Farley Granger, Hitchcock Star, Broadway Veteran and TV Fixture
Actor Farley Granger, who garnered recognition for his work in a pair of thrillers directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and went on to work extensively in theater and television, died March 27, 2011, in his New York City home. He was 85.
According to news reports, Granger died of natural causes.
Although Granger’s career spanned several decades, his defining roles came in a pair of Hitchcock classics, Rope, in 1948, and Strangers on a Train, in 1951.
In Rope, which starred James Stewart, Granger played a young pianist who commits murder with a friend. The story was loosely inspired by the real-life Leopold and Loeb case. Three years later he appeared in Strangers on a Train as a tennis player who wants a divorce from his unfaithful wife so he can marry the woman he loves, but is suspected of murder due to the intrusion of a man he meets during a train journey, played by Robert Walker.
Born July 1, 1925, in San Jose, California, Granger began his Hollywood career at age 17, when iconic producer Samuel Goldwyn spotted him in a Hollywood play and committed the young man to a seven-year pact beginning at $100 a week.
He made his first film, The North Star, in 1943, after which he enlisted in the navy during World War II. After the war he returned to acting, and was cast in Rope.
After several films in the 1950s, Granger bought out his Goldwyn contract, traveled to Europe, then returned to appear in more Hollywood productions.
In the late 1950s he turned his attention to Broadway, making his debut in 1959 with First Impressions, a musical version of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.
He also worked extensively in television, including roles in such series as Schlitz Playhouse, The Ford Television Theatre, Robert Montgomery Presents, Playhouse 90, Wagon Train, Kraft Theatre, Run for Your Life, Ironside, Get Smart, The Name of the Game, Hawaii Five-O, The Six Million Dollar Man, The Love Boat, Murder, She Wrote and many others. In 1986, he appered in several episodes of the daytime drama As the World Turns.
Granger garnered attention for his 2007 memoir, Include Me Out: My Life from Goldwyn to Broadway, which was loaded with anecdotes from his years on the screen and stage. He also discussed various romantic relationships and flings with both men and women, including Ava Gardner, Shelley Winters, Leonard Bernstein and Rope screenwriter Arthur Laurents, with whom Granger had a one-year romance and a friendship that lasted decades.
Since the 1960s, he lived with his longtime partner Robert Calhoun, a soap opera producer, who died in 2008. Calhoun collaborated on the memoir.