Farley Earle Granger was born in 1925 in San Jose, California, to Eva
(Hopkins) and Farley Earle Granger, who owned an automobile dealership.
Right out of high school, he was brought to the attention of movie
producer Samuel Goldwyn, who cast him in
a small role in
The North Star (1943). He followed
it up with a much bigger part in
The Purple Heart (1944) and then
joined the army. After his release he had to wait until
Nicholas Ray cast him in the
low-budget RKO classic
Sie leben bei Nacht (1948) with
Cathy O'Donnell, and then he was
recalled by Goldwyn, who signed him to a five-year contract. He then
made Cocktail für eine Leiche (1948) for
Alfred Hitchcock and followed
up for Goldwyn with
Betrogene Jugend (1948) with
David Niven,
Evelyn Keyes and
Teresa Wright. Other roles
followed, including
Roseanna McCoy (1949) with
Joan Evans,
Unser eigenes Ich (1950) with
Ann Blyth and
Side Street (1949), again with Cathy
O'Donnell. He returned to Hitchcock for the best role of his career, as
the socialite tennis champ embroiled in a murder plot by psychotic
Robert Walker in
Der Fremde im Zug (1951).
He then appeared in Fünf Perlen (1952)
with Jeanne Crain,
Hans Christian Andersen und die Tänzerin (1952)
with Danny Kaye,
War es die große Liebe? (1953)
with Leslie Caron and
Small Town Girl (1953) with
Jane Powell. He went to Italy to
make Sehnsucht (1954) for
Luchino Visconti with
Alida Valli, one of his best films. He did a
Broadway play in 1955, "The Carefree Tree", and then returned to films
in Nackte Straßen (1955) with
Anthony Quinn and
Anne Bancroft and
Das Mädchen auf der Samtschaukel (1955)
with Joan Collins and
Ray Milland. Over the next ten years Granger
worked extensively on television and the stage, mainly in stock, and
returned to films in
Rogue's Gallery (1968) with
Dennis Morgan. He then returned to
Italy, where he made a series of films, including
Herausforderung zum Grand-Prix (1970)
with 'Anne Baxter (I)',
Der Mann aus El Paso (1973)
with Richard Crenna and
Arnold (1973) with
Stella Stevens. More recent films
include Die Forke Des Todes (1981),
Death Mask (1984),
The Image-Maker (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 and appeared in
Ira Levin's successful play "Deathtrap". In
2007 he published his autobiography, "Include Me Out: My Life from
Goldwyn to Broadway" with
Robert Calhoun. A longtime
resident of New York, Granger has recently appeared in several
documentaries discussing Hollywood and, often, specifically
Alfred Hitchcock.
