The New Biographical Dictionary of Film: Completely Updated and Expanded (169 page)

She married the actor Stanley Clements (1945–48), and appeared in
It Happened in Brooklyn
(46, Whorf); as flirty Violet in
It’s a Wonderful Life
(47, Frank Capra), who becomes a hooker in the nightmare; and
Merton of the Movies
(47, Robert Alton). She was then riveting, and nominated for supporting actress, as a tart in
Crossfire
(47, Edward Dmytryk), perhaps the most decent woman she ever played.

In 1948, she appeared in Nicholas Ray’s
A Woman’s Secret
, and married the director. (They were divorced in 1952.) She was also in
Song of the Thin Man
(47, Edward Buzzell) and
Roughshod
(49, Mark Robson) but, despite her sultry, deadpan looks, she was not getting lead roles until
In a Lonely Place
(50), where she is the great and lost love that Bogart suffers—angel of rescue, or clinching failure? Who knows how far that great movie alludes to the Ray-Grahame marriage? They were at odds by 1950, and Ray made tortured statements about how little the marriage ever meant to him. But they had a son.

Grahame worked for Ray and Josef von Sternberg on
Macao
(52); she won the supporting actress Oscar for her Southern wife in
The Bad and the Beautiful
(52, Vincente Minnelli), a role as funny as it was close to danger—for that woman goes fatally too far, offscreen; she was stunning as Jack Palance’s companion in menace in
Sudden Fear
(52, David Miller); and she was the blithe elephant girl in
The Greatest Show on Earth
(52, Cecil B. De Mille).

She was in
Man on a Tightrope
(53, Elia Kazan), and went to England for
The Good Die Young
(53, Lewis Gilbert). But she was at her best, half lovely, half scalded by coffee (preeminently two-faced) in
The Big Heat
(53, Fritz Lang), and unaffectedly sexual but distant in Lang’s
Human Desire
(54). And in 1954, she married producer Cy Howard—it lasted until 1957.

Her movie fortunes slipped slowly:
Naked Alibi
(54, Jerry Hopper); Widmark’s wife in
The Cobweb
(55, Minnelli); Ado Annie in
Oklahoma!
(55, Fred Zinnemann); neglected in
Not as a Stranger
(55, Stanley Kramer);
The Man Who Never Was
(56, Ronald Neame); and
Odds Against Tomorrow
(59, Robert Wise).

In 1961, she married her stepson, Anthony Ray, Nick Ray’s child by his first marriage. As she grew older, the pout turned very sad, and her films matched that mood:
Ride Beyond Vengeance
(66, Bernard McEveety);
Blood and Lace
(70, Philip Gilbert);
The Loners
(72, Sutton Roley);
Mama’s Dirty Girls
(74, John Hayes);
Mansion of the Doomed
(75, Michael Pataki);
Head Over Heels/Chilly Scenes of Winter
(79, Joan Micklin Silver);
A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square
(79, Ralph Thomas);
Melvin and Howard
(80, Jonathan Demme); and
The Nesting
(81, Armand Weston).

Farley Granger
, b. San Jose, California, 1925
Granger was a pretty-boy hero, shifting sands to trap a woman’s hopes, and a mannequin athlete. Hitchcock remorselessly breaks down his tennis champion, Guy Barnes, in
Strangers on a Train
(51) to the well-dressed smoothie posing with rackets but not out of breath since he left dancing school; the standin for action shots is plainly unlike Granger; while those close-ups of Granger show him lashing at the fleeting ball. It is a matter of casting and assessment of actorly character that Granger so subtly suggests the culpable opting for the easy way out in Guy Barnes. Pretty but dull, innocent but fallible, wronged but petulant, Granger is the unappetizing hero to Robert Walker’s absorbing villain. Granger was for years under contract to Goldwyn, but his brittleness was invariably discovered by others.

Curly-headed, fresh-faced softness stayed with Granger for a dozen years: for his debut as a young soldier in
The North Star
(43, Lewis Milestone) and
The Purple Heart
(44, Milestone); through notable war service; as the impulsive, doomed innocent in
They Live By Night
(48, Nicholas Ray); as the more highly strung of the two killers in
Rope
(48, Alfred Hitchcock);
Enchantment
(48, Irving Reis);
Roseanna McCoy
(49, Reis);
Side Street
(49, Anthony Mann);
Our Very Own
(50, David Miller);
Edge of Doom
(50, Mark Robson);
I Want You
(51, Robson); in “The Gift of the Magi” episode from
O. Henry’s Full House
(52, Henry King);
Hans Christian Andersen
(52, Charles Vidor); saying “Suckertash” to Ricky Nelson’s “Suffering” in
The Story of Three Loves
(53, Vincente Minnelli); and
Small Town Girl
(53, Leslie Kardos).

