Steve Cochran: Noir and More Pt. II

Future Sigh Guy Robert Alexander Cochran

As I research Steve Cochran's life, I'm discovering that there was a lot more to it than just mysteries and scandals:

Steve Cochran was born Robert Alexander Cochran in Eureka, California, on May 25, 1917--95 years ago today. He was the youngest of two children born to Robert Alexander, Sr., and Jessie Emma (Rose) Cochran. His father was a lumberman, and the family later moved to the wide open spaces of Laramie, Wyoming, where Steve spent much of his youth.

Steve's older sister, Malvina Jane Cochran (1908-1971), became an accomplished artist who won renown under her married name, Vina Jane Cames. Vina's considerable artistic talents ranged from painting to lithography to sculpture, and her work has been exhibited in galleries all over the U.S.

Young Steve also had a creative streak. He became interested in acting while at Laramie High School. He was in a dramatics class taught by Ms. Velma Lindford and played the lead in Once There Was a Prince.

Following graduation, Steve began touring the US with various theater companies, as both an actor and stage manager. When acting work was scarce, he toiled at a number of other diverse jobs, including cowpuncher, railroad section worker, firefighter, and store detective in the ladies' lingerie and yardage departments at Macy's in New York City.  Steve later told a reporter that he could deter female shoplifters simply by scowling at them: 

"You'd be surprised at how expert a man can become with a menacing look. If a woman wandered by the yardage counter and I suspected she was about to slip some material into her purse, I'd give her the threatening brow. She'd get the hint and wander away. I probably saved a lot of people from arrest that way. And come to think of it, I probably lost the store a lot of customers by scaring off the innocent ones." 

While Steve's scowl would later become his on-screen trademark, it wasn't much help in his early twenties as he tried in vain to get a foothold in Hollywood films. Casting directors could picture the swarthy young actor only as a character player with little leading-man potential. 

Steve returned to the stage, and in 1944 made his Broadway debut in Hickory Stick, earning good reviews portraying a wounded soldier who returns home to become a teacher. 

While appearing in the play Without Love opposite Constance Bennett, Steve was noticed by famed Hollywood producer Sam Goldwyn, who put the actor under contract.  

Steve began appearing in Goldwyn films such as Wonder Man and The Kid From Brooklyn with Danny Kaye, and The Best Years of Our Lives starring Fredric March and Myrna Loy. He also showed up in noirish B-movies like The Chase, where he portrayed freaky gangster "Eddie Roman" who, among other bizarre traits, leaves his hat on while getting a haircut and owns a murderous pet dog. 

Even as a villain, Steve attracted the enthusiastic attention of the opposite sex. In 1946, newspaper writer Erskine Johnson described Steve as "dark and brawny, with shoulders like an oil boom and a jaw like granite," and revealed that women wrote on film preview cards that Steve reminded them of "a young Clark Gable", a "young James Mason", and even "a young Boris Karloff". 

Steve told Johnson, "It is much nicer being compared to Gable and Mason than to Karloff."

TO BE CONTINUED...