Farley Granger(1925-2011)

Farley Earle Granger was born in 1925 in San Jose, California, to Eva (Hopkins) and Farley Earle Granger, who owned an automobile dealership. Right out of high school, he was brought to the attention of movie producer Samuel Goldwyn, who cast him in a small role in L'étoile du Nord (1943). He followed it up with a much bigger part in Prisonniers de Satan (1944) and then joined the army. After his release he had to wait until Nicholas Ray cast him in the low-budget RKO classic Les Amants de la nuit (1948) with Cathy O'Donnell, and then he was recalled by Goldwyn, who signed him to a five-year contract. He then made La corde (1948) for Alfred Hitchcock and followed up for Goldwyn with Vous qui avez vingt ans (1948) with David Niven, Evelyn Keyes and Teresa Wright. Other roles followed, including Roseanna McCoy (1949) with Joan Evans, Celle de nulle part (1950) with Ann Blyth and La Rue de la mort (1949), again with Cathy O'Donnell. He returned to Hitchcock for the best role of his career, as the socialite tennis champ embroiled in a murder plot by psychotic Robert Walker in L'inconnu du Nord-Express (1951). He then appeared in La sarabande des pantins (1952) with Jeanne Crain, Hans Christian Andersen et la danseuse (1952) with Danny Kaye, Histoire de trois amours (1953) with Leslie Caron and Le joyeux prisonnier (1953) with Jane Powell. He went to Italy to make Senso (1954) for Luchino Visconti with Alida Valli, one of his best films. He did a Broadway play in 1955, "The Carefree Tree", and then returned to films in Le roi du racket (1955) with Anthony Quinn and Anne Bancroft and La fille sur la balançoire (1955) with Joan Collins and Ray Milland. Over the next ten years Granger worked extensively on television and the stage, mainly in stock, and returned to films in Rogue's Gallery (1968) with Dennis Morgan. He then returned to Italy, where he made a series of films, including The Challengers (1970) with 'Anne Baxter (I)', Les colts au soleil (1973) with Richard Crenna and Arnold (1973) with Stella Stevens. More recent films include Rosemary's Killer (1981), Masque de mort (1984), The Imagemaker (1986) and The Next Big Thing (2001). Since the 1950s he has continued to work frequently on American television and, in 1980, returned to Broadway and appeared in Ira Levin's successful play "Deathtrap". In 2007 he published his autobiography, "Include Me Out: My Life from Goldwyn to Broadway" with Robert Calhoun. A longtime resident of New York, Granger has recently appeared in several documentaries discussing Hollywood and, often, specifically Alfred Hitchcock.