Granger, Stewart

▪ 1994

      (JAMES LABLACHE STEWART), British-born motion-picture actor (b. May 6, 1913, London, England—d. Aug. 16, 1993, Santa Monica, Calif.), portrayed swashbuckling heroes, dashing adventurers, and debonair romantic leads with elegance and wit in a cinema career that spanned 35 years. Although he was at his peak in such 1950s Hollywood adventure classics as King Solomon's Mines, Scaramouche, The Prisoner of Zenda, Beau Brummel, and Bhowani Junction, Granger occasionally parodied his own screen image, as in the 1960 gold-rush comedy North to Alaska. He started as a bit player in British films, studied at the Webber-Douglas School of Dramatic Art, and performed in repertory theatre. He got his film break in the 1943 costume melodrama The Man in Grey. Tall, dark, handsome, and oozing with on-screen arrogant charm, he soon became one of Britain's biggest box-office draws. In 1950 he moved with his second wife, actress Jean Simmons, to Hollywood, where he gained equal stardom with King Solomon's Mines. Granger was often forced into mediocre films by his long-term contracts, and in later years he resisted the switch to unromantic character roles. After a 10-year absence from the movies, he played a suave villain in the 1978 adventure The Wild Geese. In the 1980s he worked in the theatre and television. Granger's autobiography, Sparks Fly Upward, was published in 1981.

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