Farley Granger
Encyclopedia
Farley Earle Granger was an American actor. In a career spanning several decades, he was perhaps best known for his two collaborations with Alfred Hitchcock
, Rope
in 1948 and Strangers on a Train
in 1951.
, the son of Eva (née Hopkins) and Farley Earle Granger.
His wealthy father owned a Willys-Overland
automobile dealership, and the family frequently spent time at their beach house in Capitola
. Following the stock market crash in 1929
, the Grangers were forced to sell both their homes and most of their personal belongings and move into an apartment above the family business, where they remained for the next two years. As a result of this financial setback and the loss of their social status, both of Granger's parents began to drink heavily. Eventually the remainder of their possessions were sold at auction to settle their debts, and the elder Granger used the last car on his lot to spirit away the family to Los Angeles
in the middle of the night.
The family settled in a small apartment in a seedy part of Hollywood, and Granger's parents worked at various temporary jobs. Their drinking increased, and the couple frequently fought. Hoping he might become a tap dance
r, Granger was enrolled by his mother at Ethel Meglin's, the dance and drama instruction studio where Judy Garland
and Shirley Temple
had started.
Granger's father found work as a clerk in the North Hollywood branch of the California Department of Unemployment
, and his salary allowed him to put a small down payment on a house in Studio City, where their neighbor was actor/dancer Donald O'Connor
. At his office, Granger's father became acquainted with unemployment benefits recipient Harry Langdon
, who advised him to take his son to a small local theatre where open auditions for The Wookie, a British
play about London
ers struggling to survive during World War II
, were being held. Granger's use of a Cockney
accent impressed the director, and he was cast in multiple roles. The opening night audience included talent agent Phil Gersh
and Samuel Goldwyn
casting director Bob McIntyre, and the following morning Gersh contacted Granger's parents and asked them to bring him to his office that afternoon to discuss the role of Damian, a teenaged Russia
n boy in the film The North Star
.
Granger auditioned for producer Goldwyn, screenwriter Lillian Hellman
and director Lewis Milestone
. Hellman was trying to convince Montgomery Clift
to leave the Broadway
play in which he was appearing, and when her efforts proved to be futile, the role was given to Granger, and Goldwyn signed him to a seven-year contract for $100 per week.
actor Stewart Granger
, so they suggested he change his name and offered him a list from which to choose. "The names were all interchangeable, like Gordon Gregory and Gregory Gordon. I didn't want to change my name. I liked Farley Granger. It was my father's name, and his grandfather's name. They kept bringing me new combinations, and finally I offered to change it to Kent Clark. I was the only one who thought it was funny," Granger later recalled. Eventually the studio issued a press release announcing Farley Granger, a senior at North Hollywood High School
, had been cast in The North Star after he responded to an ad in the local paper. "I thought that was a really dumb story," said Granger. "The truth was much more interesting."
Making the film proved to be a fortunate start to Granger's career. He enjoyed working with director Milestone and fellow cast members Dana Andrews
, Teresa Wright
, Walter Brennan
and Jane Withers
, and during filming he met composer Aaron Copland
, who remained a friend in later years. When released, the film was ravaged by critics working for newspapers owned by William Randolph Hearst
, a staunch anti-Communist
who felt the movie was Soviet
propaganda
.
For Granger's next film, he was loaned out to 20th Century Fox
, where Darryl F. Zanuck
cast him in The Purple Heart
, in which he was directed by Milestone and again co-starred with Dana Andrews. Granger become close friends with supporting cast member Sam Levene
, a character actor
from New York City
who took him under his wing. He also became friends with Roddy McDowall
and found himself linked with June Haver
in gossip columns and fan magazine
s.
Upon completion of The Purple Heart, Granger enlisted in the United States Navy
. Following US Navy Recruit Training
in Farragut, Idaho, he sailed from Treasure Island in San Francisco to Honolulu. During the 17-day crossing, he suffered from chronic seasickness and lost 23 pounds, and upon arrival in Hawaii he was admitted to the hospital for several days of rehydration. As a result, the remainder of his military career was spent onshore, where he first was assigned to an enlisted men's club situated at the end of Waikiki Beach
and then to a unit commanded by classical actor Maurice Evans
, where he had the opportunity to meet and mingle with visiting entertainers such as Bob Hope
, Betty Grable
, Hedy Lamarr
and Gertrude Lawrence
.
It was during his naval stint in Honolulu that Granger had his first sexual experiences, one with a hostess at a private club and the other with a handsome Navy officer visiting the same venue, both on the same night. He was startled to discover he was attracted to both men and women equally, and in his memoir he observed, "I finally came to the conclusion that for me, everything I had done that night was as natural and as good as it felt . . . I never have felt the need to belong to any exclusive, self-defining, or special group . . . I was never ashamed, and I never felt the need to explain or apologize for my relationships to anyone . . . I have loved men. I have loved women."
Granger returned to civilian life and was pleased to discover his parents had curbed their drinking and were treating each other more civilly. Goldwyn increased his weekly salary to $200 and presented him with a 1940 Ford Coupe. The actor was introduced to Saul Chaplin
and his wife Ethyl, who became his lifelong mentor, confidante and best friend. Through the couple, Granger met Betty Comden
, Adolph Green
, Jerome Robbins
, Leonard Bernstein
and Gene Kelly
, who invited him to join his open house gatherings that included Judy Garland
, Lena Horne
, Frank Sinatra
, Betty Garrett
, Johnny Mercer
, Harold Arlen
and Stanley Donen
. Most influential among his new acquaintances was director Nicholas Ray
, who cast Granger in his film noir
Thieves Like Us. The film was nearing completion in October 1947 when Howard Hughes
acquired RKO Radio Pictures, and the new studio head shelved it for two years before releasing it under the title They Live by Night
in a single theater in London
. Enthusiastic reviews led RKO to finally release the film in the States in late 1949. During the two years it had remained in limbo, it had been screened numerous times in private screening rooms, and one of the people who saw it during this period was Alfred Hitchcock
, who was preparing Rope
.
Granger was in New York
when he was summoned to return to Hollywood and discuss Rope with Hitchcock. The night before their initial meeting, Granger coincidentally met Arthur Laurents
, who had written the film's screenplay, which was based on the play Rope's End, a fictionalized account of the Leopold and Loeb
murder case. It was not until he began reading the script that he connected its author with the man he had met the previous night. Granger and Laurents met again, and Laurents invited the actor to spend the night. He declined, but when the offer was extended again several days later, he accepted. It proved to be the start of a romantic relationship that lasted about a year and a frequently tempestuous friendship that extended for decades beyond their breakup.
In Rope, Granger and John Dall
portrayed two highly intelligent friends who commit a thrill killing
simply to prove they can get away with it. The two characters and their former professor
, played by Jimmy Stewart
, were supposed to be homosexual
, and Granger and Dall discussed the subtext of their scenes, but because The Hays Office was keeping close tabs on the project, the final script was so discreet that Laurents remained uncertain of whether Stewart ever realized that his own character was gay. Hitchcock shot the film in continuous, uninterrupted ten-minute takes, the amount of time a reel of Technicolor
film lasted, and as a result technical problems frequently brought the action to a frustrating halt throughout the twenty-one day shoot. The film ultimately received mixed reviews, although most critics were impressed by Granger, who in later years said he was happy to be part of the experience, but wondered "what the film would have been like had [Hitchcock] shot it normally" and "had he not had to worry about censorship."
Upon the completion of Rope, Goldwyn cast Granger, Teresa Wright, David Niven
and Evelyn Keyes
in Enchantment, which was plagued by a weak script and indifferent direction by Irving Reis
. It failed at the box office, as did his next project, Roseanna McCoy
, during which he and Laurents parted ways. While filming Side Street on location in Manhattan
for Anthony Mann
, Granger briefly became involved with Leonard Bernstein
, who invited him to join him on his South America
n tour. By the time Granger completed the film, the composer/conductor had married Chile
an pianist and actress Felicia Montealegre
. The two men remained friends until Bernstein's death.
and Our Very Own
, were unpleasant working experiences, and the actor refused to allow the producer to loan him to Universal Pictures
for an inferior magic carpet
saga. When he was placed on suspension, he decided to accompany Ethyl Chaplin, who had separated from her husband, and her daughter on a trip to Paris
. At the last moment they were joined by Arthur Laurents, who remained behind when the group departed for London
to see the opening of the New York City Ballet
, which had been choreographed by Jerome Robbins
. He and Granger engaged in a casual affair until the actor was summoned to return to New York to help publicize Our Very Own and Edge of Doom, both of which received dreadful reviews. Goldwyn cancelled the nationwide openings of the latter, hoping to salvage it by adding wraparound scenes that would change the focus of the film, and Granger refused to promote it any further. Once again placed on suspension, he departed for Europe
, where he spent time in Italy
, Austria
and Germany
with Laurents before being contacted about an upcoming film by Alfred Hitchcock.
The project was Strangers on a Train
, in which Granger was cast as amateur tennis player and aspiring politician Guy Haines. He is introduced to psychopathic Bruno Anthony, portrayed by Robert Walker, who suggests they swap murders, with Bruno killing Guy's wife and Guy disposing of Bruno's father. As with Rope, there was a homosexual subtext to the two men's relationship, although it was toned down from Patricia Highsmith
's original novel. Granger and Walker, whose wife Jennifer Jones
had recently left him for David O. Selznick
, became close friends and confidantes during filming, and Granger was devastated when Walker died from an accidental combination of alcohol and barbiturate
s prior to the film's release. It proved to be a box office hit, the first major success of Granger's career, and his "happiest filmmaking experience."
On December 31, 1950, Granger picked up close friend Shelley Winters
to escort her to Sam Spiegel
's traditional New Year's Eve
gala. The actress kept him waiting for nearly two hours, and they argued while en route to the party. Once there, they went their separate ways, and Granger met Ava Gardner
. The two left to hear Nat King Cole
perform at a nearby nightclub
and then went to Granger's home, where they began an intense affair that lasted until Gardner began filming Show Boat
a month later.
