“I am delighted to be your cousin, but I’m still voting for Sal Mineo.”
With these 14 words, which appeared in a Variety ad sometime in early ’61, Groucho Marx killed any chance that Chill Wills‘ nomination for Best Supporting Actor Oscar, earned for his performance as “Beekeeper” in John Wayne‘s The Alamo (’60), might result in a win.
Marx did more than that actually — he articulated a general industry feeling that Wills had gauchely overplayed his hand by running trade-paper ads that promoted his performance, and thereby solidified Wills’ reputation as a craven hustler for the rest of his life.
On Oscar night (4.17.61) Bob Hope cracked “I didn’t know there was any campaigning until I saw my maid wearing a Chill Wills button.” Peter Ustinov‘s witty Spartacus performance won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar, beating out Wills, Mineo (Israeli freedom fighter in Exodus), Peter Falk (gangster in Murder, Inc.) and Jack Kruschen (Jack Lemmon‘s friendly doctor-neighbor in The Apartment).
How could Wills have drunkenly imagined he had even the slightest chance against Ustinov or the excellent Kruschen, who played the voice of moral conscience in The Apartment (“Be a mensch, Baxter…a human being!”).
So Wills’ self-promotion was ill-advised, but to err is human. An avid poker player and a rabid Republican who supported George Wallace’s 1968 third-party campaign for President, Wills passed in 1978 at the age of 76.
Here’s the odd part: As someone who’s watched The Alamo at least two or three times, I can honestly say I can’t remember Wills doing or saying anything in that 1960 film that really stood out. I’ll go farther than that: I don’t remember Wills at all in that film. Really.
In the 21st Century realm Wills is known for one line at best, and that was spoken in George Stevens Giant, in reference to James Dean‘s Jett Rink**: “Vic, you shoulda shot that fella a long time ago. Now he’s too rich to kill.”
** My son Jett was named after Jett Rink. The idea actually came from publicist Bruce Feldman.