Aldo Ray

At 64 years old, Aldo Ray has this physical status:

In April 1950 Columbia Studios sent a unit to San Francisco to look for some athletes to appear in a film they were making called Saturday's Hero (1951). Aldo's brother Guido saw an item in the San Francisco Chronicle about the auditions and asked his brother to drive him there. Director David Miller was more interested in Ray than in his brother because of his voice; also, Ray was comfortable talking to the camera owing to his political experience. He later recalled, "They... said, 'What's wrong with your voice kid? Are you sick? If you're sick you don't belong here.' I said, 'No, no, no, this is the way I've always spoken.' And they loved it." Ray would later retell this story in the trailer for Pat and Mike.

Ray signed a contract and was sent to Los Angeles for a screen test. He was cast in the small role of a cynical college football player opposite John Derek and Donna Reed.

Ray worked on the film between the primary and general elections. He was elected constable on 6 June. "I was 23 and a sort of child bride to the voters," he later said. "The guy I ran against was a 16-year incumbent, and I destroyed him with 80 percent of the vote! I was going to work my way up to the U.S. Senate, see, and I would've, too."

Columbia picked up its option on Ray's services and signed him to a seven-year contract. "Of all the people in the picture they took up only one option—mine," he said. "And I said, 'Thank you, goodbye. I'm going home where I can be a big fish in my small pond. You can take this town (Hollywood) and shove it."

Columbia refused to release him from his contract and put him under suspension, giving him a leave of absence to work as constable. "I told them I couldn't care less, they could give me whatever they wanted," he said. Ray started his new job in November 1950.

After several months, Ray found "the quiet life... monotonous", so he contacted Max Arnow, talent director at Columbia, and expressed interest in appearing in more movies. Four weeks later, Arnow called back, saying Columbia wanted to audition Ray for a small part in Judy Holliday's new movie The Marrying Kind.

Ray went to Hollywood and did a screen test with the director, George Cukor. The first test went badly, but head of Columbia Harry Cohn liked Ray and asked for another test. The second one was done opposite (Miss) Jeff Donnell, whom Ray later married; it was more successful and Ray ended up being cast in the lead.

Harry Cohn felt the name "Aldo Da Re" was too close to "Dare" and wanted to change it to "John Harrison"; the actor refused and "Aldo Ray" was the compromise. He divorced his wife and resigned as constable in September 1951. His studio salary was $200 a week.

Cukor famously suggested that Ray go to ballet school because he walked too much like a football player. The director later talked about the actor:

"Cukor is hypersensitive to reality", recalled Ray. "He told me exactly what to do and why. He explains everything and he knows exactly what he wants."

Ray's performance was much praised. Sight & Sound later commented:

Cukor then cast Ray in a supporting role in Pat and Mike, starring Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn. Ray's work in Pat and Mike led to his nomination, along with Richard Burton and Robert Wagner, for a Golden Globe as Best Newcomer. Burton won the award that year, but Ray's career was launched. He said after two films with Cukor: "I never needed direction again."

Ray said Spencer Tracy told him: "Kid, I don't know what it is that you got, and I got, and some of us have, but you can work in this business forever." "That," said Ray, "made me feel good, you know, coming from a guy like him. I never bowed down to anybody at Columbia or anywhere else, but my overall idea was, I'll do whatever they tell me because it's their business, not mine, and I've got to learn it."

Columbia Pictures head Harry Cohn liked Ray and wanted him for the role of Private Robert Prewitt in From Here to Eternity (1953), but Fred Zinnemann insisted Montgomery Clift be cast. However, other good roles followed instead. "Because of Harry, all my first pictures were big hits, tremendously popular", Ray recalled.

Ray starred opposite Jane Wyman in Let's Do It Again (1953), then followed this acting opposite Rita Hayworth in Miss Sadie Thompson (also 1953), the third film version of the W. Somerset Maugham story "Rain". He also appeared in a production of Stalag 17 at La Jolla Playhouse.