Having reconciled, Granger and Winters went to New York City, where they audited classes at the Actors' Studio and the Neighborhood Playhouse
. Winters subscribed to the concept of method acting
, but Granger felt an actor "had to be faithful to the text, not adapt it to some personal sense memory," and their disagreement triggered more arguments. Their plan to pursue individual training programs was disrupted when both were called back to Hollywood. Goldwyn cast Granger in I Want You, a drama about the effect the Korean War
has on an American family still trying to recover from World War II
. Granger thought the screenplay by Irwin Shaw
was "not only dull, but felt dated," but welcomed the opportunity to work with Dana Andrews
and Dorothy McGuire
. Goldwyn expected the film to be as successful as The Best Years of Our Lives
, but it proved to be as "tepid and old-fashioned" as Granger feared and, opening after cease-fire negotiations with Korea
had begun, no longer topical, and it died at the box office. His subsequent projects – an inconsequential screwball comedy
with Winters called Behave Yourself, the Gift of the Magi
segment of the anthology film
O. Henry's Full House
, and the musical film
Hans Christian Andersen
– were no more successful.
Anxious to work with Vincente Minnelli
, Granger willingly accepted a role opposite Leslie Caron
and Ethel Barrymore
in Mademoiselle, one of three segments in the 1953 MGM
film The Story of Three Loves
. The film's producer, Gottfried Reinhardt, also directed the other two segments, and he mercilessly edited Mademoiselle in order to give his stories more screen time. Unhappy with the direction his career was taking, Granger sought solace with Shelley Winters, who was separated from Vittorio Gassman
, and the two friends resumed their love affair, which at one point nearly had culminated in marriage. Their relationship was complicated, but Granger felt "it works for us."
Granger's next project was Small Town Girl
, a musical with Jane Powell
, Ann Miller
and Bobby Van. Upon its completion, he bought his release from Goldwyn, a costly decision that left him with serious financial difficulties. Granger was determined to move to Manhattan
to study acting and perform on stage, but his agent convinced him to accept a role in Senso
, directed by Luchino Visconti
and co-starring Alida Valli
. Filming in Italy
lasted nine months, although Granger frequently was idle during this period, allowing him free time to explore Italy and even spend a long weekend in Paris
, where he had a brief affair with Jean Marais
. During his time in Venice
, Granger renewed his friendship with Peggy Guggenheim
, whom he had met during his earlier trip to Italy with Arthur Laurents, and he met Mike Todd
, who cajoled him into making a cameo appearance as a gondolier
in his epic Around the World in 80 Days. He finally returned to Hollywood exhausted but happy about the experience.
Upon his return to the States, Darryl F. Zanuck
offered Granger a two-picture deal, and in quick succession he made The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing
, in which he portrayed tycoon Harry Kendall Thaw, and The Naked Street, a melodrama
the actor thought was "preachy, trite and pedestrian," although he welcomed the opportunity to work with Anthony Quinn
and Anne Bancroft
.
In 1955, Granger moved to New York and began studying with Bob Fosse
, Gloria Vanderbilt
, James Kirkwood
and Tom Tryon
in a class taught by Sandy Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse
. During this period he made his Broadway
debut in The Carefree Tree, a play with music based on an old Chinese
legend. The cast included Janice Rule
as Granger's love interest and Alvin Ailey
, Frances Sternhagen
, Jerry Stiller
and Sada Thompson
in supporting roles. The play closed after only 24 performances, but shortly after its demise Rule moved in with Granger, and before long they were making wedding plans. They gradually realized the love their characters had felt on stage actually had not carried over into real life, and the two went their separate ways, although they remained friends until her death in 2003.
With both his film and theatrical career foundering, Granger turned to television. He starred in Beyond This Place, an adaptation of the A.J. Cronin novel of the same title
, with Shelley Winters and Peggy Ann Garner
, and joined Julie Harris
for a remake of The Heiress
. He also was featured in episodes of Climax Mystery Theater, Ford Television Theatre
, The 20th Century Fox Hour
, Robert Montgomery Presents
, Playhouse 90
, Wagon Train
, Kraft Television Theatre
, The United States Steel Hour
, and The Bell Telephone Hour
, and in later years Get Smart
, Run for Your Life
, Ironside
, The Name of the Game
and Hawaii Five-O
, among others.
In 1959, Granger returned to Broadway as Fitzwilliam Darcy
opposite Polly Bergen
as Elizabeth Bennet
in First Impressions, a musical adaptation of Pride and Prejudice
with a book and direction by Abe Burrows
. The tryout in New Haven was a disaster, and reviews were mixed. Things improved slightly during the Philadelphia run, but by the time the production reached New York, Bergen – who was fighting bitterly with co-star Hermione Gingold
– was experiencing serious vocal problems, and some of her songs would be cut during each performance, creating confusion for the rest of the cast. Only two of seven critics wrote favorable reviews, Bergen was replaced by understudy
Ellen Hanley
, and the musical closed in less than three months. Later that year, he was cast in The Warm Peninsula, a play by Joe Masteroff
. Co-starring Julie Harris, June Havoc
and Larry Hagman
, it received fair reviews and closed after only 86 performances.
to join her National Repertory Theatre. During their first season, while the company was in Philadelphia, John F. Kennedy
was assassinated. The President had attended NRT's opening night and post-performance gala in the nation's capital, so the news hit everyone in the company especially hard. Granger had become close friends with production supervisor Robert Calhoun, and although both had felt a mutual attraction, they never had discussed it. That night they became lovers.
Granger finally achieved some success on Broadway in The Seagull
, The Crucible
, The Glass Menagerie
, and Deathtrap
. He starred opposite Barbara Cook
in a revival of The King and I
at the off-Broadway
New York City Center
, and in 1979 he was cast in the Roundabout Theatre Company
production of A Month in the Country
. In 1986 he won the Obie Award
for his performance in the Lanford Wilson
play Talley & Son
.
In the early 1970s, Granger and Calhoun moved to Rome, where the actor made a series of Italian language
films, most notably They Call Me Trinity
. He also appeared on several soap opera
s, including One Life to Live
, on which his portrayal of Will Vernon garnered him a nomination for the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series
, The Edge of Night
, and As the World Turns
, produced by Calhoun. Granger acted alongside Mario Adorf
in the Italian slasher film La Polizia chiede aiuto, which was directed by Massimo Dallamano.
Since the 1990s, Granger has appeared in several documentaries
discussing Hollywood in general and Alfred Hitchcock in particular. In 1995 he was interviewed on camera for The Celluloid Closet
, discussing the depiction of homosexuality in film and the use of subtext in various films, including his own.
In 2003, Granger made his last film appearance in Broadway: The Golden Age, by the Legends Who Were There
. In it, he tells the story of leaving Hollywood at the peak of his fame, buying out his contract from Samuel Goldwyn, and moving to Manhattan to work on the Broadway stage.
In 2007, Granger published the memoir Include Me Out, co-written with domestic partner Robert Calhoun. In the book, named after one of Goldwyn's famous malapropisms, he freely discusses his career and personal life. Calhoun died of lung cancer
in New York, New York on May 24, 2008, at age 77.
.
Alfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...
, Rope
Rope (film)
Rope is a 1948 American thriller film based on the play Rope by Patrick Hamilton and adapted by Hume Cronyn and Arthur Laurents, directed by Alfred Hitchcock and produced by Sidney Bernstein and Hitchcock as the first of their Transatlantic Pictures productions...
in 1948 and Strangers on a Train
Strangers on a Train (film)
Strangers on a Train is an American psychological thriller film produced and directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and based on the 1950 novel of the same name by Patricia Highsmith. It was shot in the autumn of 1950 and released by Warner Bros. on June 30, 1951. The film stars Farley Granger, Ruth Roman,...
in 1951.
Early life
Granger was born in San Jose, CaliforniaSan Jose, California
San Jose is the third-largest city in California, the tenth-largest in the U.S., and the county seat of Santa Clara County which is located at the southern end of San Francisco Bay...
, the son of Eva (née Hopkins) and Farley Earle Granger.
His wealthy father owned a Willys-Overland
Willys
Willys was the brand name used by Willys-Overland Motors, an American automobile company best known for its design and production of military Jeeps and civilian versions during the 20th century.-Early History:In 1908, John Willys bought the Overland Automotive Division of Standard Wheel Company...
automobile dealership, and the family frequently spent time at their beach house in Capitola
Capitola, California
Capitola is a city in Santa Cruz County, California, United States, on the coast of Monterey Bay. The population was 9,918 at the 2010 census.-History:...
. Following the stock market crash in 1929
Wall Street Crash of 1929
The Wall Street Crash of 1929 , also known as the Great Crash, and the Stock Market Crash of 1929, was the most devastating stock market crash in the history of the United States, taking into consideration the full extent and duration of its fallout...
, the Grangers were forced to sell both their homes and most of their personal belongings and move into an apartment above the family business, where they remained for the next two years. As a result of this financial setback and the loss of their social status, both of Granger's parents began to drink heavily. Eventually the remainder of their possessions were sold at auction to settle their debts, and the elder Granger used the last car on his lot to spirit away the family to Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
in the middle of the night.
The family settled in a small apartment in a seedy part of Hollywood, and Granger's parents worked at various temporary jobs. Their drinking increased, and the couple frequently fought. Hoping he might become a tap dance
Tap dance
Tap dance is a form of dance characterized by using the sound of one's tap shoes hitting the floor as a percussive instrument. As such, it is also commonly considered to be a form of music. Two major variations on tap dance exist: rhythm tap and Broadway tap. Broadway tap focuses more on the...
r, Granger was enrolled by his mother at Ethel Meglin's, the dance and drama instruction studio where Judy Garland
Judy Garland
Judy Garland was an American actress and singer. Through a career that spanned 45 of her 47 years and for her renowned contralto voice, she attained international stardom as an actress in musical and dramatic roles, as a recording artist and on the concert stage...
and Shirley Temple
Shirley Temple
Shirley Temple Black , born Shirley Jane Temple, is an American film and television actress, singer, dancer, autobiographer, and former U.S. Ambassador to Ghana and Czechoslovakia...
had started.
Granger's father found work as a clerk in the North Hollywood branch of the California Department of Unemployment
Employment Development Department
The Employment Development Department is part of the Labor and Workforce Development Agency of the executive branch of the State of California. EDD offers a variety of services to millions of Californians under the Job Service, Unemployment Insurance, Disability Insurance, Workforce Investment,...
, and his salary allowed him to put a small down payment on a house in Studio City, where their neighbor was actor/dancer Donald O'Connor
Donald O'Connor
Donald David Dixon Ronald O’Connor was an American dancer, singer, and actor who came to fame in a series of movies in which he co-starred alternately with Gloria Jean, Peggy Ryan, and Francis the Talking Mule...
. At his office, Granger's father became acquainted with unemployment benefits recipient Harry Langdon
Harry Langdon
Harry Philmore Langdon was an American comedian who appeared in vaudeville, silent films , and talkies. He was briefly partnered with Oliver Hardy.-Life and career:...
