Farley Granger - Later Career

Later Career

Despite his three unsuccessful Broadway experiences, Granger continued to focus on theater in the early 1960s. He accepted an invitation from Eva Le Gallienne to join her National Repertory Theatre. During their first season, while the company was in Philadelphia, John F. Kennedy was assassinated. The President had attended NRT's opening night and post-performance gala in the nation's capital, so the news hit everyone in the company especially hard. Granger had become close friends with production supervisor Robert Calhoun, and although both had felt a mutual attraction, they never had discussed it. That night they became lovers.

Granger finally achieved some success on Broadway in The Seagull, The Crucible, The Glass Menagerie, and Deathtrap. He starred opposite Barbara Cook in a revival of The King and I at the off-Broadway New York City Center, and in 1979 he was cast in the Roundabout Theatre Company production of A Month in the Country. In 1986 he won the Obie Award for his performance in the Lanford Wilson play Talley & Son.

In the early 1970s, Granger and Calhoun moved to Rome, where the actor made a series of Italian language films, most notably They Call Me Trinity. He also appeared on several soap operas, including One Life to Live, on which his portrayal of Will Vernon garnered him a nomination for the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series, The Edge of Night, and As the World Turns, produced by Calhoun. Granger acted alongside Mario Adorf in the Italian slasher film La Polizia chiede aiuto, which was directed by Massimo Dallamano.

Later he appeared in several documentaries discussing Hollywood in general and Alfred Hitchcock in particular. In 1995 he was interviewed on camera for The Celluloid Closet, discussing the depiction of homosexuality in film and the use of subtext in various films, including his own.

In 2003, Granger made his last film appearance in Broadway: The Golden Age, by the Legends Who Were There. In it, he tells the story of leaving Hollywood at the peak of his fame, buying out his contract from Samuel Goldwyn, and moving to Manhattan to work on the Broadway stage.

In 2007, Granger published the memoir Include Me Out, co-written with domestic partner Robert Calhoun. In the book, named after one of Goldwyn's famous malapropisms, he freely discusses his career and personal life. Calhoun died of lung cancer in New York, New York on May 24, 2008, at age 77.