He went to Italy to play the fainthearted, swindling lover of Alida Valli in
Senso
(54, Luchino Visconti). But after
Naked Street
(55, Maxwell Shane) and a spiteful Harry Thaw in
The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing
(55, Richard Fleischer), he went into TV. Since then, he has been seen in
Rogue’s Gallery
(67, Leonard Horn);
The Challengers
(68, Leslie H. Martinson);
Qualcosa Striscia nel Buio
(70, Mario Colucci);
Lo Chiamarano
Trinita
(70, Enzo Barboni);
The Man Called Noon
(73, Peter Collinson);
Le Serpent
(73, Henri Verneuil);
Rivelazioni di un Maniaco Sessuale al Capo della Squadra Mobile
(73, Roberto Montero);
The Lives of Jenny Dolan
(75, Jerry Jameson);
Rosemary’s Killer
(81, Joseph Zito);
Deathmask
(84, Richard Friedman); and
The Imagemaker
(86, Hal Weiner);
The Next Best Thing
(01, P. J. Posner).

Stewart Granger
(James Stewart) (1913–1993), b. London
Granger always had a swashbuckling flair that might have excelled in silent pictures or won him a more permanent reputation in the hands of, say, Michael Curtiz. He might have been a real star if not for Errol Flynn.

After a few years in repertory theatre and some walk-on film work, he made his real debut in
So This Is London
(38, Thornton Freeland). During the war years he became a romantic star of the British cinema:
Secret Mission
(42, Harold French);
The Man in Grey
(43, Leslie Arliss);
The Lamp Still Burns
(43, Maurice Elvey);
Fanny by Gaslight
(44, Anthony Asquith);
Waterloo Road
(44, Sidney Gilliat);
Love Story
(44, Arliss);
Madonna of the Seven Moons
(44, Arthur Crabtree); as Apollodorus in
Caesar and Cleopatra
(45, Gabriel Pascal);
Caravan
(46, Crabtree);
Captain Boycott
(47, Frank Launder);
Blanche Fury
(47, Marc Allégret);
Saraband for Dead Lovers
(48, Basil Dearden and Michael Relph);
Woman Hater
(48, Terence Young); and
Adam and Evelyne
(49, Harold French).

This last film was made with his second wife, Jean Simmons, and in 1950 they both went to Hollywood. But Granger’s career hardly altered. Without ever becoming a big star he continued to be enjoyable in costume and adventure movies, initially at MGM: as Allan Quatermain in
King Solomon’s Mines
(50, Compton Bennett and Andrew Marton);
Soldiers Three
(51, Tay Garnett);
The Light Touch
(51, Richard Brooks); at his best in
Scaramouche
(52, George Sidney); Rassendyll in
The Prisoner of Zenda
(52, Richard Thorpe);
Young Bess
(53, Sidney);
Salome
(53, William Dieterle);
All the Brothers Were Valiant
(53, Thorpe); as
Beau Brummel
(54, Curtis Bernhardt);
Green Fire
(55, Marton);
Footsteps in the Fog
(55, Arthur Lubin);
Moonfleet
(55, Fritz Lang);
Bhowani Junction
(56, George Cukor);
The Last Hunt
(56, Brooks);
Gun Glory
(57, Roy Rowland); beginning to age in
Harry Black
(58, Hugo Fregonese); and
North to Alaska
(60, Henry Hathaway).

His hair turned white but he had not lost his stone-cracking grin. Only
Sodom and Gomorrah
(62, Robert Aldrich),
The Secret Invasion
(64, Roger Corman), and
The Last Safari
(67, Hathaway) have been worth noting amid several European Westerns and an unhappy spell in
The Virginian
on TV.

But more than a decade later he played Prince Philip in
The Royal Romance of Charles and Diana
(82, Peter Levin); in
A Hazard of Hearts
(87, John Hough); and
Fine Gold
(88, Anthony J. Loma).

Cary Grant
(Archibald Alexander Leach) (1904–86), b. Bristol, England
There is a major but very difficult realization that needs to be reached about Grant—difficult, that is, for many people who like to think they take the art of film seriously. As well as being a leading boxoffice draw for some thirty years, the epitome of the man-about-town, as well as being the ex-husband of Virginia Cherrell, Barbara Hutton, Betsy Drake, and Dyan Cannon, as well as being the retired actor, still handsome executive of a perfume company—as well as all these things, he was the best and most important actor in the history of the cinema.

