American actor Farley Granger has died of natural causes on Sunday, March 27th, aged 85. Born in San Jose, California, Granger began his cinematic career as a contract player for producer Samuel Goldwyn, making his debut in the 1943 war film The North Star (dir. Lewis Milestone). He reunited with the director the following year for Darryl F. Zanuck’s The Purple Heart before enlisting for military service. Returning to civilian life, Granger next appeared in the film noir They Live By Night (1949, dir. Nicholas Ray) before embarking on the first of two collaborations with legendary director Alfred Hitchcock, taking one of the lead roles in Rope (1948) alongside John Dall.
Granger went on to appear in a number of further films for Goldwyn, taking leading roles in the likes of Edge of Doom (1950, dir. Mark Robson) and Our Very Own (1950, dir. David Miller), but after refusing to be loaned to Universal Pictures, Granger travelled Europe before reuniting with Hitchcock for the classic suspense film Strangers on a Train (1951), which would remain the highlight of his career.
The actor continued to make extensive feature film and TV appearances throughout the 1950s but struggled to recapture his earlier successes. By the 1960s Granger had opted to focus on theatre work and enjoyed a notable Broadway run before moving to Italy in the 1970s with his long-term partner Robert Calhoun, where he starred in a number of Italian films and television shows. In later years he appeared in a number of documentaries and earned his last screen credit in 2004 with the documentary feature Broadway: The Golden Age.
Originally published March 29, 2011. Updated April 10, 2018.
