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PROVO — Old Hollywood lives on for a Utah man who got his start in movies when he was 14-years-old. In fact, Grenade Curran said he grew up on the iconic backlot of the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios.
"I have my own rack here," said 80-year-old Curran as he thumbed through a circular wardrobe rack packed with costumes and mementos from his Hollywood friends.
"Here's a very nice thing that John Wayne gave me," Curran said as he held up a wood hook stirrup. It rests next to another stirrup given to him by another Western film icon, Ben Johnson.
"Ben was just an outstanding horseman,” said Curran, “one of the greatest horsemen in Hollywood." Curran has carefully tagged each souvenir in a collection that runs wall-to-wall in his Provo home. It includes a pair of brown cowboy boots worn by star actress Kim Novak when production of “The Great Bank Robbery” wrapped.
“She was really good with horses,” Curran said of Novak. “She could really handle a horse remarkably well.”
Curran’s collection includes a pair of gloves he said were once worn by another icon, Roy Rogers.
“My dad was the family cameraman for Roy Rogers and Dale Evans,” said Curran. “These are the gloves that he liked to wear — the leather ones.”
In his home’s entryway, Curran keeps a mannequin neatly dressed in a Hollywood laundry list: Henry Fonda’s shirt, Joel McCrae’s neck tie, Dean Martin’s vest and Clint Eastwood’s pants.
My dad was the family cameraman for Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. These are the gloves that he liked to wear — the leather ones.
–Grenade Curran
“The name, Grenade, is a French, English name,” said Curran about his distinctive name. He says it got him a lot of attention, including every time he bumped into Lee Marvin.
“He reached over here in the side of his pocket, pulled something off,” Curran said as he pantomimed how Marvin would reach for a fictional grenade, “bit it (the fictional grenade’s pin), pit it, and he’d throw it back at me.”
A blast is how Curran describes growing up on Hollywood sets.
“Here’s my mother, Marion,” Curran said as he pointed to a photo tucked into a row of dozens of photos. His mother, Marion Ahern, first danced for Paramount and then got a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. That’s where she met his father, Charles Curran, a newsreel cameraman and stand-in for Hollywood icon Clark Gable.
“Somebody would tap me on the shoulder, and I would look up and he’d walk by and give me the thumbs up,” Curran remembers about Gable whenever he’d run into him at a studio commissary. He said he’d look back down at the table to find a carton of orange juice or chocolate milk — something besides coffee or beer.
“He (Gable) was always looking out for me to not smoke and drink, and that kind of stuff,” said Curran.
Curran said he started his own Hollywood career as a child actor and dancer. Then he moved behind the camera as a production assistant.
“I even worked construction, greens — all the plant settings,” said Curran. “I worked watching the props and set decoration, the art director. And I watched the camera angles, and assisted the cameramen and operators.”
Those production gigs allowed Curran to work closely with Hollywood’s A-list of the day.
“This is Dick van Dyke and myself,” Curran said as he held up a picture of the two during filming of the 1971 Norman Lear comedy, “Cold Turkey.”
“And, we’re holding a pair of rattlesnake rattlers we killed that morning.”
“There’s Burt and myself,” said Curran as looked at a photograph taken during production of the 1966 Western action film, “The Professionals.”
“We’re shooting at night at the Valley of Fire (in Nevada),” remembers Curran. “We’re drying his pants because he’d fallen into a trough of water by accident.”
“There’s me and Kirk Douglas and me standing,” Curran noted as he pointed to a picture taken during filming of the 1970 Western, “There Was a Crooked Man.” The boots worn by Douglas during that production are also in Curran’s collection — standing by that mannequin in his lobby.
Curran worked for nearly every major studio, including Walt Disney.
“So, I’d call him ‘Dalt Wisney” and he’d call me ‘Shrapnel,’” remembers Curran. Curran worked on several Disney film and television productions, including “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea,” “Davy Crockett” and the original “The Mickey Mouse Club.”
“His wonder, artistic sense of humor,” said Curran of Disney. “That’s what started our friendship."
Curran also remembers Lee Marvin fondly for not allowing anyone to offer him a smoke during the productions they worked together.
“Lee reaches across, smacks the guy’s hand, knocks them (cigarettes) out of his hands, and they spill all over the dirt and ground,” reminisces Curran.
“Frank!” shouted Marvin, Curran remembers, “Grenade is a Mormon! What’s the matter with you!”
Curran retired from Hollywood years ago, but he keeps holding onto gifts and souvenirs he received from actors and crew members. Each one is tagged with a story.
“Growing up in the movie business,” said Curran, “by listening and watching, you get a free education.”
Curran says he’s almost ready to call a wrap on a longtime project, his memoirs about growing up and working in old Hollywood. It’s got a title already — “In Character: My Life On and Off the Set in Hollywood.”
Curran hopes the book will be released this year.
