Farley Granger

Farley Earle Granger was born in 1925 in San Jose, California, to Eva (Hopkins) and Farley Earle Granger, who owned an automobile dealership. Shortly after graduating from high school, he was noticed by movie producer Samuel Goldwyn, who cast him in a small role in *The North Star* (1943). He followed this with a more significant part in *The Purple Heart* (1944) before enlisting in the army. After his discharge, he waited until Nicholas Ray cast him in the low-budget RKO film *They Live by Night* (1948) with Cathy O'Donnell. He was then recalled by Goldwyn, who signed him to a five-year contract. During this time, he appeared in *Rope* (1948) for Alfred Hitchcock and followed with *Enchantment* (1948) with David Niven, Evelyn Keyes, and Teresa Wright. Other roles included *Roseanna McCoy* (1949) with Joan Evans, *Our Very Own* (1950) with Ann Blyth, and *Side Street* (1949), again with Cathy O'Donnell. He returned to Hitchcock for what became his most notable role, playing a socialite tennis champion caught in a murder plot involving the psychotic Robert Walker in *Strangers on a Train* (1951). He then appeared in *O. Henry's Full House* (1952) with Jeanne Crain, *Hans Christian Andersen* (1952) with Danny Kaye, *The Story of Three Loves* (1953) with Leslie Caron, and *Small Town Girl* (1953) with Jane Powell. He traveled to Italy to make *Senso* (1954) for Luchino Visconti with Alida Valli, one of his best films. In 1955, he performed in the Broadway play *The Carefree Tree* and returned to film with *The Naked Street* (1955) with Anthony Quinn and Anne Bancroft and *The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing* (1955) with Joan Collins and Ray Milland. Over the next decade, Granger worked extensively on television and the stage, mainly in stock companies, and returned to film 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, *The Man Called Noon* (1973) with Richard Crenna, and *Arnold* (1973) with Stella Stevens. More recent films include *The Prowler* (1981), *Death Mask* (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 in Ira Levin's successful play *Deathtrap*. In 2007, he published his autobiography, *Include Me Out: My Life from Goldwyn to Broadway*, co-written with Robert Calhoun. A longtime resident of New York, Granger has appeared in several documentaries discussing Hollywood and, often, specifically Alfred Hitchcock.