In the mid-1960's, I first saw an old movie on TV, the title of which
I can't remember, in which LJ Cobb played the role of a washed-up
doctor, begging for money from a stranger, in India, I believe. When
the stranger called him a bum,
Cobb replied and began to cry by saying, "BUM? Johns Hopkins Medical
School, Chief of Surgery, etc., etc.", as he recalled his lamented
career and life. The stranger was shocked to hear it all because he
was dirty, unshaven,
homeless and so far from home.
It was a very minor sequence of an old movie that pre-dated the time
and even television. I have seen that same minor sequence of that
same old movie quite a few times over the years, but never the whole
film, which is why I can't
remember the title of it. My now ex-wife was THE movie authority told
me that it could have been a different actor who you think was Lee J.
Cobb. That's because actors are
occasionally mistaken for another by the viewer audience. In other
words, viewers see a star and say it's "so-and-so" when it's really
isn't after all. Hollywood knows how actors are credited for films
that aren't theirs, so it's been known for years.
I still believe it was LJ Cobb because the sound of his voice, his
looks and his cry is unmistakeable. I compared the actor to known
roles of Cobb, such that of as Kramden in the old Flint Movies, who is
so
well-remembered for yelling, "Flint's alive!, Did ya hear that?,
FLINT'S ALIVE!, FLINT'S ALIVE!!!" and they matched perfectly, so I'm
still sure it was Cobb after all.
From 1999 to about 2001, we went through all the databanks, including
the IMDB, then on to movie historians and drove them all to drinking,
early retirement and suicide, but no luck. We went up
to trying to contact his relatives, former co-stars and/or agents, but
stopped at that point.
I want to know how his role went in that old movie and how it ended.
This is my advice: Don't go through all the lesser-known sources of
research because we tried them for more than just
two years, including through historians and librarians, so go right up
to either contacting his relatives, etc. or sources that aren't open
to the public. |