The essence of his quality can be put quite simply: he can be attractive and unattractive simultaneously; there is a light and dark side to him but, whichever is dominant, the other creeps into view. It may be that this is Grant (or Archie Leach) himself transmitted by camera and screen thanks to a rare willingness to commit himself to the camera without fraud, disguise, or exaggeration, to take part in a fantasy without being deceived by it. But the effect he achieves is one of art; it shows malice, misogyny, selfishness, and solitariness beneath good manners and gaiety; and it reveals a sense of grace-in-humor buoying up a near-sadistic playing upon lesser people’s nerves and good nature. For instance, consider the hint of a real madman beneath the playfulness in
Suspicion
(41, Alfred Hitchcock); the masterly portrait of moral fecklessness stopped in its tracks in
North by Northwest
(59, Hitchcock); hurt pride turning into a cold, calculating manipulation of Ingrid Bergman in
Notorious
(46, Hitchcock), only to relent finally. Consider again the masculine chauvinism that shows through the sombrero-wearing flyer in
Only Angels Have Wings
(39, Howard Hawks); the merciless delight in teasing in
His Girl Friday
(40, Hawks); the bringing to life of a sheltered, nearsighted bone specialist in
Bringing Up Baby
(38, Hawks); the demented sexual frustration in
I Was a Male War Bride
(49, Hawks); and the hilarious mixture of adult and schoolboy in
Monkey Business
(52, Hawks). If this list is confined to Hitchcock and Hawks, that only underlines how no one else has or could have done so well for two directors as radically opposed in attitude. The same disturbing and living ambiguity can be seen in many other films, along with an unrivaled sense of timing, encouragement of fellow actors, and the ability to cram words or expressions in gaps so small that most other actors would rest. Grant could not be the demanding portrait of man that he is but for a technical command that is so complete it is barely noticeable. It is a conclusive failing of the Oscar system that Grant won nothing for a specific performance. Thus, in shame and confusion, in 1969 the Academy gave him a general award “with the respect and affection of his colleagues.”

His mother had a mental breakdown when he was twelve, and young Archie found his education at the Bristol Hippodrome with a troupe of acrobats. He went to America as a tumbler in 1920 (his physical aplomb owes much to this training), but returned to the English theatre and only went back to the United States in a musical,
Golden Dawn
. By 1932, he had earned a small contract with Paramount and made his debut in
This Is the Night
(32, Frank Tuttle). After a few more supporting parts, he played opposite Dietrich in
Blonde Venus
(32, Josef von Sternberg) and Sylvia Sidney in
Madame Butterfly
(33, Marion Gering). But it was Mae West who knew him for what he was, choosing Grant to swop taunts with her in
She Done Him Wrong
(33, Lowell Sherman) and
I’m No Angel
(33, Wesley Ruggles).

In the second half of the decade, he emerged from support to a fully fledged comedian. He was opposite Loretta Young in
Born to Be Bad
(34, Lowell Sherman). RKO borrowed him to play with Katharine Hepburn in
Sylvia Scarlett
(35, George Cukor), and next year he signed contracts with Columbia and RKO. On this basis, the films flowed:
The Awful Truth
(37, Leo McCarey) with Irene Dunne;
Topper
(37, Norman Z. McLeod) with Constance Bennett;
Bringing Up Baby
, with Hepburn, in a love story as poignant as it is crazy—in this writer’s opinion, Grant got better things out of Hepburn than Tracy ever managed; with Hepburn again in
Holiday
(38, Cukor); as a Cockney soldier in
Gunga Din
(39, George Stevens);
Only Angels Have Wings
, making Jean Arthur yelp with anger; with Carole Lombard in
In Name Only
(39, John Cromwell);
My Favorite Wife
(40, Garson Kanin) with Irene Dunne;
His Girl Friday
, goading Rosalind Russell into being bearable;
The Philadelphia Story
(40, Cukor), with Hepburn and James Stewart (the wrong man got the Oscar);
Penny Serenade
(41, Stevens), with Dunne again;
Suspicion
, preying on Joan Fontaine;
The Talk of the Town
(42, Stevens), with Jean Arthur and Ronald Colman;
Once Upon a Honeymoon
(42, McCarey) with Ginger Rogers.