Farley Granger

Farley Granger — Biography

Farley Granger was born on 1 July 1925 in San Jose, California; his family lost everything after the 1929 stock market crash and moved to Hollywood, where his father found clerical work at an unemployment office. At 17 he was spotted by a Goldwyn casting director after impressing in a small local play, and won the role of a Russian teenager in The North Star (1943) after Montgomery Clift dropped out of contention; the studio urged him to change his name to avoid confusion with the British actor Stewart Granger, but he kept the name, which had belonged to his father and grandfather. He signed a seven-year contract with Goldwyn and also appeared in The Purple Heart (1944).

After naval service in the Pacific, he resumed acting and found lasting fame in Alfred Hitchcock's Rope (1948) and Strangers on a Train (1951), later calling the second his happiest experience on a film set. He starred opposite Alida Valli in Luchino Visconti's Senso (1954). He said he began exploring his bisexuality during his navy years and never felt the need to conceal it.

He continued working in Broadway drama, Italian cinema and American television well into his seventies, and received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his television work. Granger died in New York City on 27 March 2011.