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GERALD MOHR
11 June 1914 - 9 November 1968
A Fan's Appreciation
LINDA C WOOD
Please sign my Guestbook hereunder!
I first saw Gerald Mohr on my television screen back in the early 1960s, when ITV showed all the best of the TV Westerns which were being made in Hollywood in these days - wonderful shows like Maverick, Cheyenne, Bonanza, Rawhide, Bronco, Sugarfoot (Tenderfoot in the UK) etc. For every hero there always has to be a villain, a blackhat baddie, and Mr Mohr was one of them - always the "Guest Star", and nearly always gunned down, knifed or drowned, killed before the end of the show. And he was the best actor at dying on screen I have ever seen. But there was something different and special about the Gerald Mohr roles - despite him being a baddie, viewers ended up liking him and being sorry when he bit the dust before the end of the episode! He brought an elegance, charm and style to all his characters, an added depth, difficult for any actor to establish in half hour or hour-long episodes - but Mr Mohr was not "any" actor. He was special, stood out a mile from the rest.
As time went by, I never forgot him, sometimes spotting him in other series like "Lost in Space" and "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea", which, with the advent of video recorders, enabled me to capture his performances and keep them and I did get his one and only "Rawhide" appearance, the only cowboy I had of him - until now.
In December 2004, on Majestic TV, one of the UK Sky channels, the first season of Bonanza was being screened and, to my delight, there was Mr Mohr guest starring in "The Abduction". This triggered a search on the internet and I at last know his career history, and can see for myself how he gained "Guest Star" status - over 40 years after I first saw him on TV! And the amazing thing is, all the qualities that attracted him to me all these years ago attract me to him still. Handsome, elegant, suave and a great character actor (and I use the word "great" deliberately), he was, quite simply, in my humble opinion, the best of his generation.
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In June 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008 I have visited Stockholm and paid my respects at Mr Mohr's final resting place in Lidingö Kyrka. Please click on the links hereunder for the stories of each visit.
My thanks to Jan Samuelson of Norrorts Gravvårdar, Täby, near Stockholm who, at my behest in August 2007, has painted Gerald's name, date of birth and date of death on his gravestone in gold paint.
My sincere thanks also to Tim and Thom Dietrich for giving me their permission to commission this work with Norrorts.
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It seems to me a great pity that Mr Mohr was never accorded the accolade of a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame - he was, after all, a radio, film and TV star, with his illustrious career spanning 4 decades. If other friends and fans of Mr Mohr who read this agree with me and are in a position to assist me to make this happen, please contact me at the e-mail address below.
I would very much appreciate communication with fellow Mohr fans out there in the internet. Should you, dear reader, wish to contact me to chat about him, my e-mail address is: lindacwood@hotmail.com.
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Should you enjoy a short story, I attach one I have written in honour of Mr Mohr's character, Captain Delgado, a delightful cameo appearance in the Rita Hayworth film "Gilda". I hope you enjoy it!
And here's a poem about Mr Mohr's baddie in the "Cheyenne" episode "Rendezvous at Red Rock".
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I have also written a story as a sequel to Gerald's character in the Dick Powell Theatre drama "The Sea Witch".
GO TO "RETURN TO THE SEA WITCH" STORY 
I have discovered the following newspaper article from the Syracuse Herald-American, dated 11 December 1966, which reinforces from the man himself my comments above on Mr Mohr's approach to his bad-guy characters:
MOHR'S 'HEAVY'
Gerald Mohr is a "heavy" with a light touch. A "heavy" in television and motion pictures is the villain of the piece. The man people always love to hate. Mohr is one of the best. "The best heavies, however, are those actors who play the part with a little humor, a little love of life thrown in," explained the suave despised one. "You've got to look like you enjoy the job. When you break a hero's arm ... smile. When you throw sand in his face ... chuckle a little. When you push the old lady down the stairs ... wave good-bye as she goes. Audiences are happiest when they can watch a man who loves his work."
And Mr Mohr very obviously loved his work!
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The magazine article in the link hereunder is from the Swedish magazine 'Lektyr' dated 21 December 1963 and is a very detailed and informative piece, written when Gerald was in Sweden for the premiere of "Wild West Story".
GO TO 'LEKTYR' MAGAZINE ARTICLE
Please view my Gerald Mohr Biography.
