Farley Granger

Farley Earle Granger was reputed to be the most beautiful of the American actors. He acted during the 1940’s and is famous for his portrayal of the characters of Philip Morgan in 1948 hit film ‘Rope’ and the character of Guy Haines in Strangers On A Train in the year 1951. Both of these films were directed by Alfred Hitchcock and are now listed among the Hollywood’s classics.

He was born on 1 July 1925, in San Jose, in the state of California. His parents were Eva Granger and Farley Earle Granger. For the early part of his childhood, he lived at 1185 Hanchett Avenue in the neighborhood of the Hanchett Residence Park. But then, in 1929, his family was forced to sell their property and leave their luxurious lifestyle due to the crash of the Stock Market in 1929. They then settled in a small apartment in Hollywood and both his parents worked various jobs to survive.

Granger’s acting career began when he was noticed by two local talent scouts in a Los Angeles theater. He later auditioned for the producer Samuel Goldwyn Samuel Goldwyn or Samuel Goldfish or Mister Malapr >> Read More... and signed a contract for seven years. He was then cast for his first ever film in 1943. The film was called The North Star, and he played the role of a teenage Russian boy named Damien. The movie created a lot of controversies but was critically acclaimed and was also nominated in various categories for the Academy Awards.

After that, he starred in the 20th Century Fox production, The Purple Heart, where he played the supporting role of Sgt. Howard Clinton. It was well received but upon its completion, Granger enlisted himself in the United States Naval Force. He served in Honolulu for some time and during that time discovered that he was attracted to both women and men. It was during that period that he was cast by Nicholas Ray in Thieves Like Us which was later renamed as They Live By The Night The Night is a web series that was released in 202 >> Read More... . There was a story behind his casting as Bowie.

In his autobiography titled Include Me Out, he recounts that while at a house party at Saul and Ethel Chap-lin’s house, he met Nicholas Ray, who just sat there, drank and stared at Granger. Upon inquisition, he was told that Ray was in the middle of the process of casting for his new film and that he was a potential candidate. John Houseman then arranged for Granger’s screen test which went quite well. He was then cast in the movie opposite Cathy O’Donnell. They Live By The Night was one of the only three good movies in which Farley Granger played the leading role, and ironically was produced by someone other than Samuel Goldwyn. The other two were Rope and Strangers on a Train both directed by Alfred Hitchcock.

Incidentally, he was cast in Rope after Hitchcock saw his performance in They Live By The Night. Rope was only partially successful, and the director’s work was mostly credited for it rather than either the ac-tors’ acting or the plot line. Nevertheless, it was one of the most prized experiments of Hitch-cock’s and he was very attached to it, quite rightly so because the film has now become a classic among the modern audience. It was the claustrophobic story of two gay men, who murder friend to impress their mentor.

The psychological thriller, Strangers on a Train was the only great successful film in the late actor’s film records. In this film, he played the role of Guy Haines, an aspiring politician, and a tennis player. His performance was much appreciated, and the film was a great success. But after the spell of these three movies, his acting career again started to deteriorate. He did some unnoticed films such as Behave Yourself and Small Town Girl. After that, he was roped in by Luchino Visconti for the movie adaptation of ‘Senso’, an Italian novella by Camillo Boito. It fared exceptionally well, but the rest of his career after that was spent on television shows and in the theaters due to his falling out with Goldwyn.

Granger has always been honest about his personal relationships, and one can say that he was a ‘gay and proud of it’ kind of person. In his memoir, Include Me Out (2007), he called himself a bisexual and described the wild night where he lost his virginity first to a woman and then to a man in the same night. At the time where people were even less tolerant towards gay people, he openly flaunted his relationship with partner Arthur Laurents and later with Robert Calhoun. His relationships with women were also the tabloid buzz. He had dated Ava Gardner Ava Lavinia Gardner was an eminent American actres >> Read More... and Shelley Winters, and even got engaged to the latter. But he chose to spend a great part of his life, approx 45 years, with Robert Calhoun. Although the two never married, he said that he might have if they wanted it. He died on March 27, 2011, at the ripe old age 82.