Bradshaw
The Gem Theatre in Abbeville was filled nearly to capacity when the movie “Tundra” came to town in early 1940. Critics said it was a pretty good movie about how the fictional Dr. Jason Barlowe trekked 400 miles through the Alaskan wilderness after his plane crashed.
But it wasn’t the story that attracted the crowd; it was the actor who played the role of the doctor. He went by the stage name of Del Cambre but folks crowding into the Gem knew him as Alfred Delcambre, son of the oilman Ambroise Delcambre, who, among other things, was credited with developing the Jefferson Island field in Vermilion Parish.
Alfred had good looks, some talent, and a lot of ambition, but his portrayal of Dr. Barlowe was the highlight of his career. His credits include more than a dozen other films, but almost all of them were only bit parts in crime dramas or westerns. His film career, if it can be called that, began in a busy 1934, when his face was seen in nine movies, but his name was never on the marquee.
Bradshaw
Lists of cast members show him as an unnamed “talent show contestant” in the film “Search for Beauty,” the minor character “Steve” in “Wharf Angel,” part of the crowd at a party in “You’re Telling Me,” a nameless ambulance intern in “The Notorious Sophie Lang,” as “a young man dancing” in “Shoot the Works,” playing the bit part “Ebe” in “Wagon Wheels,” in a minor role in “The Lemon Drop Kid,” as “first substitute” in the football film “College Rhythm,” and as an unnamed “friend” in “One Hour Late.”
He was just as busy and still all but invisible through most of 1935, when he played “a cameraman” in “Wings in the Dark,” a “victim” in “Home on the Range,” a recruit in the semi-documentary police drama “Car 99,” a reporter in “The Glass Key,” and slightly larger roles as Deputy Hines in “Wanderer of the Wasteland” and Charles Tolliver in the Civil War romance “So Red the Rose.”
Despite his minor status he did rub elbows with some of the biggest stars of his day, including W. C. Fields, Buster Crabbe, Ida Lupino, Ray Milland, Randolph Scott, Myrna Loy, George Scott, and Cary Grant.
One of them may have helped him finally get a break, or maybe it was because he gave himself a new name. Alfred changed his stage name to Del Gordon at the end of 1935, and he finally got a decent role and decent billing under that name in “The Last of the Clintons.” A review describes his role as “an honest young idiot” who doesn’t realize his brother is a cattle rustler.
Del Gordon also landed a larger role toward the end of the year as Reno Martin, brother of the prison escapee who was the central character in “Wild Mustang.” Unfortunately, a typical review cast that film “as not a very good movie, even for a B western.”
His first lead role, as Dr. Barlowe in “Tundra,” came in 1936, and the film was reviewed as a decent, entertaining adventure story. It appears that after that he kept some ties with Hollywood, but not as an actor.
His film career was interrupted by a tour in the Navy during World War II. His draft card filed in October 1940 describes him as 6-foot-2 and 190 pounds, with brown hair and brown eyes. He and his wife Doris Virginia Rhode were living in Dallas in 1940. He signed the registration card A. J. DelCambre, with a capital C. That card lists his employer as United Artists Corporation, but the census for 1940 shows him working for the film company as a salesman, not an actor.
After the war he devoted much of his attention to the oil interests he inherited from his father, who died in 1945. But Alfred was not completely through with the movies. In 1951 he was the leading man, Dr. Thomas Barlowe, in “Arctic Fury,” about a doctor who tried to get help to an Eskimo village wracked by plague. It was essentially a reprise of “Tundra,” and was criticized as “footage taken from other films and spliced together.” That may be why the two doctors he played had the same last name; there was no need to redo scenes referring to “Dr. Barlowe” that were taken from “Tundra.”
“Arctic Fury” was Alfred’s last fling. When he died of a heart attack at the age of 48 on May 30, 1958, he was remembered both as an oilman and actor. His death certificate listed his last occupation as a “film industry branch manager,” which was probably a fancy name for theater manager.
You can contact Jim Bradshaw at [email protected] or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589.
