http://www.jta.org/1983/03/17/archive/special-to-the-jta-mitchum-says-he-is-sorry-about-the-misunderstanding-caused-by-his-interview-i
Actor Robert Mitchum says he got himself into trouble as a result of an interview in last month’s Esquire magazine because he was play-acting in “a prankish attempt” to “string along” his interviewer. Mitchum, in a lengthy interview, emerged as an anti-Semite, racist and sexist bigot.
Mitchum added that he is “truly sorry that this misunderstanding has upset so many people, especially since it is so foreign to my principle. The attendant misfortune is that it has brought me a spate of mail from people and organizations who are encouraged to believe that I share their bigotry and discrimination.”
Ironically, the interview appeared at the same time he was starring in the ABC-TV series, “The Winds of War,” in which he portrayed a U.S. official in Europe sympathetic to the plight of the Jewish people in fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. A month earlier, in January, Mitchum was an honored guest at a dinner of the American Friends of Technion at which Kirk Douglas was given an award.
no he was not based do some research