Background
Farley Granger was born on 1 July 1925 in San Jose, California, United States.
Farley Granger was born on 1 July 1925 in San Jose, California, United States.
Curly-headed, fresh-faced softness stayed with Granger for a dozen years: for his debut as a young soldier in The North Star (43, Lewis Milestone) and The Puijde Heaii (44, Milestone); through notable war service; as the impulsive, doomed innocent in They Live By Night (48, Nicholas Ray); as the more highly strung of the two killers in Rope (48, Alfred Hitchcock); Enchantment (48, Irving Reis); Roseanna McCoy (49, Reis); Side Street (49, Anthony Mann); Our Very Ow n (50, David Miller); Edge of Doom (50, Mark Robson); I Want You (51, Robson); in "The Gift of the Magi' episode from O. Henry’s Full House (52, Henry King); Hans Christian Andersen (52, Charles Vidor); saying “Suckertash” to Ricky Nelsons “Suffering” in The Stonj of Three Loves (53, Vincente Minnelli); and Small Town Girl (53, Leslie Kardos).
He went to Italy to play the fainthearted, swindling lover of Alida Valli in Senso (54, Luchino Visconti). But after Naked Street (55, Maxwell Shane) and a spiteful Harry Thaw in The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing (55, Richard Fleischer), he went into TV. Since then, he has been seen in Rogue’s Gallery (67, Leonard Horn); The Challengers (68, Leslie II. Martinson); Qualcosa Stiiscia nel Buio (70, Mario Colucci); Lo Chiamarano Trinita (70, Enzo Barboni); The Man Called Noon (73, Peter Collinson); Le Serpent (73, Henri Vemeuil); Rivelazioni di un Maniaco Sessuale al Capo della Squadra Mobile (73, Roberto Montero); The Lives of Jenny Dolan (75, Jerry Jameson); Rosemary’s Killer (81, Joseph Zito); Deathmask (84, Richard Friedman); and The Imagemaker (86, Hal Weiner).
Granger was a pretty-boy hero, shifting sands to trap a woman’s hopes, and a mannequin athlete. Hitchcock remorselessly breaks down his tennis champion, Guy Barnes, in Strangers on a Train (51) to the well-dressed smoothie posing with rackets but not out of breath since he left dancing school; the stand-in for action shots is plainly unlike Granger; while those close-ups of Granger show him lashing at the fleeting ball. It is a matter of casting and assessment of actorly character that Granger so subtly suggests the culpable opting for the easy way out in Guy Barnes. Pretty but dull, innocent but fallible, wronged but petulant. Granger is the unappetizing hero to Robert Walkers absorbing villain. Granger was for years under contract to Goldwyn, but his brittleness was invariably discovered by others.