FARLEY GRANGER

While still a teenager Farley Granger appeared in a Los Angeles little theater production, where he was spotted by a scout. Sam Goldwyn signed him to a film contract and he debuted onscreen as a Russian youth in The North Star (1943). Typecast as a troubled pretty boy or a vulnerable, sensitive, soulful young hero, Granger appeared in one more film and then served in World War II.

After the war, he returned to the screen as an intellectual thrill-killer in Alfred Hitchcock's Rope (1948) Early predictions that Granger would become a major star failed to come true, however; his career was mismanaged and he never lived up to his potential. After making a series of minor Hollywood films, he moved to Italy in the mid '50s and made one film there, then returned to Hollywood for two more movies before giving up his screen career in favor of work on stage and TV.

In the late '60s Granger began to appear onscreen again, mostly in little-known Italian productions. Later he played a psychiatrist and head of a family on the TV soap opera One Life to Live, while still acting occasionally in films and on the stage.

Trivia:

One of the last of the Goldwyn contract players. Scored in short-lived comeback on Broadway in Ira Levin's "Deathtrap" in 1980. His long-time partner since 1963 is Robert Calhoun, who collaborated with Farley on his 2007 memoir "Include Me Out: My Life from Goldwyn to Broadway". On the audio commentary for They Live by Night (1948), he says that Alfred Hitchcock and Nicholas Ray were the best directors he ever worked with. In addition, his two favorite films of his own are Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train (1951) and Ray's They Live by Night (1948).
 

Where Are They Now:

(April 2007) Accompanied by his longtime partner (43 years) and collaborator, Robert Calhoun held a sold out "Evening with Farley Granger" at the Film Forum Theater to promote his autobiography "Include Me Out".