Джоэл МакКри: Америка актерiнiң өмiрi мен шығармашылығы

American actor (1905–1990)

Joel Albert McCrea (November 5, 1905 – October 20, 1990) was an American actor whose career spanned a wide variety of genres over almost five decades, including comedy, drama, romance, thrillers, adventures, and Westerns, for which he became best known. He appeared in over one hundred films, starring in over eighty, among them Alfred Hitchcock's espionage thriller Foreign Correspondent (1940), Preston Sturges' comedy classics Sullivan's Travels (1941), and The Palm Beach Story (1942), the romance film Bird of Paradise (1932), the adventure classic The Most Dangerous Game (1932), Gregory La Cava's bawdy comedy Bed of Roses (1933), George Stevens' six time Academy Award nominated romantic comedy The More the Merrier (1943), William Wyler's These Three, Come and Get It (both 1936) and Dead End (1937), Howard Hawks' Barbary Coast (1935), and a number of western films, including Wichita (1955) as Wyatt Earp and Sam Peckinpah's Ride the High Country (1962), opposite Randolph Scott. He starred in a total of three Best Picture Oscar nominees: Dead End (1937), Foreign Correspondent (1940), and The More the Merrier (1943). With the exception of the British thriller Rough Shoot (1953) and film noir Hollywood Story (1951), McCrea appeared in Western films exclusively from 1946 until his retirement in 1976.

McCrea was born in South Pasadena, California, the son of Thomas McCrea, an executive with the L. A. Gas & Electric Company, and Louise "Lou" Whipple. As a boy, he had a paper route delivering the Los Angeles Times to Cecil B. DeMille and other people in the film industry. He also had the opportunity to watch D. W. Griffith filming Intolerance, and was an extra in a serial starring Ruth Roland. McCrea graduated from Hollywood High School and then Pomona College (class of 1928.) There he had acted on stage and took courses in drama and public speaking, while also appearing regularly at the Pasadena Playhouse. In 1928 he also met Wyatt Earp in Hollywood – later in 1955, McCrea would portray Earp in the film, Wichita. As a high school student McCrea worked as a stunt double and Barbara Stanwyck in Gambling Lady, the first of their six pairings. Later in the decade he was the first actor to play "Dr. Kildare", in the film Internes Can't Take Money (1937), and starred in two large scale Westerns, Wells Fargo (1937) with his wife Frances Dee, and Cecil B. DeMille's Union Pacific (1939). McCrea reached the peak of his early career in the early 1940s, in Alfred Hitchcock's thriller Foreign Correspondent (1940), a romantic comedy, The More the Merrier (1943), directed by George Stevens, and two comedies by Preston Sturges: Sullivan's Travels (1941) and The Palm Beach Story (1942). While shooting Sullivan's Travels, it was an on set joke that tall McCrea's leading lady, Veronica Lake, had to stand on a box for some shots, as she was reportedly 16 inches shorter than McCrea, and it was otherwise impossible to get both of their heads in the same shot. McCrea turned down playing in a number of films; he was offered the lead role in The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946) but he refused, saying "This character is too much of a gigolo. I don't like his moral standards." Among other movies he declined were Spitfire (1934), The Impatient Years (1944), Intruder in the Dust (1949), and The Story of Will Rogers (1952). During World War II, McCrea refused to portray military heroes, with the explanation, "Since I was too old to be called, I was too old for that kind of a show". In the early 1950s, McCrea starred as Jace Pearson on the radio series western, Tales of the Texas Rangers. In 1955 he was Wyatt Earp in Wichita directed by Jacques Tourneur. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association awarded the film with "Best Picture – Outdoor Drama" that year. In 1959, McCrea and his son Jody starred in the brief NBC TV series Wichita Town. Earlier he had turned down the lead in Rawhide, feeling it would make too heavy a workload. A few years later, McCrea united with fellow veteran of westerns Randolph Scott in Ride the High Country (1962), directed by Sam Peckinpah, after which he did not make another feature film until The Young Rounders (1966). Four more years were to pass before his next film, but 1970 saw the release of two: Cry Blood, Apache, again with his son Jody, and Sioux Nation. He made his final film appearance in 1976, in Mustang Country.

In 1968, McCrea received a career achievement award from the L. A. Film Critics Association, and the following year he was inducted into the Hall of Great Western Performers at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. For his contribution to the motion picture industry, McCrea has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6901 Hollywood Blvd. and another star at 6241 Hollywood Blvd. for his contribution to radio. He was also a winner of the Golden Boot Award in 1987, the Golden Laurel Award in 1951, a Photoplay Award in 1939 for his performance in Union Pacific, the Silver Medallion Award in 1982, and the Trustees Award in 1976 for the film, Mustang Country.

McCrea married actress Frances Dee in Rye, New York on October 20, 1933, after they met while filming The Silver Cord. Coincidentally, Dee was born only a few blocks away from McCrea's home, but she moved to Chicago during her childhood. They had three sons, Jody, Peter and David. They were married until McCrea's death 57 years later. McCrea – who was an outdoorsman who had once listed his occupation as "rancher" and his hobby as "acting" – had begun buying property as early as 1933, when he purchased his first in a then unincorporated area of eastern Ventura County, California, which later became Thousand Oaks, California. This was the beginning of what evolved into a spread where McCrea and his wife lived, raised their sons, and rode their horses. At one point, McCrea's ranch produced 200,000 pounds of beef every year. He was noted for being a hard worker on his ranch; he was very active in the management, including riding, roping and branding. By the end of the 1940s, McCrea was a multi millionaire, as much from his real estate dealings as from his movie stardom. It is said that McCrea once joked that he "only acted so he could afford to ranch." In the early 1960s, he sold of land to an oil company on the condition that they would not drill within sight of his home. In a story originally published in 1954, McCrea shared that he was a man of faith, who relied on the guidance of God in his personal life and career, saying that through the years he followed the principle of "asking my way of Him." At the end of the article, McCrea added, "I don't claim I haven't made mistakes. I have. But most of my mistakes were due to trusting 'luck' or my own judgment instead of His." McCrea made his final public appearance on October 3, 1990, at a fundraiser for Republican gubernatorial candidate Pete Wilson in Beverly Hills. After his death his family ultimately donated thirty five acres of McCrea's former ranch to the newly formed Conejo Valley YMCA for the city of Thousand Oaks, California. They also donated 75 acres to the Conejo Open Space Conservancy Agency (COSCA), which designated it the Joel McCrea Wildlife Preserve; and five acres to the Boys and Girls Club of Camarillo.