| Raymond Massey | |
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 Raymond Massey photographed by Carl Van Vechten |
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| Birth name | Raymond Hart Massey |
| Born | August 30 1896 Toronto, Ontario, Canada   |
| Died | July 29 1983 (aged 86) (pneumonia) Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Occupation | Actor |
| Spouse(s) | Margery Fremantle (1921-1929) 1 Child Adrianne Allen (1929-1939) 2 Children Dorothy Whitney (1939-1983) (his death) |
Raymond Hart Massey (August 30 1896–July 29 1983) was a Canadian born American actor. Born in Toronto, Ontario, he was a son of Chester D. Massey, the wealthy owner of the Massey-Ferguson Tractor Company. He attended secondary school briefly at Upper Canada College, before transferring to Appleby College[1] in Oakville, Ontario, and graduated from university at University of Toronto where both he and his brother were active members in the Kappa Alpha Society, and Balliol College, Oxford. At the outbreak of World War I, he joined the Canadian Army, serving with the artillery on the Western Front. He returned to Canada suffering shell-shock and was engaged as an army instructor for American officers at Yale. In 1918, he was sent to serve at Siberia, where he made his first stage appearance, entertaining American troops on occupation duty. Severely wounded in action in France, he was sent home, where he eventually worked in the family business, selling farm implements.
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Acting career
Drawn to the theater, in 1922, he appeared on the London stage. His first movie role was High Treason in 1927. He played Sherlock Holmes in The Speckled Band in 1931. In 1936, he starred in H. G. Wells' Things to Come. Despite being Canadian, Massey became famous for his quintessential American roles such as abolitionist John Brown in 1940's Santa Fe Trail and again as John Brown in the 1955 low-budget film Seven Angry Men. Interestingly, his second portrayal of Brown was much more sympathetic, presenting him as a well-intentioned, but misguided figure, while in Santa Fe Trail he was presented as a wild-eyed lunatic. Although there was a great outcry when a Canadian was cast as an American president, he scored a great triumph on Broadway in Robert E. Sherwood's play Abe Lincoln in Illinois, and repeated his role in the 1940 film version (for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor). Early in Massey's career, Lincoln's son, Robert Todd Lincoln, heard him perform and was struck by the similarity between Massey's speaking voice and that of his father. Massey again portrayed Lincoln in the 1956 production of The Day Lincoln Was Shot on Ford Star Jubilee, and (a wordless appearance this time) in 1962's How the West Was Won. On stage in the 1953 dramatic reading of Stephen Vincent Benét's John Brown's Body, Massey, in addition to narrating along with Tyrone Power and Judith Anderson, took on both the roles of John Brown and Abe Lincoln in the same work. Massey portrayed the character of "Jonathan Brewster" in the film version of Arsenic and Old Lace. The character had originally been played by Boris Karloff for the stage version and the character was written to resemble Karloff (an ongoing joke in the play and film). Massey and Karloff had appeared together in the 1932 James Whale suspense film The Old Dark House. He rejoined the Canadian Army for World War II, though he would eventually be released from service and return to acting work. Following the war, he became an American citizen. Massey became well-known on television in the 1950s and 1960s, especially as Doctor Gillespie in the popular series Dr. Kildare. Massey played a Canadian on screen only once, in Forty-Ninth Parallel (1941). He became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1944. He also portrayed Sherlock Holmes in the 1931 film version of The Speckled Band, the first sound film version of the story.
Personal life
Massey was married three times.
- Margery Fremantle from 1921 to 1929 (divorce); they had one child, Geoffrey Massey.
- Adrianne Allen (February 7 1907-September 14, 1993), the noted London and Broadway stage actress, from 1929 to 1939 (divorce). They had two children who followed him into acting: Anna Massey CBE, and the late Daniel Massey.
- Dorothy Whitney from 1939 until his death.
His older brother was the late Vincent Massey, the first Canadian-born Governor General of Canada. He dabbled in politics, appearing in a 1964 television advertisement in support of conservative Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater. He died of pneumonia on July 29 1983 (the same day as his The Prisoner of Zenda and A Matter of Life and Death co-star David Niven) in Los Angeles, California, at the age of 86, and is buried in New Haven, Connecticut.
Honors
Massey has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, one for movies at 1719 Vine Street and one for television at 6708 Hollywood Blvd.
Selected filmography
- High Treason (1928)
- The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934)
- Things to Come (1936)
- The Prisoner of Zenda (1937)
- Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1940)
- Santa Fe Trail (1940)
- Forty-Ninth Parallel (1941)
- Reap the Wild Wind (1942)
- Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)
- The Woman in the Window (1944)
- A Matter of Life and Death (1946)
- The Fountainhead (1949)
- East of Eden (1955)
- The Naked and the Dead (1957)