, who advised him to take his son to a small local theatre where open auditions for The Wookie, a British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
play about London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
ers struggling to survive during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, were being held. Granger's use of a Cockney
Cockney
The term Cockney has both geographical and linguistic associations. Geographically and culturally, it often refers to working class Londoners, particularly those in the East End...
accent impressed the director, and he was cast in multiple roles. The opening night audience included talent agent Phil Gersh
The Gersh Agency
The Gersh Agency was established in 1949 by Founder . With 125 employees, 60 agents and offices in Beverly Hills and New York, TGA maintains seven full-service departments: Talent, Feature Literary, TV Literary, Theater, Comedy, Below-the-Line, and a modeling agency.-External links:***...
and Samuel Goldwyn
Samuel Goldwyn
Samuel Goldwyn was an American film producer, and founding contributor executive of several motion picture studios.-Biography:...
casting director Bob McIntyre, and the following morning Gersh contacted Granger's parents and asked them to bring him to his office that afternoon to discuss the role of Damian, a teenaged Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n boy in the film The North Star
The North Star (1943 film)
The North Star is a 1943 war film produced and distributed by RKO Radio Pictures. It was directed by Lewis Milestone and written by Lillian Hellman. The film starred Anne Baxter, Dana Andrews, Walter Huston, Walter Brennan and Erich von Stroheim...
.
Granger auditioned for producer Goldwyn, screenwriter Lillian Hellman
Lillian Hellman
Lillian Florence "Lily" Hellman was an American playwright, linked throughout her life with many left-wing causes...
and director Lewis Milestone
Lewis Milestone
Lewis Milestone was a Russian-American motion picture director. He is known for directing Two Arabian Knights and All Quiet on the Western Front , both of which received Academy Awards for Best Director...
. Hellman was trying to convince Montgomery Clift
Montgomery Clift
Edward Montgomery Clift was an American film and stage actor. The New York Times’ obituary noted his portrayal of "moody, sensitive young men"....
to leave the Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
play in which he was appearing, and when her efforts proved to be futile, the role was given to Granger, and Goldwyn signed him to a seven-year contract for $100 per week.
Early career
The studio publicity department was concerned audiences would confuse Farley with BritishBritish people
The British are citizens of the United Kingdom, of the Isle of Man, any of the Channel Islands, or of any of the British overseas territories, and their descendants...
actor Stewart Granger
Stewart Granger
Stewart Granger was an English-American film actor, mainly associated with heroic and romantic leading roles. He was a popular leading man from the 1940s to the early 1960s rising to fame through his appearances in the Gainsborough melodramas.-Early life:He was born James Lablache Stewart in Old...
, so they suggested he change his name and offered him a list from which to choose. "The names were all interchangeable, like Gordon Gregory and Gregory Gordon. I didn't want to change my name. I liked Farley Granger. It was my father's name, and his grandfather's name. They kept bringing me new combinations, and finally I offered to change it to Kent Clark. I was the only one who thought it was funny," Granger later recalled. Eventually the studio issued a press release announcing Farley Granger, a senior at North Hollywood High School
North Hollywood High School
North Hollywood High School, originally called Lankershim High School when it opened in 1927, is a secondary school in North Hollywood in Los Angeles, California. The school mascot is the husky, and the school colors are blue, white and grey....
, had been cast in The North Star after he responded to an ad in the local paper. "I thought that was a really dumb story," said Granger. "The truth was much more interesting."
Making the film proved to be a fortunate start to Granger's career. He enjoyed working with director Milestone and fellow cast members Dana Andrews
Dana Andrews
Dana Andrews was an American film actor. He was one of Hollywood's major stars of the 1940s, and continued acting, though generally in less prestigious roles, into the 1980s.-Early life:...
, Teresa Wright
Teresa Wright
Teresa Wright was an American actress. She received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1942 for her performance in Mrs. Miniver. That same year, she received an Academy Award for Best Actress nomination for her performance in Pride of the Yankees opposite Gary Cooper...
, Walter Brennan
Walter Brennan
Walter Brennan was an American actor. Brennan won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor on three separate occasions, which is currently the record for most wins.-Early life:...
and Jane Withers
Jane Withers
Jane Withers is an American actress best known for being one of the most popular child film stars of the 1930s and early 1940s, as well as for her portrayal of "Josephine the Plumber" in a series of TV commercials for Comet cleanser in the 1960s and early 1970s.-Biography:Withers began her career...
, and during filming he met composer Aaron Copland
Aaron Copland
Aaron Copland was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later in his career a conductor of his own and other American music. He was instrumental in forging a distinctly American style of composition, and is often referred to as "the Dean of American Composers"...
, who remained a friend in later years. When released, the film was ravaged by critics working for newspapers owned by William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst was an American business magnate and leading newspaper publisher. Hearst entered the publishing business in 1887, after taking control of The San Francisco Examiner from his father...
, a staunch anti-Communist
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
who felt the movie was Soviet
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
propaganda
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
.
For Granger's next film, he was loaned out to 20th Century Fox
20th Century Fox
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios...
, where Darryl F. Zanuck
Darryl F. Zanuck
Darryl Francis Zanuck was an American producer, writer, actor, director and studio executive who played a major part in the Hollywood studio system as one of its longest survivors...
cast him in The Purple Heart
The Purple Heart
The Purple Heart is a 1944 American war film directed by Lewis Milestone.It is a dramatization of the trial of a number of US airmen by the Japanese during the Second World War...
, in which he was directed by Milestone and again co-starred with Dana Andrews. Granger become close friends with supporting cast member Sam Levene
Sam Levene
Sam Levene was an American Broadway and film actor. He made his Broadway debut in 1927 with five lines in a play titled Wall Street, and over a span of nearly 50 years, appeared on Broadway in 37 Shows, of which 33 were the original Broadway Productions, many now considered legendary...
, a character actor
Character actor
A character actor is one who predominantly plays unusual or eccentric characters. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a character actor as "an actor who specializes in character parts", defining character part in turn as "an acting role displaying pronounced or unusual characteristics or...
from New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
who took him under his wing. He also became friends with Roddy McDowall
Roddy McDowall
Roderick Andrew Anthony Jude "Roddy" McDowall was an English actor and photographer. His film roles included Cornelius and Caesar in the Planet of the Apes film series...
and found himself linked with June Haver
June Haver
June Haver , was an American film actress. She is most well known as a popular star of 20th Century-Fox musicals in the late 1940s, most notably The Dolly Sisters with Betty Grable and John Payne and also for playing the 1920s Broadway actress Marilyn Miller in Look for the Silver Lining...
in gossip columns and fan magazine
Fan magazine
A fan magazine is a commercially written and published magazine intended for the amusement of fans of the popular culture subject matter which it covers. It is distinguished from a scholarly or literary magazine on the one hand, by the target audience of its contents, and from a fanzine on the...
s.
Upon completion of The Purple Heart, Granger enlisted in the United States Navy
United States Navy
The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...
. Following US Navy Recruit Training
Recruit training
Recruit training, more commonly known as Basic Training and colloquially called Boot Camp, is the initial indoctrination and instruction given to new military personnel, enlisted and officer...
in Farragut, Idaho, he sailed from Treasure Island in San Francisco to Honolulu. During the 17-day crossing, he suffered from chronic seasickness and lost 23 pounds, and upon arrival in Hawaii he was admitted to the hospital for several days of rehydration. As a result, the remainder of his military career was spent onshore, where he first was assigned to an enlisted men's club situated at the end of Waikiki Beach
Waikiki
Waikiki is a neighborhood of Honolulu, in the City and County of Honolulu, on the south shore of the island of Oahu, in Hawaii. Waikiki Beach is the shoreline fronting Waikīkī....
and then to a unit commanded by classical actor Maurice Evans
Maurice Evans (actor)
Maurice Herbert Evans was an English actor noted for his interpretations of Shakespearean characters. In terms of his screen roles, he is probably best known as Dr...
, where he had the opportunity to meet and mingle with visiting entertainers such as Bob Hope
Bob Hope
Bob Hope, KBE, KCSG, KSS was a British-born American comedian and actor who appeared in vaudeville, on Broadway, and in radio, television and movies. He was also noted for his work with the US Armed Forces and his numerous USO shows entertaining American military personnel...
, Betty Grable
Betty Grable
Elizabeth Ruth "Betty" Grable was an American actress, dancer and singer.Her iconic bathing suit photo made her the number-one pin-up girl of the World War II era. It was later included in the LIFE magazine project "100 Photos that Changed the World"...
, Hedy Lamarr
Hedy Lamarr
Hedy Lamarr was an Austrian-American actress celebrated for her great beauty who was a major contract star of MGM's "Golden Age".Lamarr also co-invented – with composer George Antheil – an early technique for spread spectrum communications and frequency hopping, necessary to wireless...
and Gertrude Lawrence
Gertrude Lawrence
Gertrude Lawrence was an English actress, singer and musical comedy performer known for her stage appearances in the West End theatre district of London and on Broadway.-Early life:...
.
It was during his naval stint in Honolulu that Granger had his first sexual experiences, one with a hostess at a private club and the other with a handsome Navy officer visiting the same venue, both on the same night. He was startled to discover he was attracted to both men and women equally, and in his memoir he observed, "I finally came to the conclusion that for me, everything I had done that night was as natural and as good as it felt . . . I never have felt the need to belong to any exclusive, self-defining, or special group . . . I was never ashamed, and I never felt the need to explain or apologize for my relationships to anyone . . . I have loved men. I have loved women."
Granger returned to civilian life and was pleased to discover his parents had curbed their drinking and were treating each other more civilly. Goldwyn increased his weekly salary to $200 and presented him with a 1940 Ford Coupe. The actor was introduced to Saul Chaplin
Saul Chaplin
Saul Chaplin was an American composer and musical director.He was born Saul Kaplan in Brooklyn, New York.He had worked on stage, screen and television since the days of Tin Pan Alley...
and his wife Ethyl, who became his lifelong mentor, confidante and best friend. Through the couple, Granger met Betty Comden
Betty Comden
Betty Comden was one-half of the musical-comedy duo Comden and Green, who provided lyrics, libretti, and screenplays to some of the most beloved and successful Hollywood musicals and Broadway shows of the mid-20th century...
, Adolph Green
Adolph Green
Adolph Green was an American lyricist and playwright who, with long-time collaborator Betty Comden, penned the screenplays and songs for some of the most beloved movie musicals, particularly as part of Arthur Freed's production unit at MGM, during the genre's heyday...
, Jerome Robbins
Jerome Robbins
Jerome Robbins was an American theater producer, director, and choreographer known primarily for Broadway Theater and Ballet/Dance, but who also occasionally directed films and directed/produced for television. His work has included everything from classical ballet to contemporary musical theater...
, Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...
and Gene Kelly
Gene Kelly
Eugene Curran "Gene" Kelly was an American dancer, actor, singer, film director and producer, and choreographer...
, who invited him to join his open house gatherings that included Judy Garland
Judy Garland
Judy Garland was an American actress and singer. Through a career that spanned 45 of her 47 years and for her renowned contralto voice, she attained international stardom as an actress in musical and dramatic roles, as a recording artist and on the concert stage...
, Lena Horne
Lena Horne
Lena Mary Calhoun Horne was an American singer, actress, civil rights activist and dancer.Horne joined the chorus of the Cotton Club at the age of sixteen and became a nightclub performer before moving to Hollywood, where she had small parts in numerous movies, and more substantial parts in the...
, Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
, Betty Garrett
Betty Garrett
Betty Garrett was an American actress, comedienne, singer and dancer who originally performed on Broadway before being signed to a film contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer...
, Johnny Mercer
Johnny Mercer
John Herndon "Johnny" Mercer was an American lyricist, songwriter and singer. He is best known as a lyricist, but he also composed music. He was also a popular singer who recorded his own songs as well as those written by others...
, Harold Arlen
Harold Arlen
Harold Arlen was an American composer of popular music, having written over 500 songs, a number of which have become known the world over. In addition to composing the songs for The Wizard of Oz, including the classic 1938 song, "Over the Rainbow,” Arlen is a highly regarded contributor to the...
and Stanley Donen
Stanley Donen
Stanley Donen ; is an American film director and choreographer whose most celebrated works are Singin' in the Rain and On the Town, both of which he co-directed with Gene Kelly. His other noteworthy films include Royal Wedding, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Funny Face, Indiscreet, Damn...
. Most influential among his new acquaintances was director Nicholas Ray
Nicholas Ray
Nicholas Ray was an American film director best known for the movie Rebel Without a Cause....
, who cast Granger in his film noir
Film noir
Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as extending from the early 1940s to the late 1950s...
Thieves Like Us. The film was nearing completion in October 1947 when Howard Hughes
Howard Hughes
Howard Robard Hughes, Jr. was an American business magnate, investor, aviator, engineer, film producer, director, and philanthropist. He was one of the wealthiest people in the world...
acquired RKO Radio Pictures, and the new studio head shelved it for two years before releasing it under the title They Live by Night
They Live by Night
They Live by Night is a film noir, based on Edward Anderson's Depression era novel Thieves Like Us. The film was directed by Nicholas Ray and starred Farley Granger as "Bowie" Bowers and Cathy O'Donnell as "Keechie" Mobley...
in a single theater in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. Enthusiastic reviews led RKO to finally release the film in the States in late 1949. During the two years it had remained in limbo, it had been screened numerous times in private screening rooms, and one of the people who saw it during this period was Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...
, who was preparing Rope
Rope (film)
Rope is a 1948 American thriller film based on the play Rope by Patrick Hamilton and adapted by Hume Cronyn and Arthur Laurents, directed by Alfred Hitchcock and produced by Sidney Bernstein and Hitchcock as the first of their Transatlantic Pictures productions...
.
Granger was in New York
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
when he was summoned to return to Hollywood and discuss Rope with Hitchcock. The night before their initial meeting, Granger coincidentally met Arthur Laurents
Arthur Laurents
Arthur Laurents was an American playwright, stage director and screenwriter.After writing scripts for radio shows after college and then training films for the U.S...
, who had written the film's screenplay, which was based on the play Rope's End, a fictionalized account of the Leopold and Loeb
Leopold and Loeb
Nathan Freudenthal Leopold, Jr. and Richard Albert Loeb , more commonly known as "Leopold and Loeb", were two wealthy University of Michigan alumni and University of Chicago students who murdered 14-year-old Robert "Bobby" Franks in 1924 and were sentenced to life imprisonment.The duo were...
murder case. It was not until he began reading the script that he connected its author with the man he had met the previous night. Granger and Laurents met again, and Laurents invited the actor to spend the night. He declined, but when the offer was extended again several days later, he accepted. It proved to be the start of a romantic relationship that lasted about a year and a frequently tempestuous friendship that extended for decades beyond their breakup.
In Rope, Granger and John Dall
John Dall
John Dall was an American actor.Primarily a stage actor, he is best remembered today for two film roles; the cool-minded intellectual killer in Alfred Hitchcock's film Rope, and the trigger-happy lead in the 1950 noir Gun Crazy.He first came to fame as the young prodigy who comes alive under the...
portrayed two highly intelligent friends who commit a thrill killing
Thrill killing
A thrill killing is a term used to describe a premeditated murder committed by a person who is not necessarily suffering from mental instability, and does not derive sexual satisfaction from killing victims, or have anything against them, and sometimes do not know them, but is instead motivated by...
simply to prove they can get away with it. The two characters and their former professor
Professor
A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...
, played by Jimmy Stewart
James Stewart
James Stewart was a Hollywood movie actor and USAF brigadier general.James Stewart may also refer to:-Noblemen:*James Stewart, 5th High Steward of Scotland*James Stewart, the Black Knight of Lorn James Stewart (1908–1997) was a Hollywood movie actor and USAF brigadier general.James Stewart...
, were supposed to be homosexual
Homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
, and Granger and Dall discussed the subtext of their scenes, but because The Hays Office was keeping close tabs on the project, the final script was so discreet that Laurents remained uncertain of whether Stewart ever realized that his own character was gay. Hitchcock shot the film in continuous, uninterrupted ten-minute takes, the amount of time a reel of Technicolor
Technicolor
Technicolor is a color motion picture process invented in 1916 and improved over several decades.It was the second major process, after Britain's Kinemacolor, and the most widely used color process in Hollywood from 1922 to 1952...
film lasted, and as a result technical problems frequently brought the action to a frustrating halt throughout the twenty-one day shoot. The film ultimately received mixed reviews, although most critics were impressed by Granger, who in later years said he was happy to be part of the experience, but wondered "what the film would have been like had [Hitchcock] shot it normally" and "had he not had to worry about censorship."
Upon the completion of Rope, Goldwyn cast Granger, Teresa Wright, David Niven
David Niven
James David Graham Niven , known as David Niven, was a British actor and novelist, best known for his roles as Phileas Fogg in Around the World in 80 Days and Sir Charles Lytton, a.k.a. "the Phantom", in The Pink Panther...
and Evelyn Keyes
Evelyn Keyes
Evelyn Louise Keyes was an American film actress. She is best-known for her role as Suellen O'Hara in the 1939 film Gone with the Wind.-Early life:...
in Enchantment, which was plagued by a weak script and indifferent direction by Irving Reis
Irving Reis
Irving Reis, born May 7, 1906, in New York City – died July 3, 1953, in Woodland Hills, California, was a radio program producer & director, and a film director.Reis was the creator of the experimental anthology program on the radio, Columbia Workshop...
. It failed at the box office, as did his next project, Roseanna McCoy
Roseanna McCoy
Roseanna McCoy is a 1949 American drama film directed by Irving Reis. The screenplay by John Collier, based on the 1947 novel of the same title by Alberta Hannum, is a romanticized and semi-fictionalized account of the Hatfield-McCoy feud.-Plot:...
, during which he and Laurents parted ways. While filming Side Street on location in Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
for Anthony Mann
Anthony Mann
Anthony Mann was an American actor and film director, most notably of film noirs and Westerns. As a director, he often collaborated with the cinematographer John Alton and with James Stewart in his Westerns.-Biography:...
, Granger briefly became involved with Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...
, who invited him to join him on his South America
South America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
n tour. By the time Granger completed the film, the composer/conductor had married Chile
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
an pianist and actress Felicia Montealegre
Felicia Montealegre
Felicia Cohn Montealegre was a stage and television actress. From 1951 until her death, she was the wife of American composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein....
. The two men remained friends until Bernstein's death.
Leading roles
Granger's next two films for Goldwyn, Edge of DoomEdge of Doom
Edge of Doom is a 1950 film noir shot in black and white. The film was directed by Mark Robson. The screenplay was written by Philip Yordan . The film is based on a novel by Leo Brady...
and Our Very Own
Our Very Own (1950 film)
Our Very Own is a 1950 American drama film directed by David Miller. The screenplay by F. Hugh Herbert focuses on a teenaged girl who learns she was adopted as an infant.-Plot:...
, were unpleasant working experiences, and the actor refused to allow the producer to loan him to Universal Pictures
Universal Studios
Universal Pictures , a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, is one of the six major movie studios....
for an inferior magic carpet
Magic carpet
A magic carpet, also called a flying carpet, is a legendary carpet that can be used to transport persons who are on it instantaneously or quickly to their destination.-In literature:...
saga. When he was placed on suspension, he decided to accompany Ethyl Chaplin, who had separated from her husband, and her daughter on a trip to Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. At the last moment they were joined by Arthur Laurents, who remained behind when the group departed for London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
to see the opening of the New York City Ballet
New York City Ballet
New York City Ballet is a ballet company founded in 1948 by choreographer George Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein. Leon Barzin was the company's first music director. Balanchine and Jerome Robbins are considered the founding choreographers of the company...
, which had been choreographed by Jerome Robbins
Jerome Robbins
Jerome Robbins was an American theater producer, director, and choreographer known primarily for Broadway Theater and Ballet/Dance, but who also occasionally directed films and directed/produced for television. His work has included everything from classical ballet to contemporary musical theater...
. He and Granger engaged in a casual affair until the actor was summoned to return to New York to help publicize Our Very Own and Edge of Doom, both of which received dreadful reviews. Goldwyn cancelled the nationwide openings of the latter, hoping to salvage it by adding wraparound scenes that would change the focus of the film, and Granger refused to promote it any further. Once again placed on suspension, he departed for Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
, where he spent time in Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
and Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
with Laurents before being contacted about an upcoming film by Alfred Hitchcock.
Strangers on a Train (film)
Strangers on a Train is an American psychological thriller film produced and directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and based on the 1950 novel of the same name by Patricia Highsmith. It was shot in the autumn of 1950 and released by Warner Bros. on June 30, 1951. The film stars Farley Granger, Ruth Roman,...
, in which Granger was cast as amateur tennis player and aspiring politician Guy Haines. He is introduced to psychopathic Bruno Anthony, portrayed by Robert Walker, who suggests they swap murders, with Bruno killing Guy's wife and Guy disposing of Bruno's father. As with Rope, there was a homosexual subtext to the two men's relationship, although it was toned down from Patricia Highsmith
Patricia Highsmith
Patricia Highsmith was an American novelist and short-story writer most widely known for her psychological thrillers, which led to more than two dozen film adaptations. Her first novel, Strangers on a Train, has been adapted for stage and screen numerous times, notably by Alfred Hitchcock in 1951...
