Farley Granger

Farley Granger

Farley Earle Granger (July 1, 1925 – March 27, 2011) was an American actor, best known for his two collaborations with Alfred Hitchcock, Rope in 1948 and Strangers on a Train in 1951.

Granger was first noticed in a small stage production in Hollywood by a Goldwyn casting director, and given a significant role in The North Star, a controversial film praising the Soviet Union at the height of the war, but later condemned for its political bias. Another war-film The Purple Heart followed, before Granger's naval service in Honolulu, in a unit that arranged troop entertainment in the Pacific. Here he made useful contacts including Bob Hope, Betty Grable and Rita Hayworth. It was also where he discovered his bisexuality, which he said he never felt any need to conceal.

In 1948, Hitchcock cast him in Rope, a fictionalized account of the Leopold and Loeb murder case, which earned mixed reviews but much critical praise for Granger himself. Hitchcock then cast him again in Strangers on a Train as a tennis-star drawn into a double murder plot by a scheming psychopath played by Robert Walker. Granger described this as his happiest film-making experience, though he was deeply affected by his friend Walker's accidental drug-death soon afterwards.

Both these two Hitchcock films carried a sub-theme of homosexuality, expressed with extreme delicacy in view of possible reactions by audiences and censors alike.

Granger continued to appear on stage, film and TV well into his seventies, his work ranging from classical drama on Broadway to several Italian-language films and major documentaries about Hollywood. But he tended to find fault with his directors and scriptwriters and he remains defined by the two Hitchcock classics.