Actor Robert Mitchum, center right, and actress Lila Leeds, left, are sentenced to 60 days in jail on charges of conspiracy to possess marijuana cigarettes in Los Angeles, February 9, 1949.

Actor Robert Mitchum was released from a Los Angeles County prison farm
after spending the final week of his two-month sentence for marijuana
possession there.

In the fall of 1948, Mitchum, the star of classics such as Cape Fear and Night
of the Hunter, was smoking a joint at a small party in the Laurel Canyon area
of Los Angeles when detectives burst in and arrested him. Mitchum reportedly
said at the time, “Well, this is the bitter end of everything—my career, my
marriage, everything.” In fact, it wasn’t really that bad. Mitchum was separated 
from his wife Dorothy at the time, but the two reconciled when she returned to
support him through the scandal and the public didn’t mind much either;
 Rachel and the Stranger, the first movie released after his troubles,
was a box-office hit.

1948

Robert Charles Durman Mitchum (August 6, 1917 – July 1, 1997)

A lifelong heavy smoker, Mitchum died on July 1, 1997, in Santa Barbara,
California, due to complications of lung cancer and emphysema. He was
about five weeks shy of his 80th birthday.