's original novel. Granger and Walker, whose wife Jennifer Jones
Jennifer Jones
Phylis Lee Isley , better known by her stage name Jennifer Jones, was an American actress. A five-time Academy Award nominee, Jones won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in The Song of Bernadette .-Early life:Jones was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the daughter of Flora Mae and...
had recently left him for David O. Selznick
David O. Selznick
David O. Selznick was an American film producer. He is best known for having produced Gone with the Wind and Rebecca , both of which earned him an Oscar for Best Picture.-Early years:...
, became close friends and confidantes during filming, and Granger was devastated when Walker died from an accidental combination of alcohol and barbiturate
Barbiturate
Barbiturates are drugs that act as central nervous system depressants, and can therefore produce a wide spectrum of effects, from mild sedation to total anesthesia. They are also effective as anxiolytics, as hypnotics, and as anticonvulsants...
s prior to the film's release. It proved to be a box office hit, the first major success of Granger's career, and his "happiest filmmaking experience."
On December 31, 1950, Granger picked up close friend Shelley Winters
Shelley Winters
Shelley Winters was an American actress who appeared in dozens of films, as well as on stage and television; her career spanned over 50 years until her death in 2006...
to escort her to Sam Spiegel
Sam Spiegel
Sam Spiegel was an Austrian-born American independent film producer.-Life and career:Spiegel was born in Jarosław, Galicia, Austria-Hungary as Samuel P. Spiegel to a German-Jewish father and Polish mother and educated at the University of Vienna. His brother was Shalom Spiegel, a professor of...
's traditional New Year's Eve
New Year's Eve
New Year's Eve is observed annually on December 31, the final day of any given year in the Gregorian calendar. In modern societies, New Year's Eve is often celebrated at social gatherings, during which participants dance, eat, consume alcoholic beverages, and watch or light fireworks to mark the...
gala. The actress kept him waiting for nearly two hours, and they argued while en route to the party. Once there, they went their separate ways, and Granger met Ava Gardner
Ava Gardner
Ava Lavinia Gardner was an American actress.She was signed to a contract by MGM Studios in 1941 and appeared mainly in small roles until she drew attention with her performance in The Killers . She became one of Hollywood's leading actresses, considered one of the most beautiful women of her day...
. The two left to hear Nat King Cole
Nat King Cole
Nathaniel Adams Coles , known professionally as Nat King Cole, was an American musician who first came to prominence as a leading jazz pianist. Although an accomplished pianist, he owes most of his popular musical fame to his soft baritone voice, which he used to perform in big band and jazz genres...
perform at a nearby nightclub
Nightclub
A nightclub is an entertainment venue which usually operates late into the night...
and then went to Granger's home, where they began an intense affair that lasted until Gardner began filming Show Boat
Show Boat (1951 film)
Show Boat is a 1951 Technicolor film based on the musical by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II and the novel by Edna Ferber....
a month later.
Having reconciled, Granger and Winters went to New York City, where they audited classes at the Actors' Studio and the Neighborhood Playhouse
Neighborhood Playhouse
The Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre is an actor training school at 340 East 54th Street in New York City, generally associated with the Meisner technique of Sanford Meisner.-History:...
. Winters subscribed to the concept of method acting
Method acting
Method acting is a phrase that loosely refers to a family of techniques used by actors to create in themselves the thoughts and emotions of their characters, so as to develop lifelike performances...
, but Granger felt an actor "had to be faithful to the text, not adapt it to some personal sense memory," and their disagreement triggered more arguments. Their plan to pursue individual training programs was disrupted when both were called back to Hollywood. Goldwyn cast Granger in I Want You, a drama about the effect the Korean War
Korean War
The Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...
has on an American family still trying to recover from World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. Granger thought the screenplay by Irwin Shaw
Irwin Shaw
Irwin Shaw was a prolific American playwright, screenwriter, novelist, and short-story author whose written works have sold more than 14 million copies. He is best-known for his novel, The Young Lions about the fate of three soldiers during World War II that was made into a film starring Marlon...
was "not only dull, but felt dated," but welcomed the opportunity to work with Dana Andrews
Dana Andrews
Dana Andrews was an American film actor. He was one of Hollywood's major stars of the 1940s, and continued acting, though generally in less prestigious roles, into the 1980s.-Early life:...
and Dorothy McGuire
Dorothy McGuire
Dorothy Hackett McGuire was an American actress.-Career:Born in Omaha, Nebraska, she began her acting career on the stage at the Omaha Community Playhouse...
. Goldwyn expected the film to be as successful as The Best Years of Our Lives
The Best Years of Our Lives
The Best Years of Our Lives is a 1946 American drama film directed by William Wyler, and starring Fredric March, Myrna Loy, Dana Andrews, Teresa Wright, and Harold Russell, a United States paratrooper who lost both hands in a military training accident. The film is about three United States...
, but it proved to be as "tepid and old-fashioned" as Granger feared and, opening after cease-fire negotiations with Korea
Korea
Korea ) is an East Asian geographic region that is currently divided into two separate sovereign states — North Korea and South Korea. Located on the Korean Peninsula, Korea is bordered by the People's Republic of China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the...
had begun, no longer topical, and it died at the box office. His subsequent projects – an inconsequential screwball comedy
Screwball Comedy
Screwball Comedy is an album by the Japanese band Soul Flower Union. The album found the band going into a simpler, harder-rocking direction, after several heavily world-music influenced albums.-Track listing:...
with Winters called Behave Yourself, the Gift of the Magi
The Gift of the Magi
"The Gift of the Magi" is a short story written by O. Henry , about a young married couple and how they deal with the challenge of buying secret Christmas gifts for each other with very little money...
segment of the anthology film
Anthology film
An anthology film is a feature film consisting of several different short films, often tied together by only a single theme, premise, or brief interlocking event . Sometimes each one is directed by a different director...
O. Henry's Full House
O. Henry's Full House
O. Henry's Full House is an anthology film made by 20th Century Fox, consisting of five separate stories by O. Henry. The film was produced by André Hakim and directed by five separate directors from five separate screenplays. The music score was composed by Alfred Newman...
, and the musical film
Musical film
The musical film is a film genre in which songs sung by the characters are interwoven into the narrative, sometimes accompanied by dancing. The songs usually advance the plot or develop the film's characters, though in some cases they serve merely as breaks in the storyline, often as elaborate...
Hans Christian Andersen
Hans Christian Andersen (film)
Hans Christian Andersen is a 1952 Hollywood musical film directed by Charles Vidor, with words and music by Frank Loesser. The story was by Myles Connolly, its screenplay was by Moss Hart and Ben Hecht , and was produced by The Samuel Goldwyn Company...
– were no more successful.
Anxious to work with Vincente Minnelli
Vincente Minnelli
Vincente Minnelli was an American stage director and film director, famous for directing such classic movie musicals as Meet Me in St. Louis, The Band Wagon, and An American in Paris. In addition to having directed some of the most famous and well-remembered musicals of his time, Minnelli made...
, Granger willingly accepted a role opposite Leslie Caron
Leslie Caron
Leslie Claire Margaret Caron is a French film actress and dancer, who appeared in 45 films between 1951 and 2003. In 2006, her performance in Law and Order: Special Victims Unit won her an Emmy for guest actress in a drama series...
and Ethel Barrymore
Ethel Barrymore
Ethel Barrymore was an American actress and a member of the Barrymore family of actors.-Early life:Ethel Barrymore was born Ethel Mae Blythe in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the second child of the actors Maurice Barrymore and Georgiana Drew...
in Mademoiselle, one of three segments in the 1953 MGM
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...
film The Story of Three Loves
The Story of Three Loves
The Story of Three Loves, also known as Equilibrium, is a 1953 romantic anthology film made by MGM. It consists of three stories, "The Jealous Lover", "Mademoiselle", and "Equilibrium". The film was produced by Sidney Franklin. "Mademoiselle" was directed by Vincente Minnelli, while Gottfried...
. The film's producer, Gottfried Reinhardt, also directed the other two segments, and he mercilessly edited Mademoiselle in order to give his stories more screen time. Unhappy with the direction his career was taking, Granger sought solace with Shelley Winters, who was separated from Vittorio Gassman
Vittorio Gassman
Vittorio Gassman Knight Grand Cross OMRI , popularly known as Il Mattatore, was an Italian theatre and film actor and director...
, and the two friends resumed their love affair, which at one point nearly had culminated in marriage. Their relationship was complicated, but Granger felt "it works for us."
Granger's next project was Small Town Girl
Small Town Girl (1953 film)
Small Town Girl is a 1953 musical film directed by László Kardos and starring Jane Powell, Farley Granger, and Ann Miller. Busby Berkeley choreographed several dance numbers. Bobby Van performed the memorable "Street Dance", in which he hopped all around town. The film features song performances...
, a musical with Jane Powell
Jane Powell
Jane Powell is an American singer, dancer and actress.After rising to fame as a singer in her home state of Oregon, Powell was signed to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer while still in her teens...
, Ann Miller
Ann Miller
Johnnie Lucille Collier, better known as Ann Miller was an American singer, dancer and actress.-Early life:...
and Bobby Van. Upon its completion, he bought his release from Goldwyn, a costly decision that left him with serious financial difficulties. Granger was determined to move to Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
to study acting and perform on stage, but his agent convinced him to accept a role in Senso
Senso (film)
Senso is a 1954 melodrama film, an adaptation of Camillo Boito's Italian novella Senso by the Italian director Luchino Visconti, with Alida Valli as Livia and Farley Granger as Lieutenant Franz Mahler....
, directed by Luchino Visconti
Luchino Visconti
Luchino Visconti di Modrone, Count of Lonate Pozzolo was an Italian theatre, opera and cinema director, as well as a screenwriter. He is best known for his films The Leopard and Death in Venice .-Life:...
and co-starring Alida Valli
Alida Valli
Alida Valli , sometimes simply credited as Valli, was an Italian actress who appeared in more than 100 films, including Mario Soldati's Piccolo mondo antico, Alfred Hitchcock's The Paradine Case, Carol Reed's The Third Man, Michelangelo Antonioni's Il Grido, Luchino Visconti's Senso, Bernardo...
