Stage and early film appearances Early films Around 1927, Scott developed an interest in acting and decided to make his way to Los Angeles and seek a career in the motion picture industry. Scott's father had become acquainted with
Howard Hughes and provided a letter of introduction for his son to present to the eccentric millionaire film maker. Scott was also uncredited on
Dynamite (1929) directed by
Cecil B. DeMille, and Ford's
Born Reckless (1930).
Stage On the advice of
Cecil B. DeMille, Scott gained much-needed acting experience by performing in stage plays with the
Pasadena Playhouse. His stage roles during this period include: • A minister in
Gentlemen Be Seated • A butler in
Nellie, the Beautiful Model • Metellus Cimber in
William Shakespeare's
Julius Caesar • Hector Malone in
George Bernard Shaw's
Man and Superman Scott appeared in the play
Under a Virginia Moon at the Vine Street Theatre in
Hollywood in 1932. His performance garnered several
screen test offers from the
major movie studios.
Movie debut In between his Pasadena Playhouse days and Vine Street Theatre performance Scott made his film debut. In 1931 Scott played his first leading role (with
Sally Blane) in
Women Men Marry (1931), a film, now apparently
lost, made by a
Poverty Row studio called Headline Pictures. He followed it with a supporting part in a
Warner Bros. production starring
George Arliss,
A Successful Calamity (1932).
Paramount Zane Grey apprenticeship in
Man of the Forest, 1933 ,
Tom Kennedy,
Noah Beery Sr., Scott and
Verna Hillie in
Man of the Forest, 1933 and Scott in
Man of the Forest, 1933 Scott's first role under his new
Paramount contract was a small supporting part in a comedy called
Sky Bride (1932) starring
Richard Arlen and
Jack Oakie. Following that, however, Paramount cast him as the lead in
Heritage of the Desert (1932), which established him as a
Western hero. As with
Women Men Marry,
Sally Blane was his leading lady.
Henry Hathaway made his directorial debut with
Heritage of the Desert. The film was popular and Scott went on to make ten "B" Western films loosely based on the novels of
Zane Grey. Many of the Grey adaptations were remakes of earlier silent films or retitled versions of recent movies. In an effort to save on production costs, Paramount used stock footage from the silent version and even hired some of the same actors, such as
Raymond Hatton and
Noah Beery, to reprise their roles, meaning that sometimes their ages would vary eight or more years during the same scene. For the 1933 films
The Thundering Herd and
Man of the Forest, Scott's hair was darkened and he sported a trim moustache so that he could easily be matched to footage of
Jack Holt, the star of the silent versions. In between his work in the Zane Grey Westerns, Paramount cast Scott in several non-Western roles, including "the other man" in
Hot Saturday (1932), with
Nancy Carroll and
Cary Grant and the romantic male lead in
Hello, Everybody! (1933). He made two horror movies,
Murders in the Zoo (1933) with
Lionel Atwill and
Supernatural (1933) with
Carole Lombard. After the Western
Sunset Pass (1933), Paramount loaned Scott to
Columbia for
Cocktail Hour (1933), a minor romantic comedy opposite
Bebe Daniels. Back at Paramount, Scott acted in the Westerns
Man of the Forest (1933) and
To the Last Man (1933), both with Hathaway from Zane Grey novels and featuring Noah Beery Sr. as the villain. Scott was loaned to
Monogram Pictures for
Broken Dreams (1933) then was back with Hathaway for
The Last Round-Up (1934). Scott did three more Zane Grey Westerns without Hathaway:
Wagon Wheels (1934) directed by
Charles Barton (a remake of 1931's
Fighting Caravans starring
Gary Cooper),
Home on the Range (1935) from
Arthur Jacobson, and
Rocky Mountain Mystery (1935) with Barton. Film historian
William K. Everson refers to the Zane Grey series as being "uniformly good". He also writes: The Zane Grey series films were a boon for Scott, as they provided him with "an excellent training ground for both action and acting".
RKO and "A" Films Paramount loaned Scott to
RKO Radio Pictures to support
Fred Astaire,
Ginger Rogers and
Irene Dunne in
Roberta (1935), a hugely popular adaptation of the Broadway musical. RKO liked Scott and kept him on for
Village Tale (1935), directed by John Cromwell, and
She (1935), an adaptation of
the novel by
H. Rider Haggard from the makers of
King Kong. Scott went back to Paramount for
So Red the Rose (1935) with
Margaret Sullavan, then was reunited with Astaire and Rogers at RKO in
Follow the Fleet (1936). It was another big hit. Scott was in a car drama at Paramount,
And Sudden Death (1936), then was loaned to independent producer
Edward Small, to play
Hawkeye in another adventure classic,
The Last of the Mohicans, adapted from the 1826
novel by
James Fenimore Cooper. A big hit, it "gave Scott his first unqualified 'A' picture success as a lead." At this point Paramount only put Scott in "A" films. He was a love interest for
Mae West in
Go West, Young Man (1936) and was reunited with Irene Dunne in a musical,
High, Wide and Handsome (1937). This last film, a musical directed by
Rouben Mamoulian, featured Scott in his "most ambitious performance." Scott went to
20th Century Fox to play the romantic male lead in a
Shirley Temple film,
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1938). At Paramount he made a well budgeted Western
The Texans (1938) with
Joan Bennett; then he starred in
The Road to Reno (1938) at Universal. Due to his Southern background, Scott was considered for the role of
Ashley Wilkes in
Gone with the Wind, but the part went to
Leslie Howard.
