Jim Brown is not only an original Dirty Dozen cast member, he lived the life of a hard-hitting, real violent, real racist American football career for nine years with the NFL's Cleveland Browns. After years of gridiron pugilism he moved on to the softer-living, more liberal-thinking fake violence of Hollywood. Mainly because the owner of the Browns told him he was going to be fined $1500 a week for missing the training camp, even if he was filming the Dirty Dozen. So instead of paying the fine, he simply retired and moved his muscles and reputation to Hollywood, where the pay and lack of racism and full body tackling was infinitely better. He continued to play tough guy roles throughout the seventies and was at times said to be the 'first black action star' pushing the age of 'blaxploitation' cinema in the mid-70's. His characters are a who's who of toughness with names such as Slaughter, Gunn, Fireball, Stoker, Slammer, Lyedecker, Pike and perhaps the best name ever, Butch Meathook from the film Small Soldiers. Hollywood didn't soften him up though. He even threatened to make a comeback in the NFL in 1984 if his all-time rushing yards was broken by Franco Harris, who Brown considered not worthy of breaking his record because he felt Harris ran out of bounds too much, which is decidedly anti-tough. You know, instead of getting mauled by the opposing team's defence, which is what real men do between steaks.
Been there, done that but not too well. Continually financially restrained. Now (and still) lives in Western Canada and talks some hockey and parenting on ogieoglethorpe.blogspot.ca and watching trailers on 2minutemovies.blogspot.ca.