. Filming in Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
lasted nine months, although Granger frequently was idle during this period, allowing him free time to explore Italy and even spend a long weekend in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, where he had a brief affair with Jean Marais
Jean Marais
-Biography:A native of Cherbourg, France, Marais starred in several movies directed by Jean Cocteau, for a time his lover, most famously Beauty and the Beast and Orphée ....
. During his time in Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
, Granger renewed his friendship with Peggy Guggenheim
Peggy Guggenheim
Marguerite "Peggy" Guggenheim was an American art collector. Born to a wealthy New York City family, she was the daughter of Benjamin Guggenheim, who went down with the Titanic in 1912 and the niece of Solomon R. Guggenheim, who would establish the Solomon R...
, whom he had met during his earlier trip to Italy with Arthur Laurents, and he met Mike Todd
Mike Todd
Michael Todd was an American theatre and film producer, best known for his 1956 production of Around the World in Eighty Days, which won an Academy Award for Best Picture...
, who cajoled him into making a cameo appearance as a gondolier
Gondola
The gondola is a traditional, flat-bottomed Venetian rowing boat, well suited to the conditions of the Venetian Lagoon. For centuries gondolas were the chief means of transportation and most common watercraft within Venice. In modern times the iconic boats still have a role in public transport in...
in his epic Around the World in 80 Days. He finally returned to Hollywood exhausted but happy about the experience.
Upon his return to the States, Darryl F. Zanuck
Darryl F. Zanuck
Darryl Francis Zanuck was an American producer, writer, actor, director and studio executive who played a major part in the Hollywood studio system as one of its longest survivors...
offered Granger a two-picture deal, and in quick succession he made The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing
The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing
The Girl in the Velvet Swing is a film directed by Richard Fleischer from a screenplay by Walter Reisch and Charles Brackett, and starring Joan Collins, Ray Milland and Farley Granger...
, in which he portrayed tycoon Harry Kendall Thaw, and The Naked Street, a melodrama
Melodrama
The term melodrama refers to a dramatic work that exaggerates plot and characters in order to appeal to the emotions. It may also refer to the genre which includes such works, or to language, behavior, or events which resemble them...
the actor thought was "preachy, trite and pedestrian," although he welcomed the opportunity to work with Anthony Quinn
Anthony Quinn
Antonio Rodolfo Quinn-Oaxaca , more commonly known as Anthony Quinn, was a Mexican American actor, as well as a painter and writer...
and Anne Bancroft
Anne Bancroft
Anne Bancroft was an American actress associated with the Method acting school, which she had studied under Lee Strasberg....
.
In 1955, Granger moved to New York and began studying with Bob Fosse
Bob Fosse
Robert Louis “Bob” Fosse was an American actor, dancer, musical theater choreographer, director, screenwriter, film editor and film director. He won an unprecedented eight Tony Awards for choreography, as well as one for direction...
, Gloria Vanderbilt
Gloria Vanderbilt
Gloria Laura Vanderbilt is an American artist, author, actress, heiress, and socialite most noted as an early developer of designer blue jeans...
, James Kirkwood
James Kirkwood, Jr.
James Kirkwood, Jr. was an American playwright, author and actor. In 1976 he received the Tony Award, the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Book of a Musical, and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for the Broadway hit A Chorus Line.-Biography:Kirkwood was born in Los Angeles, California. His father...
and Tom Tryon
Tom Tryon
Tom Tryon was an American film and television actor, best known for playing the title role in the film The Cardinal and the Walt Disney television character Texas John Slaughter...
in a class taught by Sandy Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse
Neighborhood Playhouse
The Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre is an actor training school at 340 East 54th Street in New York City, generally associated with the Meisner technique of Sanford Meisner.-History:...
. During this period he made his Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
debut in The Carefree Tree, a play with music based on an old Chinese
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
legend. The cast included Janice Rule
Janice Rule
-Early life and career:Born in Norwood, Ohio, her career included stage, screen and television work. Rule studied ballet and began dancing in Chicago nightclubs in her teens. She soon attracted attention in Hollywood and made her film debut in 1951...
as Granger's love interest and Alvin Ailey
Alvin Ailey
Alvin Ailey, Jr. was an American choreographer and activist who founded the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in New York. Ailey is credited with popularizing modern dance and revolutionizing African-American participation in 20th century concert dance...
, Frances Sternhagen
Frances Sternhagen
Frances Hussey Sternhagen is an American actress. Sternhagen has appeared on and off Broadway, in movies, and on TV since the 1950s.-Personal life:...
, Jerry Stiller
Jerry Stiller
Gerald Isaac "Jerry" Stiller is an American comedian and actor.He spent many years in the comedy team Stiller and Meara with his wife Anne Meara...
and Sada Thompson
Sada Thompson
Sada Carolyn Thompson was an American stage, film, and television actress.-Life and career:Born in Des Moines, Iowa in 1927 to Hugh Woodruff Thompson and his wife Corlyss , and raised in New Jersey, Thompson earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Theatre at the Carnegie Institute of Technology, after...
in supporting roles. The play closed after only 24 performances, but shortly after its demise Rule moved in with Granger, and before long they were making wedding plans. They gradually realized the love their characters had felt on stage actually had not carried over into real life, and the two went their separate ways, although they remained friends until her death in 2003.
With both his film and theatrical career foundering, Granger turned to television. He starred in Beyond This Place, an adaptation of the A.J. Cronin novel of the same title
Beyond This Place
Beyond This Place is a 1953 novel by Scottish author A. J. Cronin. A serial version appeared in Collier's under the title of To Live Again.-Adaptations:...
, with Shelley Winters and Peggy Ann Garner
Peggy Ann Garner
Peggy Ann Garner was an American actress.A successful child actor, Garner played her first film role in 1938 and won the Academy Juvenile Award for her work in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn...
, and joined Julie Harris
Julie Harris
Julia Ann "Julie" Harris is an American stage, screen, and television actress. She has won five Tony Awards, three Emmy Awards and a Grammy Award, and was nominated for an Academy Award. In 1994, she was awarded the National Medal of Arts. She is a member of the American Theatre Hall of Fame...
for a remake of The Heiress
The Heiress
The Heiress is a 1949 American drama film. It was written by Ruth and Augustus Goetz, adapted from their 1947 play of the same title that was based on the 1880 novel Washington Square by Henry James. The film was directed by William Wyler, with starring performances by Olivia de Havilland as...
. He also was featured in episodes of Climax Mystery Theater, Ford Television Theatre
Ford Theatre
Ford Theatre was a radio and television anthology series broadcast in the United States in the 1940s and 1950s. At various times the television series appeared on all three major television networks, while the radio version was broadcast on two separate networks and on two separate coasts...
, The 20th Century Fox Hour
The 20th Century Fox Hour
The 20th Century Fox Hour is an American drama anthology series televised in the United States on CBS from 1955 to 1957. Some of the shows in this series were restored, remastered and shown on the Fox Movie Channel in 2002 under the title Hour of Stars...
, Robert Montgomery Presents
Robert Montgomery Presents
Robert Montgomery Presents is an American dramatic television series which was produced by NBC from January 30, 1950 until June 24, 1957. The live show had several sponsors during its seven-year run, and the title was altered to feature the sponsor, usually Lucky Strike cigarettes, for example,...
, Playhouse 90
Playhouse 90
Playhouse 90 is an American television anthology series that was telecast on CBS from 1956 to 1960 for a total of 133 episodes. It originated from CBS Television City in Los Angeles, California...
, Wagon Train
Wagon Train
Wagon Train is an American Western series that ran on NBC from 1957–62 and then on ABC from 1962–65...
, Kraft Television Theatre
Kraft Television Theatre
Kraft Television Theatre is an American drama/anthology television series that began May 7, 1947 on NBC, airing at 7:30pm on Wednesday evenings until December of that year. In January 1948, it moved to 9pm on Wednesdays, continuing in that timeslot until 1958. Initially produced by the J...
, The United States Steel Hour
The United States Steel Hour
The United States Steel Hour is an anthology series which brought hour-long dramas to television from 1953 to 1963. The television series and the radio program that preceded it were both sponsored by the United States Steel Corporation....
, and The Bell Telephone Hour
The Bell Telephone Hour
The Bell Telephone Hour is a long-run concert series which began April 29, 1940 on NBC Radio and was heard on NBC until June 30, 1958. Sponsored by Bell Telephone, it showcased the best in classical and Broadway music, reaching eight to nine million listeners each week. It continued on television...
, and in later years Get Smart
Get Smart
Get Smart is an American comedy television series that satirizes the secret agent genre. Created by Mel Brooks with Buck Henry, the show starred Don Adams , Barbara Feldon , and Edward Platt...
, Run for Your Life
Run for Your Life (TV series)
Run for Your Life is an American television drama series starring Ben Gazzara as a man with only a short time to live. It ran on NBC from 1965 to 1968. The series was created by Roy Huggins, who had previously explored the "man on the move" concept with The Fugitive.-Synopsis:Gazzara plays lawyer...
, Ironside
Ironside (TV series)
Ironside is a Universal television series which ran on NBC from September 14, 1967 to January 16, 1975. The show starred Raymond Burr as the wheelchair-using Chief of Detectives, Robert T. Ironside. The character's debut was in a TV-movie on March 28, 1967. The original title of the show in the...
, The Name of the Game
The Name of the Game
"The Name of the Game" is a 1977 song by Swedish pop group ABBA, and was released as the first single from the group's fifth studio album, The Album...
and Hawaii Five-O
Hawaii Five-O
Hawaii Five-O is an American police procedural drama series produced by CBS Productions and Leonard Freeman. Set in Hawaii, the show originally aired for twelve seasons from 1968 to 1980, and continues in reruns. The show featured a fictional state police unit run by Detective Steve McGarrett,...
, among others.
In 1959, Granger returned to Broadway as Fitzwilliam Darcy
Fitzwilliam Darcy
Fitzwilliam Darcy, generally referred to as Mr Darcy, is one of the two central characters in Jane Austen's novel Pride and Prejudice. He is an archetype of the aloof romantic hero, and a romantic interest of Elizabeth Bennet, the novel's protagonist...
opposite Polly Bergen
Polly Bergen
Polly Bergen is an American actress, singer, and entrepreneur.-Career:Bergen appeared in many film roles, most notably in the original Cape Fear opposite Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum...
as Elizabeth Bennet
Elizabeth Bennet
Elizabeth Bennet, later Elizabeth Darcy, is the protagonist in the 1813 novel Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. She is often referred to as Eliza or Lizzy by her friends and family...
in First Impressions, a musical adaptation of Pride and Prejudice
Pride and Prejudice
Pride and Prejudice is a novel by Jane Austen, first published in 1813. The story follows the main character Elizabeth Bennet as she deals with issues of manners, upbringing, morality, education and marriage in the society of the landed gentry of early 19th-century England...
with a book and direction by Abe Burrows
Abe Burrows
Abe Burrows was a Tony and Pulitzer-winning American humorist, author, and director for radio and the stage.-Early years:...
