Star of 'The Yearling' appears at Clarence Brown Film Festival | Opinion

As a movie buff who lives in Knoxville, I never imagined I would be in the company of a Hollywood star I have admired for 76 years. Yet on Aug. 20, I sat onstage at the Tennessee Theatre with Claude Jarman, Jr. before the showing of one of his movies, "Intruder in the Dust." He was the star of the movie, and I interviewed him during the Clarence Brown Film Festival.

I was 12 years old in 1947 when I saw the "The Yearling," in which Jarman played the 12-year-old son of a poor farming couple in Florida. He adopted an orphan fawn that caused them much trouble. Jarman won a special Oscar for his performance.

Four years later as a teenager he played the son of John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara in the western "Rio Grande." In that movie he had flunked out of West Point and was assigned to a unit commanded by his father. His mother was determined to buy his way out of the Army, but he refused to leave.

In one of the early scenes, Jarman and actors Ben Johnson and Harry Carey Jr. rode horses Roman style. That is, they stood astride the backs of two horses going at full speed. I was convinced stuntmen had made those rides, but Jarman told me he and the others did their own riding.

In 1949 he was the young star of "Intruder in the Dust," one of the four Hollywood movies released that year that explored racism in the United States. The other three were "Home of the Brave," "Pinkie" and "Lost Boundaries." In "Intruder in the Dust," Jarman played the role of a white teenager who led an effort proving the innocence of an old Black man accused of murdering a prominent white man in Mississippi as a mob was preparing to lynch him.

Born in Nashville on Sept. 27, 1934, Jarman spent many days attending movies and riding horses. He was in his first school play at the age of 8 and joined the Nashville Community Theatre. He had no thought of pursuing acting as a career, but on Feb. 14, 1945, two men from Hollywood came to his school looking for a young boy to play an important role in an upcoming movie. One of them was legendary director Clarence Brown.

According to his biography, "My Life and the Final Days of Hollywood," Jarman and his father, Claude Sr., took the long train ride to California and spent several weeks there preparing for the movie. Some of the time was spent reading the script with several women who were seeking the part of his mother. Eventually, Jane Wyman won the role and Gregory Peck would play his father.

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On March 21, 1950, I was very excited to see a News-Sentinel article announcing Jarman would be coming to the University of Tennessee. It reported, "Jarman, now 15 years old and six feet tall, hopes to become a football star at the University of Tennessee. He has one unreleased film, 'The Outriders' with Joel McCrea." But he never came. Instead he enrolled at Vanderbilt University in Nashville and began studying liberal arts, history and political science.

Jarman appeared in 11 films and retired from acting in 1956 at the age of 21. He returned to the world of movies in 1965 as the director of the San Francisco International Film Festival. I was honored to meet him and his lovely wife, Katie, as Knoxville honored noted son Clarence Brown.

Robert J. Booker is a freelance writer and former executive director of the Beck Cultural Exchange Center. He may be reached at 865-546-1576.

This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: 'The Yearling' star appears at Clarence Brown Film Festival | Opinion