He was one of the most handsome leading men to grace the screen. Another Tyrone Power. And he made a few damn good movies.
Although we remember him mostly for his two Alfred Hitchcock movies, Farley Earl Granger II is perhaps best recalled by a younger generation for his multiple TV appearances.
A California native, he made some 20 feature movies before switching to TV and the stage — his first love. He grew up in the old studio system but broke free of it at considerable cost. He was ambidextrous in his private life, squiring several classic movie femmes and, later in life, coming out as gay. His private associations were strictly his business, he insisted.
We are inspired today by his autobiography, Include Me Out, written with Robert Calhoun, his longtime companion, in 2007 — four years before his death at age 85.
How much do you know about Granger? Take our test and see. Questions today and answers tomorrow.
1) Question: Granger began his movie career right after high school by signing an exclusive contract with which one of these producers? a) Dore Schary; b) David O. Selznick; c) Walter Wanger; or d) Samuel Goldwyn.
2) Question: Which of these Alfred Hitchcock films costarred Granger? a) Rope; b) The Paradine Case; c) Strangers on a Train; or d) Spellbound.
3) Question: Granger got to manhandle actress Alida Valli in Senso, an Italian-made costume drama shot in 1954. Which one of these famous Italian directors made the movie? a) Federico Fellini; b) Luchino Visconti; c) Roberto Rossellini; or d) Vittorio De Sica.
4) Question: One of Granger’s favorite movies in which he appeared was director Nicholas Ray’s 1948 melodrama, They Live By Night. What was the movie’s original title? a) Thieves Like Us; b) The Young and the Doomed; c) The Twisted Road; or d) Your Red Wagon.
5) Question: Which one of the following actresses did Granger NOT romance? a) Shelley Winters; b) Doris Day; c) Ava Gardner or d) Patricia Neal.
6) Question: Which one of the actresses mentioned above did Granger very publicly become engaged to?
7) Question: Granger had an opinion about why Bette Grable smiled so much in her 20th Century Fox musicals. What was it? a) She was paid extra for appearing in musicals; b) Grable fell in love with Granger; c) She wore feathers or sequins, which she enjoyed; or d) She arranged to have a veteran chorus boy situated behind her to whisper dirty jokes in her ear.
8) Question: Granger never won an Academy Award but he did win an Emmy. What was it for?
9) Question: Like quite a few in Hollywood at the time, Granger had serious personal reservations about Danny Kaye, his costar in 1952’s Hans Christian Andersen. What was the problem? a) Kaye was generally catty and sarcastic; b) Kay would criticize the English spoken by French costar Zizi Jeanmaire; c) He stole a singing part from Granger; or d) Made a nasty crack about Granger’s costume.
10) Question: Granger once made a spaghetti western in Italy. a) True; or b) False?
Yes devoted fans, this looks very familiar… December 1st, 2014…
And so, as to spare you from having to take the quiz, I’ll leave it to Joe & Frank to give you the answers…
1) Answer: d) Samuel Goldwyn, who signed up Granger when he was still a teenager. It was the producer’s famous malapropism that served as the title of the actor’s book mentioned above.
2) Answer: a) Rope and c) Strangers on a Train. While the former is stagey, far from Alfred Hitchcock‘s best, the latter is a classic and should be seen again and again. The movie also propelled Granger into the ranks of A-list Hollywood actors.
3) Answer: b) Luchino Visconti, probably best known as the director of the elegant 1963 costume epic The Leopard starring Burt Lancaster .
4) Answer: a) Thieves Like Us. RKO’s studio boss at the time, Howard Hughes, changed the original title because he thought audiences would think it meant ‘Thieves Like Us,’ wrote Granger.
5) Answer: b) Doris Day.
6) Answer: Shelley Winters.
7) Answer: d) Granger wrote that Betty Grable may have been (20th Century Fox’s) biggest star, but she came equipped with the soul of a chorus girl who relished a good dirty joke. Thus she demanded that Freddy Ney, an outrageously funny chorus boy from New York, was always directly behind her in big musical numbers. His filthy, stage-whispered running commentary kept a big smile on her face at all times.
8) Answer: In 1977, Granger won an Emmy as outstanding actor in a daytime tv series, One Life To Live.
9) Answer: Actually all four choices are correct. Danny Kay infuriated Granger on all counts, particularly his criticism of costar Zizi Jeanmaire. Let’s put it this way: Kaye was not beloved on a personal level by many of his Hollywood contemporaries.
10) Answer: a) True. The picture was 1970’s They Call Me Trinity, part of the Terence Hill-Bud Spencer ‘Trinity” comedy western series. Granger described it as a comic book of a movie, one of the highest grossing films ever made in Italy. He loved Italy and often found excuses to work there.
Again with the lack of interest, you can’t blame the ‘guys’ for repeating themselves, but I wish they would take advantage of all the movie topics they ignore that are just as worthy of being thought of as Classic HOLLYWOOD!