The Alfalfa Murder – Part II

Unfortunately, that kind of luck doesn’t last forever. Carl left the series in 1940, though the role followed him everywhere. He was knocking on doors all day, chasing acting jobs, but the people they hired would just say, “Hey, Alfie, sing out of tune for us.” He used to drive him crazy. He always said that it’s hard for a former child actor to go back to work.

He starred in a couple of movies, There’s One Born Every Minute and The Great Mike. He played Billy Wiggs in Mrs. Cabbage Wiggs. In the late 1940s, he led three programmers of the low-budget Gas House Kids, where he reunited with his perpetual Our Gang nemesis Tommy “Butch” Bond. Tommy was one of his best friends. He died of heart failure in Northridge in September 2005 at the age of 79.

Aside from those few high points, it was mostly downhill for Carl over the next decade. He had small roles in Leo McCarey’s Going My Way, Courage Of Lassie, A Letter To Three Wives and the Tracy-Hepburn vehicle Pat and Mike. Most of the time, he doesn’t even get his name in the credits.

Frank Capra had written a couple of Our Gang scripts in the ’20s. He cast Carl in two classics. First in It’s A Wonderful Life in 1946, when Carl was 19 years old. He played Donna Reed’s boring date at the school dance. It’s a good little paper. He and his friend are the couple who open the pool that Stewart and Reed fall into while nervous. In the ensuing chaos, Carl shrugs it off and joins his classmates in the big splash.

And then he appeared in another Tracy-Hepburn film, this one for Capra, State Of The Union, in 1948. But by then the roles were getting smaller and less frequent. Almost as if the producers were embarrassed to choose it.

Then, in the ’50s, Our Gang was resurrected on TV as The Little Rascals. It was a huge resounding success. Alfalfa was rediscovered by a new group of children, and the character became as beloved and captivating as it was in the 1930s.

But it was a mixed blessing for Carl Switzer. He was happy to be recognized, but it didn’t help him get a job. He seemed to hurt, actually. And while the show’s distributors were making a fortune, millions upon millions, Alfalfa and the rest of the Our Gang stars didn’t get a dime. There was no such thing as waste in those days.

Carl felt bitter about it, even though he had fond memories of his stints in Our Gang. He and Tommy Bond really hit it off. In the stories, Butch and Alfalfa were always at each other’s throats. But there was no competition between them in real life. They laughed a lot together. They considered themselves to be kingpins of the backlot.

Carl, as a kid, was always causing trouble on set. He hated school, and deliberately ruined a take with his antics. Once a cameraman got mad at him and barked at him in annoyance. Alfalfa paid him back when everyone went out to lunch by stuffing a gigantic piece of gum into the chamber, shutting down production for the rest of the day. On another occasion, when an impatient director was harassing him, Carl climbed the catwalks and peed in the hot lights, cleaning the studio because of the stale odor.

Life was never dull around Alfalfa. Tommy Bond said: “He was a riot. Everybody loved him.” You never knew what kind of trick he would do next. He was naughty and you couldn’t control him. Darla Hood, one of his co-stars, said he was exciting to have around, but she was sometimes afraid of him.

Another of his childhood co-stars was Robert Blake, yes, that Robert Blake, known at the time by his real name, Mickey Gubitosi. He was impressed with Alfalfa’s substantial talents. He has said that Carl could play several different instruments and was endlessly inventive as an actor. According to Blake, when Carl wanted to, he could get it exactly right on the first take.

So Carl, in his 20s, was feeling down. Back at Roach Studios, he was the center of attention. And now he felt like he was just another failure, lurking on the margins of the business.

He did the best he could, on his own. He supplemented his income by taking odd jobs as a waiter. Or as a professional hunting guide in the Sierra Alta. Actually, he was pretty good at it. He had his own dogs and equipment. And he enjoyed it. His regular clients included Roy Rogers, Henry Fonda and Jimmy Stewart.

And then there was William Wellman. “Wild Bill” they called him. A man’s man and one of the most colorful directors in Hollywood. His 1927 film Wings won the first Best Picture Oscar. Carl was on a big game hunting trip with him, but Wellman didn’t recognize him. He kept looking at Carl; he couldn’t quite place him, though he thought he looked familiar. Finally, he said something about it, and Carl reluctantly told him that he was Alfalfa. Wellman laughed and said, “You’re going to be in my next picture.” Carl’s eyes bulged out, just like Alfalfa’s.

The man was as good as his word. Carl Switzer played Hopper in William A. Wellman’s Island In The Sky in 1953… and got his name in the credits at the beginning of the film. And then the next year he did another one for Wild Bill. He played Ensign Keim in The High And The Mighty. It was a huge box office success.

Both were John Wayne films, made by Wayne’s production company, Batjac. Later that year Carl was offered more work. It was another Wellman film, Track Of The Cat, starring Robert Mitchum, from a novel by Walter Van Tilburg Clark. Carl was going to play Joe Sam, a 100-year-old Piute Indian ranch hand. It was a challenge, to put it mildly. He was 26 years old at the time. No one alive today can say why the hell they cast a skinny white kid in a role like that, but the company hired a Native American trainer, Augie Gomez, 77, a Mohawk and former extra and stand-in. , to help you get the right character. Carl did well, he certainly wasn’t embarrassed.

It took three hours to do his makeup every day. And he was perfectly happy to sit there while they did it.

Carl sensed that things were looking up. But he was still the same joker and troublemaker. One night at the location, he dumped a live raccoon into Mitchum’s cabin.

Five weeks prior to production, Carl had eloped with Dian Collingwood, the daughter of a wealthy Kansas farmer. John Wayne’s brother, Bob Morrison, was the best man at the Las Vegas wedding. But the couple did not get along. They broke up during filming. Carl was being hounded by the press. His only comment was, “I guess bear hunting and marriage don’t mix.”

After the movie ended, Dian told him that she was pregnant and they reconciled. Carl agreed to get rid of the three hunting dogs for him. But the marriage did not last and they soon divorced.

Carl kept going. He landed a semi-recurring role on the Roy Rogers TV show. He landed small, uncredited roles in a handful of movies, including Francis In The Navy and The Ten Commandments. He was hired to star in a comedy on a Huckleberry Finn TV series, but somehow it never worked out.

Then, in 1958, he landed a juicy role in his last film, The Defiant Ones, starring Sidney Poitier and Tony Curtis. The part of him, Angus, ran through the whole story. Just before its release, Carl told a reporter, “I’ll see how this one turns out. If this doesn’t work for me, nothing will.”