Leeds offered me a smoking cigarette. I looked up and I was convinced there was a face in the glass. The next thing I knew there was a collision and in came two men. I believed they were hold-up thugs, but then they shouted, ‘Police officers!’ They grabbed me.” He was handcuffed and transported to jail with the others.
Clearly, the raid was a set-up to capture Mitchum, an opportunity for the cops to make a scandal and show they weren’t ignoring celebs who liked to take. “Why were the tabloids told off before I even got at the Leeds house that a big-name Hollywood actor was going to be hauled up on marijuana charges that night?” he pondered. “Why didn’t the police raid the Leeds house earlier, considering they testified they had seen Miss Leeds smoking long before I arrived?” Mitchum on the raid: “The next thing I knew there was a crash and in came two men. I believed they were hold-up men.”
After an investigation by the DA in 1951, it was found that “[Mitchum’s] conviction of guilty be set aside that a plea of not guilty be entered and that the information or charge be dismissed.” While this whole debacle didn’t wreck his career, Mitchum observed, “It took me from 1948 to 1951 to get back on my feet again financially again.” It was truly just the beginning of what would be a long career for Mitchum on the silver screen, playing rogues and tough guys, like the terrifying psychopath Max Cady in Cape Fear.
Curtis Hanson’s L.A. Confidential in 1997 depicts a similar narrative with police Sgt. Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey) gets a tip-off from tabloid editor Sid Hudgens (Danny DeVito) that some celebs were getting stoned in a residence and a raid occurs. A chronic cigarette smoker, Mitchum succumbed to lung cancer and emphysema in 1997 at 80. His wife Dorothy passed in 2014. They’re survived by two sons and a daughter.
Robert Mitchum and the Marijuana Charge
Long before Charlie Sheen was making headlines for drug busts actor Robert Mitchum was making the front page as Hollywood’s bad boy. During his lifetime, Mitchum would have a few encounters with the law. When Mitchum was just a teenager he had left home to live the hobo lifestyle, hopping trains and going cross country. On one occasion in 1932, when Mitchum was sixteen, the young man hopped off a train at a stop in Savannah to get some food and was arrested for vagrancy. Mitchum was sentenced to serve on a chain gang.
But, Mitchum was lucky that he was only busted for vagrancy. During his hobo days, Mitchum picked up a lifelong habit of smoking marijuana. Sometimes during those long train rides, marijuana helped kill the boredom or when passing through northern states during the harsh winter months, smoking marijuana made the extreme weather conditions tolerable. Mitchum got to the point that during his train travels he could distinguish the different varieties of marijuana one could encounter. When Mitchum would make his way west to Hollywood his interest in marijuana went with him and would be the subject of one of his most notorious scandals.
By 1948, Mitchum had become a recognizable actor, particularly with the bobbysoxer crowd who liked the bad boy image that he was beginning to be identified with. On August 31, 1948, an event would take place that would only add to Mitchum’s reputation. Mitchum and his friend Robin Ford, a real estate agent, visited a young actress named Lila Leeds and her friend Vickie Evans at a house Leeds rented in Laurel Canyon. The four were taking turns passing around a joint when suddenly a crash was heard at the back of the house.
