Background
Massey, Raymond was born on August 30, 1896 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Son of Chester D. and Anna (Vincent) Massey.
Massey, Raymond was born on August 30, 1896 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Son of Chester D. and Anna (Vincent) Massey.
He attended secondary school at Upper Canada College, before transferring to Appleby Collegein Oakville, Ontario, and taking several courses at University of Toronto. He graduated from Balliol College, Oxford.
Originally on the English stage, Massey’s film debut wars as Sherlock Holmes in The Speckled Band (31, Jack Raymond). Although he made efforts to remain a theatre actor, his sinister leanness, staring eyes, and creaking voice made him a natural for films. His career was very varied: as well as such staple heroes as Abe Lincoln in Illinois (39, John Cromwell) and Dr. Gillespie to Richard Chamberlain’s Kildare on TV7 in the early 1960s, he was a notable villain. But he was best as an ambiguous figure, a smiling threat or a calm tyrant: The Woman in the Window (44, Fritz Lang); The Fountainhead (49. King Y7idor); East of Eden (55, Elia Kazan); and The Naked and the Dead (58, Raoul Walsh).
Those may be his most striking performances, but there is a long list of good supporting work, with the occasional lead: The Face at the Window (32, Leslie Hiscott); The Old Dark House (32, James Whale); Chauvelin in The Scarlet Pimpernel (34, Harold Young); Things to Come (36, William Cameron Menzies); Fire Over England (37. William K. Howard); as Michael in The Prisoner of Zenda (37, Cromwell); Dreaming Lips (37. Paul Czinner); Under the Red Robe (37, Victor Sjostrom); The Hurricane (37, John Ford); Black Limelight (38, Paul L. Stein); The Drum (38, Zoltán Korda); as John Brown in Santa Fe Trail (40, Michael Curtiz); 49th Parallel (41, Michael Powell); Dangerously They Live (41, Robert Florey); Desperate Journey (42, Raoul Walsh); Reap the Wild Wind (42. Cecil B. De Mille); Action in the North Atlantic (43, Lloyd Bacon); Arsenic and Old Lace (44, Frank Capra); God Is My Co-Pilot (45, Florey); Hotel Berlin (45, Peter Godfrey); A Matter of Life and Death (46, Powell); Possessed (47, Curtis Bernhardt); Mourning Becomes Electro (47, Dudley Nichols); Roseanna McCoy (49, Irving Reis); Chain Lightning (50, Stuart Heisler); Dallas (50, Heisler); Come Fill the Cup (51, Gordon Douglas); Carson City (52, André de Toth); The Desert Song (52, Bruce Humberstone); Prince of Players (55, Philip Dunne); Battle Cry (55, Walsh); as John Brown again in Seven Angry Men (55, Charles Marquis Warren); Omar Khayyam (57, William Dieterle); The Great Imposter (60, Robert Mulligan); The Queen’s Guards (61, Powell); The Fiercest Heari (61, George Sherman); and MacKcnna’s Gold (69, J. Lee Thompson).
Served as Lieutenant Canadian Field Artillery, 1915-1919, in France (wounded). Served as Lieutenant Canadian Field Artillery, 1916, in France (wounded). Clubs: Garrick (London).
Married Margery Hilda Fremantle, 1921.; married Adrianne Allen, 1929.; married Dorothy Ludington, 1939.
1 child, Geoffrey.