John Craven will be remembered as the lad who dreamed of love and the
moon atop a stepladder in the Broadway version of "Our Town" for a
season and another on the road, while his father, Frank Craven, officiated
as the genial Stage Manager and commentator of that play. Originally
intending to be a surgeon, John was deflected by heredity to an
assistant stage managership in "Babes in Arms." He had a busy career on
Broadway and in film from the 1930s through the 1950s.
He slipped into movies quietly, with a minor role in ...und das Leben geht weiter (1943), but he
played an orphaned young soldier with fine simplicity. There was a
quality of entirely masculine sweetness in his face missing from the
screen since Richard Barthelmess starred in the silents. Actually, John was hardly
an unknown: Hollywood was strangely late in discovering him, as he
played leads in Broadway plays for four years. The handicap of a famous
father may have slowed his start, due to such comments as, "Oh yes -
Frank Craven's' boy". His father, the veteran character actor, was
responsible for John's first chance on the stage - and almost for the
loss of that chance. Frank had just been given the lead in the play
"Our Town". John stopped at the producer's office one day, looking for
his father, and was offered the juvenile lead. Frank, who didn't want
the totally inexperienced youngster to begin with such a tough job,
almost caused John to lose the job, but young Craven overruled him and
came through like a veteran. Frank Craven was selected for the lead in
the film version of Unsere kleine Stadt (1940), but John was not. The role went to a young
William Holden instead, and the rest is Hollywood history. John was a fine
actor who deserved more acclaim, and who warrants a closer look by film
historians.