Ray was loaned to Warner Bros to appear in Battle Cry (1955), which was directed by Raoul Walsh, who would become one of Ray's favorite directors. The film was a box-office hit—probably the most popular movie Ray ever made—although it led to his being typecast.

"In some ways the tough soldier role locked me in", reflected Ray later. "There were no sophisticated roles for me. I never seemed to get past master sergeant, though I always thought of myself as upper echelon."

Ray was meant to appear in My Sister Eileen (1955) as The Wreck, but he walked off the set, claiming his role was too small, and had to be replaced by Dick York.

Battle Cry was a big hit at the box office, so Columbia gave Ray a lead role as a sergeant who marries a Japanese girl in Three Stripes in the Sun (originally The Gentle Wolfhound) (1955) and then loaned him to Paramount for We're No Angels (also 1955), in which he starred with Humphrey Bogart, Peter Ustinov, Basil Rathbone, Leo G. Carroll, and Joan Bennett.

Ray was profiled in Sight & Sound as follows:

Ray was meant to appear in Jubal but refused because Columbia had made a profit on his loan-outs for Battle Cry and We're No Angels but not paid Ray a bonus; Rod Steiger took the role instead. Ray was put on suspension.

Ray then refused to appear in Beyond Mombasa (1956) because he did not want to go on location. This led to his being replaced by Cornel Wilde and put under suspension again. However, the situation was resolved when he agreed to make Nightfall (1957), playing an artist who encounters a pair of ruthless bank robbers.

In 1956, in between appearances in Three Stripes In The Sun and Men in War, Ray worked in radio as a personality and announcer at hit music station WNDR in Syracuse, New York. A photo of Ray with a colleague in the WNDR studios, taken as part of a station promotional package, survives and can be found on a WNDR tribute website. By 1957, in any event, he had left WNDR and the radio business and returned to Hollywood.

On January 31, 1957, Ray appeared on NBC's The Ford Show Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford. He and Tennessee Ernie Ford did a comedy skit from a foxhole.

Columbia loaned Ray out to Security Pictures (who released through United Artists) for him to appear in Men in War (1957) opposite Robert Ryan; it was directed by Anthony Mann, who became Ray's favorite director. Ray was given 5% of the profits, which he later estimated at $70,000.

Ray was reunited with Security Pictures, Ryan, and Mann to star in God's Little Acre (1958), an adaptation of Erskine Caldwell's controversial novel directed by Mann starring Robert Ryan and Tina Louise.

By the seventh year of his contract with Columbia, Ray was earning $750 a week. He later said for the first ten years of his career he made less than $100,000. He expressed interest in producing his own vehicle, The Magic Mesa, from a script by Burt Kennedy, but it was not made.

Instead Ray appeared in an adaptation of David Goodis's novel Nightfall (1957) directed by Jacques Tourneur and The Naked and the Dead (1958), an adaptation of Norman Mailer's novel directed by Raoul Walsh. It was produced by Paul Gregory, who said:

Ray later admitted that producers were scared of casting him in projects because of his drinking.

Ray had been popular with Harry Cohn because, in the actor's words, "[h]e took no shit from anybody and he saw that I was that kind of a guy, too." But when Cohn died in 1958, Columbia elected not to renew Ray's contract and he decided to leave Hollywood. He later said, "I never was an expatriate. I spent some time in England and Spain and Italy but I was never out of this country [the US] longer than six months."

He starred in 1959 in Four Desperate Men (The Siege of Pinchgut), filmed in Australia; it was the last movie produced by Ealing Studios (releasing through MGM) and a box office disappointment. He then appeared opposite Lucille Ball in an episode of Desilu Playhouse. He said he made more money from these two projects "than I'd made the whole eight years before."

In 1959, Ray was cast as Hunk Farber in the episode "Payment in Full" of the NBC western series Riverboat. In the story line, Farber betrays his friend and employer to collect reward money that he uses to court his girlfriend, Missy.

