Stewart Granger

Stewart Granger, born James Lablache Stewart on 6 May 1913 in Old Brompton Road, Kensington, London, was a British film actor and stage performer whose career spanned decades of work in theatre and cinema. He died on 16 August 1993. When he entered the acting profession, he adopted the surname Granger — his Scottish grandmother's maiden name — to avoid confusion with American film star James Stewart. Friends and colleagues continued to call him Jimmy throughout his life. He was the only son of Major James Stewart, OBE, and his wife Frederica Eliza, née Lablache, and had one elder sister, Iris Elizabeth Lablache Stewart. Through his mother's family, Granger was the great-great-grandson of the Italian-French-Irish opera singer Luigi Lablache and the grandson of the actor of the same name. He was educated at Epsom College and the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art in South Kensington.

Granger began his professional career in theatre, working initially at Hull Repertory Theatre before moving to Birmingham Repertory Theatre following a pay dispute. At Birmingham he appeared in productions including The Courageous Sex and Victoria, Queen and Empress, and it was there that he met actress Elspeth March, who became his first wife. He also performed at the Malvern Festival in The Millionairess and The Apple Cart. His London stage work in the late 1930s included The Sun Never Sets at the Drury Lane Theatre in 1938, Serena Blandish opposite Vivien Leigh, and Autumn with Flora Robson. At the Buxton Festival he played Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet opposite Robert Donat and Constance Cummings, and also appeared with them in The Good Natured Man. He made his film debut as an extra in The Song You Gave Me in 1933, with small appearances in several other films through the mid-1930s, and continued to take minor film roles through 1940.

At the outbreak of the Second World War, Granger enlisted in the Gordon Highlanders and subsequently transferred to the Black Watch with the rank of second lieutenant. Stomach ulcers led to his being invalided out of the army in 1942. He returned to film work with a small role in Secret Mission in 1942 and a larger part in Thursday's Child in 1943. While appearing in a stage production of Rebecca, he was recommended by Robert Donat — with whom he had most recently worked on To Dream Again — for an audition that led to his first starring film role.

That role, as the acid-tongued Rokeby in the Gainsborough Pictures melodrama The Man in Grey in 1943, established Granger as a box-office name in Britain alongside co-stars James Mason, Phyllis Calvert, and Margaret Lockwood. A succession of popular Gainsborough films followed, including Fanny by Gaslight in 1944, which reunited him with Calvert and Mason and added Jean Kent to the cast, and Love Story in 1944, in which he played a blind pilot opposite Margaret Lockwood. Waterloo Road in 1945 gave him his first villainous role. Madonna of the Seven Moons in 1945 continued his run of Gainsborough hits, and Caesar and Cleopatra, supporting Claude Rains and Vivien Leigh, became the first of his films to find success in the United States. By the end of 1945, British exhibitors had voted him the second most popular British film star. In 1946 he starred in Caravan with Jean Kent and played Niccolò Paganini in The Magic Bow alongside Calvert and Kent. That year he was voted the third most popular British star overall.

Granger subsequently moved to the Rank Organisation, where he made a series of historical dramas: Captain Boycott in 1947, directed by Frank Launder; Blanche Fury in 1948 with Valerie Hobson; and Saraband for Dead Lovers in 1948, an Ealing Studios production in which he played the gambler Philip Christoph von Königsmarck. He later cited Saraband for Dead Lovers as one of the few films of which he was genuinely proud, though it underperformed at the box office. He also appeared in the comedy Woman Hater in 1948 with Edwige Feuillère. In 1949 he was reported to be earning approximately £30,000 a year. That same year he starred opposite Jean Simmons in Adam and Evelyne; the two had first met on the set of Caesar and Cleopatra in 1945 and subsequently married in a ceremony in Tucson, Arizona, organized by Howard Hughes, with Michael Wilding serving as best man. Also in 1949, Granger produced and appeared in a London stage production of Leo Tolstoy's The Power of Darkness at the Lyric Theatre, which opened on 25 April of that year to poor reception.

Late in his career, Granger brought his work to Broadway, appearing in The Circle in 1989. He received a Theatre World Special Award in 1990 in recognition of that appearance. Originally from London, England, Granger remained primarily associated throughout his career with heroic and romantic leading roles, and was a dominant presence in British cinema from the 1940s through the early 1960s.