Sterling Hayden

But the way Hollywood of the classic era liked it best was for the actor to be “discovered.” That’s right. You’re sitting at Schwab’s Pharmacy on Sunset Boulevard in 1937 and the next thing you know, you’re Lana Turner and making $1000 a week. By the way, it wasn’t Schwab’s, it was the Top Hat Malt Shop. Hollywood even has a genre for this, the films of “You’re going to be a star, kid.” As an example, all twenty versions of A Star Is Born, under various titles. Singin’ In The Rain. Day Of The Locust. Hearts Of The West. The Aviator. The Artist. Busby Berkley musicals. It’s the old story. A kid with talent and heart moves to Hollywood from Nebraska or Kansas and waits tables, or parks cars, sells newspapers, or is a hat-check girl, until their big break. Someone hears them sing or sees them smile. Or sometimes they end up like the Black Dahlia --- that’s a different kind of movie. But generally, it’s the old hokum…

It really happened. It happened to a 6’ 5” blonde-haired guy who was built like a tank, with a voice like a foghorn, who really was a skilled sailor. Who, by the way, became one of the great actors of film noir, of Westerns, war films, even delving, almost unintentionally, into black comedy and films that are now acknowledged classics, no matter the genre. It happened to Sterling Hayden. And he ducked and bobbed and weaved away from his fate as an actor, as do so many film noir protagonists. But he was caught up in Hollywood’s web, for better or worse. From his life storm emerged one of film’s most interesting and talented actors. 

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