Ray made The Day They Robbed the Bank of England, directed by John Guillermin, in the UK and Johnny Nobody in Ireland. He later described his British sojourn as a "big mistake" because none of his British films were widely seen in America.

"Everything went well until the end of '62—then everything collapsed—including me", he later said. "I didn't take care of myself physically and mentally."

He hired a press agent, started taking better care of himself physically, and changed agents.

Ray returned to Hollywood in 1964. He had a small role in Sylvia (1965) and made a pilot for a TV series financed by producer Joseph E. Levine, Steptoe and Son (an unsuccessful adaptation of the British TV series). "I feel I shall have a complete regeneration of my career", he said in 1965.

He later appeared in What Did You Do in the War, Daddy?, Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round, and Welcome to Hard Times. He also made several guest appearances on television.

In 1966 Ray claimed, "I've been turning down a lot of TV and B movies. I won't consider anything but important roles in important pictures." He said he was "almost independently wealthy", having saved and invested wisely in real estate from the times when his fee was $100,000 a film. He was interested in returning to politics but not until he had made "at least" four more movies. "The ideal situation would be three films every two years."

In 1966 Ray played "Jake", a deaf mute, in "The Virginian" entitled "Jacob was a plain man".

He formed his own company, Crockett Productions, and bought two original scripts for films that were not made: Soldares, by Edwin Gottlieb, about the search for Pancho Villa, and Frogman, South Pacific, by William Zeck.

His best-known work of the 1960s was his portrayal of Sergeant Muldoon, alongside John Wayne, in The Green Berets (1968).

Ray starred in Kill a Dragon, shot in Hong Kong in 1966, and Suicide Commando, shot in Rome and Spain in 1968. He also made two television pilots in the 1960s; neither was picked up.

As the 1960s ended, Hollywood's appetite for Ray's machismo started to wane. Though he worked steadily in the 1970s, the quality of his roles diminished, and he was typically cast as a gruff and gravelly redneck.

By 1976, Ray was broke. He blamed this on his ex-wives and red tape that meant he could not develop his real estate properties. "I lost it all", he said. "And I am very, very bitter about it... The biggest mistake I ever made was discovering women. I only wish society had been as free and easy when I was coming along as it is today because if that had been the case I wouldn't have been married. Three women in my life utterly destroyed me."

In 1979, Ray appeared in a pornographic movie, Sweet Savage, in a nonsexual role. Ray said later:

In 1981, Ray told a newspaper that his drinking was "under control" and said, "I think things are going to shoot straight up. I'm working on a deal now and if the picture is made my worries... are over... If things go the way I anticipate and I stay healthy I think I've got better years ahead of me than behind me." He said he was open to a return to politics "if my movie career doesn't take off like I think it will." He admitted being unhappy with his career, saying: "I think I should have gotten more good stuff."

His career decline accelerated in the 1980s, and after being diagnosed with throat cancer, he accepted virtually any role that came his way to maintain his costly health insurance. He returned to Crockett in 1983.

Though at this stage in his career Ray starred mostly in low-budget and exploitation films, he did appear in occasional higher-profile works. He provided voice-over work as Sullivan for the 1982 animated film The Secret of NIMH alongside fellow character actor John Carradine. Ray was originally cast in the role of Gurney Halleck in David Lynch's 1984 adaptation of Frank Herbert's novel Dune, as his ex-wife Johanna Ray was the casting director, but was replaced by Patrick Stewart owing to ongoing issues with alcoholism.

During the last stages of his career, Ray made a number of films for Fred Olen Ray. "He'd give me $1,000 in cash, pay my expenses, and I'd do a day's work", said Ray. "Somebody showed me one of his cassettes—'starring Aldo Ray'—but it was just a one-day job... I needed money at the time, and Fred knew I needed a buck, so I did it. He exploited me, yeah... but I was ripe for it." He also appeared in two films for Iranian-born filmmaker Amir Shervan, better known for his cult classic Samurai Cop.

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