. The tryout in New Haven was a disaster, and reviews were mixed. Things improved slightly during the Philadelphia run, but by the time the production reached New York, Bergen – who was fighting bitterly with co-star Hermione Gingold
Hermione Gingold
Hermione Gingold was an English actress known for her sharp-tongued, eccentric persona, an image enhanced by her sharp nose and chin, as well as her deepening voice, a result of vocal nodes which her mother reportedly encouraged her not to remove. She starred on stage, on radio, in films, on...
– was experiencing serious vocal problems, and some of her songs would be cut during each performance, creating confusion for the rest of the cast. Only two of seven critics wrote favorable reviews, Bergen was replaced by understudy
Understudy
In theater, an understudy is a performer who learns the lines and blocking/choreography of a regular actor or actress in a play. Should the regular actor or actress be unable to appear on stage because of illness or emergencies, the understudy takes over the part...
Ellen Hanley
Ellen Hanley
Ellen Hanley was a musical theater performer best known for playing Fiorello H. LaGuardia's first wife in the Pulitzer Prize-winning Fiorello!.-Biography:...
, and the musical closed in less than three months. Later that year, he was cast in The Warm Peninsula, a play by Joe Masteroff
Joe Masteroff
-Career:Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Masteroff graduated from Temple University and served with the United States Air Force during World War II...
. Co-starring Julie Harris, June Havoc
June Havoc
June Havoc was a Canadian-born American actress, dancer, writer, and theater director. Havoc was a child Vaudeville performer under the tutelage of her mother. She later acted on Broadway and in Hollywood and stage directed . She last appeared on television in 1990 on General Hospital...
and Larry Hagman
Larry Hagman
Larry Martin Hagman is an American film and television actor, producer and director known for playing J.R. Ewing in the 1980s primetime television soap opera Dallas and Major Anthony "Tony" Nelson in the 1960s sitcom I Dream of Jeannie.-Early life and career:Hagman was born in Fort Worth, Texas...
, it received fair reviews and closed after only 86 performances.
Later career
Despite his three unsuccessful Broadway experiences, Granger continued to focus on theater in the early 1960s. He accepted an invitation from Eva Le GallienneEva Le Gallienne
Eva Le Gallienne was a well-known actress, producer, and director, during the first half of the 20th century.-Early life and early career:...
to join her National Repertory Theatre. During their first season, while the company was in Philadelphia, John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
was assassinated. The President had attended NRT's opening night and post-performance gala in the nation's capital, so the news hit everyone in the company especially hard. Granger had become close friends with production supervisor Robert Calhoun, and although both had felt a mutual attraction, they never had discussed it. That night they became lovers.
Granger finally achieved some success on Broadway in The Seagull
The Seagull
The Seagull is the first of what are generally considered to be the four major plays by the Russian dramatist Anton Chekhov. The Seagull was written in 1895 and first produced in 1896...
, The Crucible
The Crucible
The Crucible is a 1952 play by the American playwright Arthur Miller. It is a dramatization of the Salem witch trials that took place in the Province of Massachusetts Bay during 1692 and 1693. Miller wrote the play as an allegory of McCarthyism, when the US government blacklisted accused communists...
, The Glass Menagerie
The Glass Menagerie
The Glass Menagerie is a four-character memory play by Tennessee Williams. Williams worked on various drafts of the play prior to writing a version of it as a screenplay for MGM, to whom Williams was contracted...
, and Deathtrap
Deathtrap (play)
Deathtrap is a play by Ira Levin in 1978 which encompasses many plot twists and is essentially a play within a play. It is a play in two acts with one set and five characters. It holds the record for the longest running comedy-thriller on Broadway and was also nominated for the Tony Award for Best...
. He starred opposite Barbara Cook
Barbara Cook
Barbara Cook is an American singer and actress who first came to prominence in the 1950s after starring in the original Broadway musicals Candide and The Music Man among others, winning a Tony Award for the latter...
in a revival of The King and I
The King and I
The King and I is a stage musical, the fifth by the team of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. The work is based on the 1944 novel Anna and the King of Siam by Margaret Landon and derives from the memoirs of Anna Leonowens, who became governess to the children of King Mongkut of Siam in...
at the off-Broadway
Off-Broadway
Off-Broadway theater is a term for a professional venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, and for a specific production of a play, musical or revue that appears in such a venue, and which adheres to related trade union and other contracts...
New York City Center
New York City Center
New York City Center is a 2,750-seat Moorish Revival theater located at 131 West 55th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues in Manhattan, New York City. It is one block south of Carnegie Hall...
, and in 1979 he was cast in the Roundabout Theatre Company
Roundabout Theatre Company
The Roundabout Theatre Company is a leading non-profit theatre company based in New York City.-History:The company was founded in 1965 by Gene Feist and Elizabeth Owens and now operates five theatres, all in Manhattan: the American Airlines Theatre ; Studio 54 ; the Stephen Sondheim Theatre The...
production of A Month in the Country
A Month in the Country (play)
A Month in the Country is a comedy in five acts by Ivan Turgenev. It was written in France between 1848 and 1850 and was first published in 1855...
. In 1986 he won the Obie Award
Obie Award
The Obie Awards or Off-Broadway Theater Awards are annual awards given by The Village Voice newspaper to theatre artists and groups in New York City...
for his performance in the Lanford Wilson
Lanford Wilson
Lanford Wilson was an American playwright who helped to advance the Off-Off-Broadway theater movement. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1980, was elected in 2001 to the Theater Hall of Fame, and in 2004 was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters...
play Talley & Son
Talley & Son
Talley & Son is a play by Lanford Wilson, the third in his trilogy focusing on the Talley family of Lebanon, Missouri. It is set on July 4, 1944, the same day as Talley's Folly and thirty-three years prior to the events in Fifth of July....
.
In the early 1970s, Granger and Calhoun moved to Rome, where the actor made a series of Italian language
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
films, most notably They Call Me Trinity
They Call Me Trinity
They Call Me Trinity also known as My Name is Trinity, is a 1970 Italian spaghetti western film starring Terence Hill and Bud Spencer.-Plot summary:...
. He also appeared on several soap opera
Soap opera
A soap opera, sometimes called "soap" for short, is an ongoing, episodic work of dramatic fiction presented in serial format on radio or as television programming. The name soap opera stems from the original dramatic serials broadcast on radio that had soap manufacturers, such as Procter & Gamble,...
s, including One Life to Live
One Life to Live
One Life to Live is an American soap opera which debuted on July 15, 1968 and has been broadcast on the ABC television network. Created by Agnes Nixon, the series was the first daytime drama to primarily feature racially and socioeconomically diverse characters and consistently emphasize social...
, on which his portrayal of Will Vernon garnered him a nomination for the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series
Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series
The Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series is an award which has been given every year at the Daytime Emmys ceremony since 1974.In the lists below, the winner of the award for each year is shown first, followed by the other nominees....
, The Edge of Night
The Edge of Night
The Edge of Night is an American television mystery series/soap opera produced by Procter & Gamble. It debuted on CBS on April 2, 1956, and ran as a live broadcast on that network until November 28, 1975; the series then moved to ABC, where it aired from December 1, 1975, until December 28, 1984...
, and As the World Turns
As the World Turns
As the World Turns is an American television soap opera that aired on CBS from April 2, 1956 to September 17, 2010. Irna Phillips created As the World Turns as a sister show to her other soap opera Guiding Light...
, produced by Calhoun. Granger acted alongside Mario Adorf
Mario Adorf
Mario Adorf is a German film and stage actor, best known for his lead role in the 1978 film The Tin Drum.-Biography:...
in the Italian slasher film La Polizia chiede aiuto, which was directed by Massimo Dallamano.
Since the 1990s, Granger has appeared in several documentaries
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
discussing Hollywood in general and Alfred Hitchcock in particular. In 1995 he was interviewed on camera for The Celluloid Closet
The Celluloid Closet
The Celluloid Closet is a 1996 American documentary film directed and written by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman. The film is based on the 1981 book of the same name written by Vito Russo, and on previous lecture and film clip presentations given in person by Russo 1972–82.Russo researched the...
, discussing the depiction of homosexuality in film and the use of subtext in various films, including his own.
In 2003, Granger made his last film appearance in Broadway: The Golden Age, by the Legends Who Were There
Broadway: The Golden Age, by the Legends Who Were There
Broadway: The Golden Age is a 2004 documentary by Rick McKay, telling the story of the "golden age" of Broadway by the oral history of the legendary actors of the 40s and 50s, incorporating rare lost footage of actual performances and never-before-seen personal home movies and photos.-The Cast:The...
. In it, he tells the story of leaving Hollywood at the peak of his fame, buying out his contract from Samuel Goldwyn, and moving to Manhattan to work on the Broadway stage.
In 2007, Granger published the memoir Include Me Out, co-written with domestic partner Robert Calhoun. In the book, named after one of Goldwyn's famous malapropisms, he freely discusses his career and personal life. Calhoun died of lung cancer
Lung cancer
Lung cancer is a disease characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissues of the lung. If left untreated, this growth can spread beyond the lung in a process called metastasis into nearby tissue and, eventually, into other parts of the body. Most cancers that start in lung, known as primary...
in New York, New York on May 24, 2008, at age 77.
Legacy
For his contribution to television, Granger has a star located at 1551 Vine Street on the Hollywood Walk of FameHollywood Walk of Fame
The Hollywood Walk of Fame consists of more than 2,400 five-pointed terrazzo and brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along fifteen blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in Hollywood, California...
.
Filmography
- The North StarThe North Star (1943 film)The North Star is a 1943 war film produced and distributed by RKO Radio Pictures. It was directed by Lewis Milestone and written by Lillian Hellman. The film starred Anne Baxter, Dana Andrews, Walter Huston, Walter Brennan and Erich von Stroheim...
(19431943 in filmThe year 1943 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* January 3 - 1st missing persons telecast * February 20 - American film studio executives agree to allow the Office of War Information to censor films....
) - The Purple HeartThe Purple HeartThe Purple Heart is a 1944 American war film directed by Lewis Milestone.It is a dramatization of the trial of a number of US airmen by the Japanese during the Second World War...
