While still a teenager Farley Granger appeared in a Los Angeles little theater production, where he was spotted by a scout. Sam Goldwyn signed him to a film contract and he debuted onscreen as a Russian youth in The North Star (1943). Typecast as a troubled pretty boy or a vulnerable, sensitive, soulful young hero, Granger appeared in one more film and then served in World War II. After the war, he returned to the screen as an intellectual thrill-killer in Alfred Hitchcock's Rope (1948) Early predictions that Granger would become a major star failed to come true, however; his career was mismanaged and he never lived up to his potential. After making a series of minor Hollywood films, he moved to Italy in the mid '50s and made one film there, then returned to Hollywood for two more movies before giving up his screen career in favor of work on stage, doing repertory theatre and Broadway productions like The Seagull and The Glass Menagerie. In the late '60s Granger returned to Italy and began living there for much of the year, appearing onscreen in little-known Italian productions, and returning to America less frequently to participate in American projects. He eventually played a psychiatrist and head of a family on the TV soap opera One Life to Live, but mainly specialize in horror films and thrillers as the following decades unfolded, appearing in movies like 1974's Death Will Have Your Eyes and 1985's Deathmask. The actor enjoyed a state of semi-retirement as the years went on, however, stepping in front of the camera in the '90s and 2000s mostly as a participant in documentaries about Hollywood and Alfred Hitchcock, like 1995's The Celluloid Closet and 2001's Goldwyn: The Man and His Movies. Granger passed away in March of 2011 at the age of 85.
by Rovi
biography
