In praise of Sterling Hayden – cinema’s nicest tough guy

With Johnny Guitar returning to cinemas, we tip our hat to one of the most towering acting talents of his generation.

Words

Stephen Puddicombe

“There’s something about a tall man that makes people sit up and take notice.” So says a bystander shortly after Sterling Hayden’s introduction in the classic alt-western Johnny Guitar. He’s not wrong – the first thing you notice about Hayden is his remarkable height. Measuring 6’5”, he literally towers over his co-stars, carrying himself with an effortless authority.

There is, however, much more to Hayden than just his imposing stature. That opening scene in Johnny Guitar showcases his tough guy gravitas, as he measures up the building’s clientele with all the swagger of the great western heroes from John Wayne to Clint Eastwood, with a deep, booming drawl to round off his hard man status.

But it’s later on in the film, when the focus shifts to his relationship with Joan Crawford’s subversive saloon owner, that his multifaceted acting ability shines through. With the subtlest change in facial expression he transforms his hardened, menacing look of a wild west gunslinger into the soft, handsome features of a sensitive romantic lead. He was, after all, once billed by Paramount as ‘The most beautiful man in movies.’

It’s this winning combination that made him such a great choice for the morally nuanced characters he played in a pair of noir heist films: John Huston’s The Asphalt Jungle and Stanley Kubrick’s The Killing. In each he plays criminals fluent in wise-guy slang who carry out robberies on a jewellery store and a bookies at a horse racing track respectively – with all the self-assured competence of a hardened criminal. But a more vulnerable, unhinged side comes to the fore in The Asphalt Jungle’s final scene, when, fleeing the police and bleeding to death, Hayden’s character drives towards the idyllic farm of his childhood while incoherently rambling about making everything okay again. He reaches it only to collapse and die.

Despite mastering an acting style that was very much of its time, as he grew older and the film industry moved on from the Classical era to New Hollywood, Hayden managed to establish himself as a successful character actor, further entrenching his place in film history by appearing in yet more classics. (You may well recognise him as the cop who becomes Al Pacino’s first victim in The Godfather).

Further evidence of his versatility came in Dr Strangelove, for which he teamed up with Kubrick again to play the cigar-smoking, warmongering general who carries out the order for his men to nuke Russia. Jack D Ripper (the name is a give away) is clearly deranged, preaching about the need to protect US citizens’ “precious bodily fluids” from communist sabotage, but it’s the way Hayden savours every line without ever hamming it up that makes the character truly menacing. All while he displays a hilariously deadpan aptitude for comedy – holding his own opposite Peter Sellers, no less.

Hayden’s career came full circle in Robert Altman’s The Long Goodbye, where he returned to murky world of crime and double-crossing that characterised his early film noirs. Hollywood had changed – the old generic tropes deconstructed and revised. But Hayden had changed with it. Playing an alcoholic author suspected of murder, he delivers his lines in the naturalistic, improv style Altman demanded, and departs from his reticent, steely take on the macho criminal to portray a flailing mess of a character who winds up drowning himself in the sea. Hayden’s good looks faded with age and he became more hunched in posture, but this great actor still brought depth and pathos to his roles late into his career.

Johnny Guitar is getting a limited theatrical re-release on 6 May courtesy of Park Circus.

Published 26 Apr 2016

Tags: Joan Crawford Sterling Hayden

Suggested For You

Five sensational old-school westerns that reinvented the genre

By David Hayles

Bone Tomahawk isn’t the first film to push the American frontier in a surprising new direction.

Do movies turn women into masochists?

By Christina Newland

Is it possible for women to love movies which promote a regressive, misogynistic worldview?

Why Calamity Jane is a love song to America

By Elisa Adams

This classic Doris Day musical from 1953 is filled with catchy, surprisingly progressive show tunes.

Little White Lies Logo

About Little White Lies

Little White Lies was established in 2005 as a bi-monthly print magazine committed to championing great movies and the talented people who make them. Combining cutting-edge design, illustration and journalism, we’ve been described as being “at the vanguard of the independent publishing movement.” Our reviews feature a unique tripartite ranking system that captures the different aspects of the movie-going experience. We believe in Truth & Movies.

Editorial

Design