Randolph Scott

In April 1917, the United States entered World War I and shortly afterwards, Scott, then 19 years old, joined the United States Army. He served in France as an artillery observer with the 2nd Trench Mortar Battalion, 19th Field Artillery Regiment. His wartime experience gave him training that was put to use in his later film career, including horsemanship and the use of firearms.

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. Fortunately, Scott's father had become acquainted with Howard Hughes and provided a letter of introduction for his son to present to the eccentric millionaire filmmaker. Hughes responded by getting Scott a small part in a George O'Brien film called Sharp Shooters (1928). Despite its title and the presence of O'Brien, Sharp Shooters is not a western, as some film historians claimed. Rather, it's a romantic comedy. A print of the film survives in the UCLA Film and Television Archive.

In 1931 Scott played his first leading role (with Sally Blane) in Women Men Marry (1931), a film, now apparently lost, that was made by a Poverty Row studio called Headline Pictures. A silent film by the same name from 1922, directed by Edward Dillon, has apparently been preserved, however, at Filmmuseum Amsterdam. The Library of Congress American Silent Feature Film Survival Catalog:..Women Men Marry.

In 1932 Scott appeared in a play at the Vine Street Theatre in Hollywood entitled Under a Virginia Moon. His performance in this play resulted in several offers for screen tests by the major movie studios. Scott eventually signed a seven-year contract with Paramount Pictures at a salary of USD $400 per week (equivalent to $7,500 in 2019).

Scott married twice. In 1936, he became the second husband of heiress Marion duPont, daughter of William du Pont Sr., and great-granddaughter of Éleuthère Irénée du Pont de Nemours, the founder of the E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company. Marion had previously married George Somerville, with Scott serving as best man at the wedding. The Scotts' marriage ended in divorce three years later, in 1939. The union produced no children. Though divorced, she kept his last name nearly five decades, until her death in 1983.

In 1941, Scott also co-starred with a young Gene Tierney in another western, Belle Starr. After a spy film with Elisabeth Bergner, Paris Calling (1941), he was in a hugely popular war film at Fox with John Payne and Maureen O'Hara, To the Shores of Tripoli (1942).

In 1942 and 1943, Scott appeared in several war films, notably To the Shores of Tripoli (1942) at Fox, Bombardier (1943) at RKO, the Canadian warship drama Corvette K-225 (1943) (produced by Howard Hawks), Gung Ho! at Universal and China Sky (1945) at RKO.

In 1944, Scott married the actress Patricia Stillman, who was 21 years his junior. In 1950, they adopted two children, Sandra and Christopher.

Although Scott achieved fame as a motion picture actor, he managed to keep a fairly low profile with his private life. Offscreen he was a good friend of Fred Astaire and Cary Grant. He met Grant on the set of Hot Saturday (1932), and shortly afterwards, they moved in together and shared a beach house for 12 years in Malibu that became known as "Bachelor Hall". In 1944, Scott and Grant stopped living together, but they remained close friends for the rest of their lives.

Randolph Scott was an active Republican. In 1944, he attended the massive rally organized by David O. Selznick in the Los Angeles Coliseum in support of the Dewey-Bricker ticket as well as Governor Earl Warren of California, who would become Dewey's running mate in 1948. The gathering drew 93,000, with Cecil B. DeMille as the master of ceremonies and short speeches by Hedda Hopper and Walt Disney. Among those in attendance were Ann Sothern, Ginger Rogers, Adolphe Menjou, and Gary Cooper. Scott also supported Barry Goldwater in the 1964 United States presidential election.

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 would be Westerns. The Scott Westerns of the late 1940s would each be budgeted around US$1,000,000, equal to $13,100,000 today. Scott mostly made Westerns for producers Nat Holt or Harry Joe Brown or at Warner Bros, although he did make Albuquerque (1948) at Paramount.

Scott also made Rage at Dawn in 1955 for Nat Holt, which was released by RKO starring Scott and Forrest Tucker, and featuring Denver Pyle, Edgar Buchanan, and J. Carrol Naish. It purports to tell the true story of the Reno Brothers, an outlaw gang which terrorized the American Midwest, particularly Southern Indiana, soon after the American Civil War.

Also of interest is Shootout at Medicine Bend shot in 1955, but released in 1957, which was Scott's last movie in black and white. The movie co-stars James Garner and Angie Dickinson.

In 1955, screenwriter Burt Kennedy wrote a script entitled Seven Men from Now which was scheduled to be filmed by John Wayne's Batjac Productions with Wayne as the film's star and Budd Boetticher as its director. However, Wayne was already committed to John Ford's The Searchers. Wayne therefore suggested Scott as his replacement. The resulting film, released in 1956, did not make a great impact at the time but is now regarded by many as one of Scott's best, as well as the one that launched Scott and Boetticher into a successful collaboration that totaled seven films.

By 1956, Scott turned 58, an age where the careers of most leading men would be winding down. Scott, however, was about to enter his finest and most acclaimed period.

Scott's face reportedly was used as the model for the Oakland Raiders logo in 1960; the logo was redesigned in 1963. For over 50 years, the iconic Raiders head would experience minor modifications and remain consistent with the original design.

In 1962 Scott made his final film appearance in Ride the High Country, a film now regarded as a classic. 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.

In the 1963 film Soldier in the Rain, when Master Sergeant Maxwell Slaughter (Jackie Gleason) defends his date's honor by protecting her from a jealous suitor, Bobby Jo Pepperdine (Tuesday Weld) exclaims "You know what? You were just like Randolph Scott on the late, late movies...a fat Randolph Scott.".

The 1974 comedy film Blazing Saddles paid homage to Scott. When faced by a crowd refusing to cooperate, Sheriff Bart (Cleavon Little) exclaims "You'd do it for Randolph Scott!" whereupon the crowd in unison hymns "Randolph Scott!" and sets about working.

In 1975, Scott was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States. He also received an In Memoriam Golden Boot Award for his work in Westerns.

Scott died of heart and lung ailments in 1987 at the age of 89 in Beverly Hills, California. He was interred at Elmwood Cemetery in Charlotte, North Carolina. He and his wife Patricia had been married for 43 years. She died in 2004 and is buried next to her husband. Their mid-century modern home was torn down in 2008.

Scott is the subject of guitarist Leo Kottke's song "Turning into Randolph Scott (Humid Child)" on his 1994 album Peculiaroso.

For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Scott has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6243 Hollywood Blvd. In 1999, a Golden Palm Star on the Palm Springs, California, Walk of Stars was dedicated to him.