20th Century Fox Scott's contract with Paramount ended and he signed with Fox. They put him in
Jesse James (1939), a lavish, highly romanticized account of the famous outlaw
outlaw (
Tyrone Power) and his brother
Frank (
Henry Fonda). Scott was billed fourth as a sympathetic marshal. It was his first film in color. Scott was reunited with Temple in
Susannah of the Mounties (1939), Temple's last profitable film for Fox. Scott went over to Warner Bros to make
Virginia City (1940), billed third after
Errol Flynn and
Miriam Hopkins, playing Flynn's antagonist, a Confederate officer, although the villain was played by
Humphrey Bogart. There were frequent disputes on the set about script changes. But
Michael Curtiz said that Scott tried to stay out of these arguments: "Randy Scott is a complete anachronism," said Curtiz. "He's a gentleman. And so far he's the only one I've met in this business..." Scott was the "other man" in the
Irene Dunne–
Cary Grant vehicle
My Favorite Wife (1940), a huge hit for RKO. For
Universal, he starred with
Kay Francis in
When the Daltons Rode (1940). Back at Fox, Scott returned to
Zane Grey country by co-starring with
Robert Young in the
Technicolor production
Western Union, directed by
Fritz Lang. Scott played a "good bad man" in this film and gave one of his finest performances.
Bosley Crowther of
The New York Times wrote:
Universal Scott's only true villain role was in
Universal's
The Spoilers (1942), an adaptation of
Rex Beach's 1905 tale of the
Alaskan gold rush also starring
Marlene Dietrich and
John Wayne. Its success led
Universal to cast the trio again that same year in
Pittsburgh. Scott was billed above Wayne in both films but Wayne played the hero in each.
World War II Shortly after the United States entered World War II, Scott attempted to obtain an officer's commission in the
Marines, but because of a back injury years earlier he was rejected. In 1942 and 1943 Scott appeared in several war films, as well as
The Desperadoes (1943),
Columbia Pictures' first feature in
Technicolor. The film was produced by
Harry Joe Brown, with whom Scott would form a business partnership several years later.
Post–World War II career In 1946, after playing roles that had him wandering in and out of the saddle for many years, Scott appeared in
Abilene Town, a
UA release which cast him in what would become one of his classic images, the fearless lawman cleaning up a lawless town. The film "cemented Scott's position as a cowboy hero" and from this point on all but two of his starring films were
Westerns.
The BFI Companion to the Western noted:In his earlier Westerns ... the Scott persona is debonair, easy-going, graceful, though with the necessary hint of steel. As he matures into his fifties his roles change. Increasingly Scott becomes the man who has seen it all, who has suffered pain, loss, and hardship, and who has now achieved (but at what cost?) a stoic calm proof against vicissitude. and
The Walking Hills (1949), a modern-day tale of gold hunters directed by
John Sturges. They followed it with
The Doolins of Oklahoma (1949),
The Nevadan (1950),
Santa Fe (1951),
Man in the Saddle (1951), ''
Hangman's Knot (1952), The Stranger Wore a Gun (1953) (shot in 3-D), Ten Wanted Men (1955), and A Lawless Street'' (1955) (with
Angela Lansbury.) Scott also made
Colt .45 (1950) at
Warner Bros. where his salary was US$100,000 per picture (equal to $ today). '', 1960 In 1955 screenwriter
Burt Kennedy wrote the script
Seven Men from Now, which was scheduled to be filmed by
Batjac Productions with
John Wayne as the film's star and
Budd Boetticher as director. However, Wayne was committed to
The Searchers with
John Ford, and suggested Scott as his replacement. The resulting film did not make a great impact at the time but is now regarded as one of Scott's best and launched Scott and Boetticher into a successful collaboration on seven films. Each film is independent and there are no shared characters or settings, but this set of films is often called the Ranown Cycle, for the production company run by Scott and Harry Joe Brown. Kennedy scripted four of them. In these films … Boetticher achieved works of great beauty, formally precise in structure and visually elegant, notably for their use of the distinctive landscape of the
California Sierras. As the hero of these "floating poker games" (as
Andrew Sarris calls them), Scott tempers their innately pessimistic view with quiet, stoical humour, as he matches wits against charming villains. After
7th Cavalry (1956), Boetticher, Kennedy and Scott were reunited for
The Tall T (1957), co-starring
Richard Boone. The third in the series was
Decision at Sundown (1957), although it was not written by Kennedy. The unofficial series continued with
Buchanan Rides Alone (1958).
Westbound (1959) is not considered part of the cycle, although Boetticher directed it. The last two, both written by Kennedy, were
Ride Lonesome (1959) and
Comanche Station (1960).
Last film: Ride the High Country In 1962 Scott made his final film appearance in
Ride the High Country. It was directed by
Sam Peckinpah and co-starred
Joel McCrea, an actor who had a screen image similar to Scott's and who also from the mid-1940s on devoted his career almost exclusively to
Westerns. Scott and McCrea's farewell Western is characterized by a nostalgic sense of the passing of the Old West; a preoccupation with the emotionality of male bonding and of the experiential "gap" between the young and the old; and the fearful evocation, in the form of the Hammonds (the villains in the film), of these preoccupations transmuted into brutal and perverse forms.McCrea's role in the film is slightly larger than Scott's, although Scott was billed above McCrea. ==Later years==