Focus Features

Farley Granger grew up to play sensitive, sometimes nervous characters whose sense of uncertainty seemed to reflect the actor’s own ambivalence.  Granger was born into the American dream at a time of national prosperity: his father owned a successful car dealership in San Jose, and his mother was a doting homemaker. But at the age of four, after his parents lost everything after the stock market crash, Granger’s sense of security disappeared. His family moved into a fleabag LA hotel, and both parents sank into a mire of alcoholism. Hoping to catch a break through her handsome son, his mother enrolled him in tap dancing and acting classes. In 1943, at the age of 17, Granger did get that break when Samuel Goldwyn plucked him from a little theater production he was acting in to star in the Hollywood feature The North Star. But his real fame would come five years later when Hitchcock cast him to play John Dall’s partner in the Leopold-Loeb inspired drama Rope. The homoerotic elements of the script were echoed off-screen, as well, as Granger fell into a torturous relationship with the film’s writer Arthur Laurents.  In 1951, Hitchcock picked Granger to play against Robert Walker in Strangers on a Train, another erotically charged thriller about a murderous pact between two men. While many could see big things in Granger’s future, he grew tired of Hollywood. His tell-all memoir Include Me Out, for example, refers more to Granger’s having to buy out his contract from Goldwyn than his living his life as an out gay man––although he refused the label gay.

Farley Granger grew up to play sensitive, sometimes nervous characters whose sense of uncertainty seemed to reflect the actor’s own ambivalence.  Granger was born into the American dream at a time of national prosperity: his father owned a successful car dealership in San Jose, and his mother was a doting homemaker. But at the age of four, after his parents lost everything after the stock market crash, Granger’s sense of security disappeared. His family moved into a fleabag LA hotel, and both parents sank into a mire of alcoholism. Hoping to catch a break through her handsome son, his mother enrolled him in tap dancing and acting classes. In 1943, at the age of 17, Granger did get that break when Samuel Goldwyn plucked him from a little theater production he was acting in to star in the Hollywood feature The North Star. But his real fame would come five years later when Hitchcock cast him to play John Dall’s partner in the Leopold-Loeb inspired drama Rope. The homoerotic elements of the script were echoed off-screen, as well, as Granger fell into a torturous relationship with the film’s writer Arthur Laurents.  In 1951, Hitchcock picked Granger to play against Robert Walker in Strangers on a Train, another erotically charged thriller about a murderous pact between two men. While many could see big things in Granger’s future, he grew tired of Hollywood. His tell-all memoir Include Me Out, for example, refers more to Granger’s having to buy out his contract from Goldwyn than his living his life as an out gay man––although he refused the label gay.