Kurt Russell Had A Very Specific Goal When He Started Acting

As many may know, actor Kurt Russell began his professional screen career in 1963 when he was only 12 years old. He appeared in the Elvis Presley vehicle “It Happened at the World’s Fair,” wherein Russell’s character was approached by the King and given a quarter to kick him in the shin. Elvis, you see, needed an excuse to visit a local nurse, and required a minor injury. The Russell character was only too happy to oblige. 

Since then, Russell has enjoyed a prolonged and prolific acting career that has lasted to this day. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, the young Russell was a golden child for Disney, appearing in a dozen movies for the company and becoming Disney’s most profitable star. Now 73, Russell is currently appearing in the TV series “Monarch: Legacy of Monsters,” and will soon play a notable role in an upcoming Smurfs feature film. 

Russell has said multiple times, however, that he faced a fork in the road as a young performer, thanks to two options presented by his father. Kurt’s father, Bing Russell, was a prolific TV guest star in his own right, playing the character of Clem on “Bonanza!,” but also appearing in bit parts in many of the most popular shows of the 1950s and 1960s. He played the Monkees’ manager in the show’s pilot. Bing, however, only acted on the side, feeling his true career was in baseball. Bing Russell owned the Portland Mavericks, a class-A minor league team, and grew up around the New York Yankees in the 1930s. He was personal friends with Joe DiMaggio. 

Kurt, then, had every opportunity to be a professional minor-league baseball player instead of an actor. And, indeed, there were times in Kurt’s life when he felt baseball would be his path forward. Kurt talked about his nearness to baseball glory in a 2019 profile on the Major League Baseball website.

Growing up with a baseball-team-owning father gave Kurt Russell a lot of enthusiasm for the game, and a deep familiarity with the sport’s star players. When Columbia Pictures aimed to make a feature film vehicle for notable baseball stars Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, Whitey Ford, and Ralph Houk, the 11-year-old Russell had the, uh, insider baseball knowledge to seek out an audition. Russell didn’t get the part, but he now knew what auditioning was like. For the first time, Kurt’s passion for baseball overlapped with his dad’s side-hustle of acting. Kurt’s very specific goal when he started acting was merely a chance to meet Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris.

Russell recalled his family as a baseball family, and not a showbiz dynasty. Indeed, it seems that Bing Russell would have continued playing were it not for a head injury. Kurt said: 

“Our family business was baseball, not acting. […] From the time my dad got to know the Yankees and his relationship with Lefty grew, that became the family business. My dad really wanted to play baseball when he was young, but he was hit in the head and that was that. He was interested in acting, so he moved in that direction instead. It’s similar to my situation in a lot of ways, so I guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

“Lefty” was Lefty Gomez, who played for the Yankees from 1930 to 1942. 

For several years as a youth, Russell attempted to be both an actor and a baseball player. In the 1970s, when he was still under contract with Disney, Russell played as second baseman for the Bend Rainbows, the minor-league adjunct of the California Angels. Russell loved baseball, and Walt Disney himself is said to have rearranged his studio’s shooting schedule specifically for Russell to play in Little League games. 

Eventually, Russell’s career reached an inflection point, and he had to choose if he wanted to be an actor, or if baseball was his true passion. Russell selected acting, and it continued to be lucrative for him. One can be damn sure, however, that Russell still follows the game.