Our Star of the Month for July, the formidable Randolph Scott, comes from a far different background than you'd ever suspect based on all the cowpokes, ranch hands, western sheriffs and gunfighters he played in his 100-film career. He was born into the silver-spoon set, in Virginia, was privately schooled there, graduated from the University of North Carolina with a degree in textile engineering and manufacturing. Following college, he toured Europe for a full year as many young scions from prominent families did in the early 1920s. But everything changed when the acting bug bit.

With a letter of introduction from his father to family friend Howard Hughes, off to Hollywood he went and immediately found work as an extra in a 1928 George O'Brien western called Sharp Shooters. Stardom followed, and 34 years later, Scott ended what had been a formidable career also with a western (1962's Ride the High Country), then happily lived in a comfortable retirement for the next 25 years, until his death in 1987 at age 89. How comfortable? Let's just say that when Randolph Scott turned 80 in 1978, he was estimated to be worth between $50-$100 million dollars, making him one of the richest individuals among all actors in the movie industry at that time. A cowpoke he may have been on screen, but a sharp businessman he was off-camera.

The late Lee Marvin once recalled an incident which gives a great thumbnail sketch of the resourceful Randy. Marvin said, "We were doing a scene in which there was a stagecoach in flames, supposedly being driven by Scott but with a stuntman holding a reigns as a camera sat in the driver's seat. While all this was going on, 20 yards away, sitting in a canvas chair was Scott, dressed up in his cowboy outfit, legs crossed, casually reading the Wall Street Journal."

In his early years in the film business, Randy Scott bounced around working at a multitude of studios (even the lowest-rung Monogram is on his resume) but his tall, dark and aristocratic baring eventually plunked him down for a time Paramount studios where he starred in many B-budget westerns sandwiched in between A-budget projects in which he was the handsome, square-jawed leading man to such famous females as Mae West, Carole Lombard, Margaret Sullavan and Irene Dunne.

After that, as a free-lance actor, he did it all: musicals (1935's Roberta), comedies (1940's My Favorite Wife), war films (1943's Gung Ho!), adventures (1945's Captain Kidd), all of which we'll be showing during our R.S. salute this month. But it was in westerns where he fit best; that's also the genre in which he was most comfortable, despite his own aristocratic background. That, and his smart business sense, led him to a decision in 1947 which no other actor, to my knowledge, ever made: thereafter, he would work in only one genre, turning down all offers to ever do anything else. Thus, Randolph Scott, the western icon was really born, and we'll have 20 grand examples of why this gentleman from Virginia ultimately owned the movie plains of the west as much as John Wayne, Roy Rogers or any other star who ever strapped on a Colt .45, mounted a horse and then galloped across the Mesa.

by Robert Osborne