Here are some informal family photos of Gerald and Mai-Britt, taken in Eskilstuna and Lidingö, Sweden, in 1964.---oo0oo---
Boyd Magers featured an article on Gerald in the September/October 2007 edition of "Western Clippings" under the section "Characters and Heavies". Copies are $5ppd available from Boyd Magers, 1312 Stagecoach Road SE, Albuquerque, NM 87123, USA.
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Please also view my Photo Album hereunder, which you can access by clicking into the View My Photo Album icon under the Bravenet site counter, featuring 50 photos I've taken from my video and DVD collection of Mr Mohr's heroes and villains. While you're there, please visit My Guestmap and place your pin - I love to see where all my visitors come from!
My fast URL is: http://get-me.to/lindacwood
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The link to Online Film Clips hereunder features clips from TV shows or films in which Gerald has starred or guest starred and exhibits quite clearly his versatility, ranging as they do from straight drama (Guns, Girls and Gangsters and Invasion, USA), through TV Westerns (Sugarfoot), to being the hero in "The Angry Red Planet" to comedy (a full half-hour episode of The Jack Benny Show called "Ghost Town Western" - very funny!) to cartoon voice-over in "Flora". Click on and enjoy!
WEB LINKS
Link to the Gerald Mohr International Movie Database site: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0596056/.
Within this database I have rated the films of Mr Mohr that I have a copy of. Please see this on: http://www.imdb.com/mymovies/list?l=11157927.
I have also made comments in IMDb, most of them pertaining to Gerald's work. Please view them on: http://imdb.com:80/user/ur3741958/comments.
NEWLY AVAILABLE FROM FEBRUARY 2008!
OTRCAT.com (short for Old Time Radio Catalog) has compiled a 6-disk set of MP3 CDs called The Gerald Mohr Collection costing $30 for the set and including an updated Philip Marlowe two-disk collection (107 episodes, also available separately at $10). The Collection features his episodes of The Whistler, Gunsmoke, Yours Truly Johnny Dollar and many other shows! There are a total of 289 episodes on these disks. My thanks go to Jon at OTRCAT.com for all his work in compiling this wonderful set of Gerald's radio shows! The Gerald Mohr Collection and/or Philip Marlowe collection are highly recommended, spotlighting, as they do, Gerald's massive, and until now generally unrecognised, contribution to the American radio industry during the 1940s and early 1950s.
Should you be interested in buying either The Gerald Mohr Collection and/or his Philip Marlowe collection, please use this link: http://www.otrcat.com/108-Mohr-3-custom.html. This will take you to the main OTRCAT.com page, where you will also see the links for both Philip Marlowe and The Gerald Mohr Collection.
Link to Conelrad's Gerald Mohr website: http://www.conelrad.com/features/invasionusa/mohr.html.
Link to Brian's Drive-In Theater Gerald Mohr website: http://www.briansdriveintheater.com/geraldmohr.html.
Link to Gerald's Wikipedia website, English version: http://en.wikepedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Mohr.
Link to Gerald's Wikipedia website, Swedish version (different content): http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Mohr.
A YouTube website has been created for Mr Mohr at: http://youtube.com/watch?v=T_QJ4RvXvpY. It is a clip from "Guns, Girls and Gangsters" featuring Mamie Van Doren as Vi Victor in a scene with Gerald as Chuck Wheeler. My sincere thanks to Jay Seckels for taking the time and trouble to create this YouTube tribute to Gerald.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. "Best of the Badmen" by Boyd Magers, Bob Nareau and Bobby Copeland (2005) features a page on Gerald (page 230) with a short biography and a recommended viewing list of his films and TV Westerns in which he was the 'heavy'. Highly recommended. ISBN No. 978-0-944019-43-6.
2. "TV Western Players of the Fifties: A Biographical Encyclopedia of All Cast Members in Western Series, 1950-1959". Features a potted biography of Gerald. Written and compiled by Everett Aaker, published by McFarland in 1997.
3. "Encyclopedia of Early Television Crime Fighters". Features a potted biography of Gerald. Written and compiled by Everett Aaker, published by McFarland in 2006.
4. The Macmillan International Film Encyclopedia also features a potted biography of Gerald on page 957 of this biographer's version. Written and compiled by Ephraim Katz, published in 1994 by Pan Macmillan Ltd., London.
Updated 24 June 2008.
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