Thomas Mitchell

It’s true that It’s a Wonderful Life bombed in the theatre. That said, it was up for five Oscars. Granted, the only one it didn’t lose to The Best Years of Our Lives it lost instead to The Jolson Story. I can’t say that Best Supporting Actor was a crowded field that year, and while it seems obvious to us that Harold Russell was the frontrunner, he actually got a special Oscar because no one at the time believed a new actor was going to win. All of this is to explain why Thomas Mitchell didn’t get nominated in 1946 and probably wouldn’t have won even if he had.

He won in 1939, and the first question the average film buff who knows who he was would have is, “For which movie?” Mitchell had a banner year in 1939, that great year of cinema. He actually won for Stagecoach, but he could equally have been the third nominee in that category for Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, along with Harry Carey and Claude Rains. He wasn’t in Juarez, like Brian Aherne, or Beau Geste, like Brian Donlevy. However, he was in Only Angels Have Wings and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. And, of course, Gone With the Wind.

That is, frankly, a hell of a year. He talked to John Wayne about setting Ringo’s brother’s arm once. He basically fell in love with Cary Grant. Incongruously, he was king of the beggars in Paris. He’s cynical all over James Stewart. And, of course, he tells Vivien Leigh about the importance of the red earth of Tara. And if you haven’t seen him do any of those, you should watch more movies from 1939. I know that at least one of them has aged poorly, but Mr. Smith Goes to Washington has aged only too well.

And while he was relatively new to movies at the time, making his film debut in 1923 but then no more until 1934, he made many more afterward, and even lasted through to television. Obviously, he made more—1946, remember? But Make Way for Tomorrow and High Noon and all the way to yet another Damon Runyon adaptation, Pocketful of Miracles. He spent a lot of the ‘50s doing the early TV dramas. Even, in fact, the now-obscure Damon Runyon Theatre.

Mitchell spent decades as one of Hollywood’s great character actors. You definitely know him. He was wonderful. And if he didn’t get as many Oscar nominations as he deserved, well, at least he’s still remembered because we all see him at Christmas. What delights me, though, is discovering that one of his final stage roles was as Columbo. Yes, that Columbo. No, I didn’t realize there had ever been a stage version, either.