Background
GRANGER, Stewart was born on May 6, 1913 in London. Son of late Major James Stewart and Frederica Lablache.
GRANGER, Stewart was born on May 6, 1913 in London. Son of late Major James Stewart and Frederica Lablache.
Educated at Epsom College, Webber-Douglas School of Dramatic Art.
After a few years in repertory theatre and some walk-on film work, he made his real debut in So This Is London (38, Thornton Freeland). During the war years he became a romantic star of the British cinema: Secret Mission (42, Harold French); The Man in Grey (43, Leslie Arliss); The Lamp Still Burns (43, Maurice Elvey); Fanny by Gaslight (44, Anthony Asquith); Waterloo Road (44, Sidney Gilliat); Love Story (44, Arliss); Madonna of the Seven Moons (44, Arthur Crab¬tree); as Apollodorus in Caesar and Cleopatra (45, Gabriel Pascal); Caravan (46, Crabtree); Captain Boycott (47, Frank Launder); Blanche Fury (47, Marc Allegret); Saraband for Dead Lovers (48, Basil Dearden and Michael Relph); Woman Hater (48, Terence Young); and Adam and Evelyne (49, Harold French).
This last film was made with his second wife, Jean Simmons, and in 1950 they both went to Hollywood. But Granger’s career hardly altered.
Without ever becoming a big star he continued to be enjoyable in costume and adventure movies, initially at MGM: as Allan Quatermain in King Solomon’s Mines (50, Compton Bennett and Andrew Marton); Soldiers Three (51, Tay Garnett); The Light Touch (51, Richard Brooks); at his best in Scaramouche (52, George Sidney); Rassendyll in The Prisoner of Zenda (52, Richard Thorpe); Young Bess (53, Sidney); Salome (53, William Dieterle); All the Brothers Were Valiant (53, Thorpe); as Beau Brummel (54, Curtis Bernhardt); Green Fire (55, Marton); Footsteps in the Fog (55, Arthur Lubin); Moonfleet (55, Fritz Lang); Bhowani Junction (56, George Cukor); The Last Hunt (56, Brooks); Gun Glory (57, Roy Rowland); beginning to age in Harry Black (58, Hugo Fregonese); and North to Alaska (60, Henry Hathaway).
His hair turned white but he had not lost his stone-cracking grin. Only Sodom and Gomorrah (62, Robert Aldrich), The Secret Invasion (64, Roger Corman), and The Last Safari (67, Hathaway) have been worth noting amid several European Westerns and an unhappy spell in The Virginian on TV.
But more than a decade later he played Prince Philip in The Royal Romance of Charles and Diana (82, Peter Levin); in A Hazard of Hearts (87, |ohn Hough); and Fine Gold (88, Anthony J. Loin a).
Granger always had a swashbuckling flair that might have excelled in silent pictures or won him a more permanent reputation in the hands of Michael Curtiz. He might have been a real star if not for Errol Flynn.
Married 1st Elspeth March (divorced in 1948), two c. Married 2nd Jean Simmons in 1950 (divorced in 1960), one c. Married 3rd Viviane Lecerf in 1964 (divorced in 1969).