(19441944 in filmThe year 1944 in film involved some significant events, including the wholesome, award-winning Going My Way plus popular murder mysteries such as Double Indemnity, Gaslight and Laura.-Events:*July 20 - Since You Went Away is released....
) - RopeRope (film)Rope is a 1948 American thriller film based on the play Rope by Patrick Hamilton and adapted by Hume Cronyn and Arthur Laurents, directed by Alfred Hitchcock and produced by Sidney Bernstein and Hitchcock as the first of their Transatlantic Pictures productions...
(19481948 in filmThe year 1948 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* Laurence Olivier's Hamlet becomes the first British film to win the American Academy Award for Best Picture.-Top grossing films : After theatrical re-issue- Awards :...
) - Enchantment (1948)
- Roseanna McCoyRoseanna McCoyRoseanna McCoy is a 1949 American drama film directed by Irving Reis. The screenplay by John Collier, based on the 1947 novel of the same title by Alberta Hannum, is a romanticized and semi-fictionalized account of the Hatfield-McCoy feud.-Plot:...
(19491949 in filmThe year 1949 in film involved some significant events.-Top grossing films :- Awards :Academy Awards:*Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff, starring Bud Abbott and Lou Costello...
) - They Live by NightThey Live by NightThey Live by Night is a film noir, based on Edward Anderson's Depression era novel Thieves Like Us. The film was directed by Nicholas Ray and starred Farley Granger as "Bowie" Bowers and Cathy O'Donnell as "Keechie" Mobley...
(1949) - Side Street (19501950 in filmThe year 1950 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* February 15 - Walt Disney Studios' animated film Cinderella debuts.-Top grossing films : After theatrical re-issue- Awards :Academy Awards:*Ambush...
) - Our Very OwnOur Very Own (1950 film)Our Very Own is a 1950 American drama film directed by David Miller. The screenplay by F. Hugh Herbert focuses on a teenaged girl who learns she was adopted as an infant.-Plot:...
(1950) - Edge of DoomEdge of DoomEdge of Doom is a 1950 film noir shot in black and white. The film was directed by Mark Robson. The screenplay was written by Philip Yordan . The film is based on a novel by Leo Brady...
(1950) - Strangers on a TrainStrangers on a Train (film)Strangers on a Train is an American psychological thriller film produced and directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and based on the 1950 novel of the same name by Patricia Highsmith. It was shot in the autumn of 1950 and released by Warner Bros. on June 30, 1951. The film stars Farley Granger, Ruth Roman,...
(19511951 in filmThe year 1951 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* Sweden - May Britt is scouted by Italian film-makers Carlo Ponti and Mario Soldati-Top grossing films : After theatrical re-issue- Awards :Academy Awards:...
) - Behave Yourself!Behave Yourself!Behave Yourself! is a 1951 American film directed and co-written by George Beck, starring Farley Granger and Shelley Winters.-Cast:*Farley Granger as William Calhoun 'Bill' Denny*Shelley Winters as Kate Denny*William Demarest as Officer O'Ryan...
(1951) - I Want YouI Want You (1951 film)I Want You is a 1951 film directed by Mark Robson taking place in America during the Korean War. The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Sound .-Plot:...
(1951) - Warner Pathe Newsreel: Cancer Fund Film Notables Attend Glittering Benefits (1951) (short)
- Screen Snapshots: Hollywood Awards (1951) (short)
- O. Henry's Full HouseO. Henry's Full HouseO. Henry's Full House is an anthology film made by 20th Century Fox, consisting of five separate stories by O. Henry. The film was produced by André Hakim and directed by five separate directors from five separate screenplays. The music score was composed by Alfred Newman...
(19521952 in filmThe year 1952 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* January 10 - Cecil B. DeMille's circus epic, The Greatest Show on Earth, premieres at Radio City Music Hall in New York City....
) - Hans Christian AndersenHans Christian Andersen (film)Hans Christian Andersen is a 1952 Hollywood musical film directed by Charles Vidor, with words and music by Frank Loesser. The story was by Myles Connolly, its screenplay was by Moss Hart and Ben Hecht , and was produced by The Samuel Goldwyn Company...
(1952) - The Story of Three LovesThe Story of Three LovesThe Story of Three Loves, also known as Equilibrium, is a 1953 romantic anthology film made by MGM. It consists of three stories, "The Jealous Lover", "Mademoiselle", and "Equilibrium". The film was produced by Sidney Franklin. "Mademoiselle" was directed by Vincente Minnelli, while Gottfried...
(19531953 in filmThe year 1953 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*September 16 — The Robe debuts as the first anamorphic, widescreen CinemaScope film.-Top grossing films : After theatrical re-issue- Awards :Academy Awards:A...
) - Small Town GirlSmall Town Girl (1953 film)Small Town Girl is a 1953 musical film directed by László Kardos and starring Jane Powell, Farley Granger, and Ann Miller. Busby Berkeley choreographed several dance numbers. Bobby Van performed the memorable "Street Dance", in which he hopped all around town. The film features song performances...
(1953) - SensoSenso (film)Senso is a 1954 melodrama film, an adaptation of Camillo Boito's Italian novella Senso by the Italian director Luchino Visconti, with Alida Valli as Livia and Farley Granger as Lieutenant Franz Mahler....
(19541954 in filmThe year 1954 in film involved some significant events and memorable ones.-Events:*May 12 - The Marx Brothers' Zeppo Marx divorces wife Marion Benda...
) - The Naked Street (19551955 in filmThe year 1955 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* November 3 - The musical Guys and Dolls, starring Marlon Brando and Frank Sinatra, debuts.* June 27 - The last ever Republic serial, King of the Carnival, is released....
) - The Girl in the Red Velvet SwingThe Girl in the Red Velvet SwingThe Girl in the Velvet Swing is a film directed by Richard Fleischer from a screenplay by Walter Reisch and Charles Brackett, and starring Joan Collins, Ray Milland and Farley Granger...
(1955) - Rogues' Gallery (19681968 in filmThe year 1968 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* October 30 - The film The Lion in Winter, starring Katharine Hepburn, debuts.* November 1 - The MPAA's film rating system is introduced.-Top grossing films :- Awards :...
) - Guerilla Strike Force (19701970 in filmThe year 1970 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* January 9 - Larry Fine, the second member of The Three Stooges, suffers a massive stroke, therefore ending his career....
) - The Spider Web (1970)
- They Call Me TrinityThey Call Me TrinityThey Call Me Trinity also known as My Name is Trinity, is a 1970 Italian spaghetti western film starring Terence Hill and Bud Spencer.-Plot summary:...
(1970) - The Red Headed Corpse (19711971 in filmThe year 1971 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*February 8 - Bob Dylan's hour long documentary film, Eat the Document, premieres at New York's Academy of Music...
) - Something Is Crawling in the Dark (1971)
- Amuck (19721972 in filmThe year 1972 in film involved some significant events.-Top grossing films :- Awards :Academy Awards:*Avanti!, directed by Billy Wilder, starring Jack Lemmon and Juliet MillsB...
) - Penetration (1972)
- Night Flight from MoscowNight Flight from MoscowNight Flight from Moscow or Le Serpent is a French thriller made in 1973. It was produced and directed by Henri Verneuil. The music was written by Ennio Morricone.-Plot:...
(19731973 in filmThe year 1973 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*The Marx Brothers' Zeppo Marx divorces his second wife, Barbara Blakely. Blakely would later marry actor/singer Frank Sinatra....
) - The Man Called NoonThe Man Called NoonThe Man Called Noon is a 1973 film directed by Peter Collinson. It stars Richard Crenna and Stephen Boyd. It is based on a 1970 Louis L'Amour novel of the same name.-Cast:*Richard Crenna as Noon - an amnesiac gunfighter...
(1973) - Kill Me, My Love! (1973)
- Arnold (1973)
- Venus (19741974 in filmThe year 1974 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*February 7 - Blazing Saddles is released in the USA.*August 7 - Peter Wolf, lead singer of The J...
) - Savage City (1974)
- What Have They Done to Your Daughters? (1974)
- The ProwlerThe Prowler (1981 film)The Prowler is an American slasher movie released in 1981, directed by Joseph Zito. The film has been praised by gore fans for its brutal and realistic murder scenes...
(19811981 in film-Events:*January 19 - Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer acquires beleaguered concurrent United Artists. UA was humiliated by the astronomical losses on the $40,000,000 movie Heaven's Gate, a major factor in the decision of owner Transamerica to sell it....
) - Death Mask (19841984 in film-Events:* The Walt Disney Company founds Touchstone Pictures to release movies with subject matter deemed inappropriate for the Disney name.* Tri-Star Pictures, a joint venture of Columbia Pictures, HBO, and CBS, releases its first film....
) - Very Close Quarters (19861986 in film-Events:*April 12 - Actor Morgan Mason marries The Go-Go's Belinda Carlisle.*April 26 - Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger marries television journalist Maria Shriver.*May - Actress Heather Locklear marries Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee....
) - The Imagemaker (1986)
- The Whoopee BoysThe Whoopee BoysThe Whoopee Boys is a 1986 comedy film starring Michael O'Keefe and Paul Rodriguez.-Cast:*Michael O'Keefe as Jake Bateman*Paul Rodriguez as Barney Benar*Denholm Elliott as Col. Phelps*Eddie Deezen as Eddie Lipschitz...
(1986) - The Celluloid ClosetThe Celluloid ClosetThe Celluloid Closet is a 1996 American documentary film directed and written by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman. The film is based on the 1981 book of the same name written by Vito Russo, and on previous lecture and film clip presentations given in person by Russo 1972–82.Russo researched the...
(19951995 in film-Top grossing films:-Events:* March 22 - The Dogme 95 movement is officially announced in Paris by Danish directors Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg.* March 28 - Actress Julia Roberts and singer Lyle Lovett announce their plans for separation....
) (documentary) - The Next Big ThingThe Next Big Thing (film)The Next Big Thing is a romance comedy starring Marin Hinkle, Chris Eigeman, Jamie Harris, Connie Britton, and Janet Zarish. It was directed by P.J. Posner.- Plot :...
(20012001 in filmThe year 2001 in film involved some significant events, including the first of the Harry Potter series and also the first of The Lord of the Rings trilogy...
) - Broadway: The Golden Age, by the Legends Who Were ThereBroadway: The Golden Age, by the Legends Who Were ThereBroadway: The Golden Age is a 2004 documentary by Rick McKay, telling the story of the "golden age" of Broadway by the oral history of the legendary actors of the 40s and 50s, incorporating rare lost footage of actual performances and never-before-seen personal home movies and photos.-The Cast:The...
(2003) (documentary)