The star of Alfred Hitchcock’s classic thriller, Strangers on a Train, as well as dozens of other films, television shows and the theater, actor Farley Granger died Sunday, in New York, at age 85. The handsome actor also starred in another Hitchcock film, 1948’s Rope, a gay tinged murder mystery with James Stewart, as well as Luchino Visconti’s Senso and Nicholas Ray’s They Live by Night. But, Granger’s years as a film star were relatively brief, and by the mid 50’s the actor made most of his appearances on television and the stage.
But, Farley Granger made a few more headlines in 2007 with the publication of his autobiography, Include Me Out where he frankly discussed his life as a bisexual man and admitted to affairs with actresses Shelley Winters, Ava Gardner and Patricia Neal and a two night stand with composer Leonard Bernstein. But the actor’s longest relationships were with men; a multi-year relationship with playwright/screen writer Arthur Laurents and Mr. Grangers’s 30+ year relationship with soap opera producer Robert Calhoun which lasted until Mr. Calhoun’s death three years ago. But, Mr. Granger had been frank about his sexuality for many years, discussing it openly with reporters and writers and even on film in the 1995 documentary The Celluloid Closet, based on the groundbreaking book by Vito Russo.
Farley Granger was important part of pre-Stonewall gay cinema. Hitchcock, a connoisseur of the perverse and non-traditional sexualities, purposefully played up the homoerotic elements of both Strangers on a Train and Rope and cast Granger specifically for the roles he played based on the actor’s masculine but sensitive appearance and demeanor. (And gay director Luchino Visconti was never immune to casting “pretty” actors in his productions, though he claimed to have wanted Marlon Brando for the role Mr. Granger played in Senso.)
Farley Granger was a fine actor and the only Golden Age Hollywood star brave enough to willingly come out of the closet and be frank about his life as a bisexual man.
Actress Jane Powell seems to have figured out that Farley Granger only has eyes for young Roddy McDowall...
A toast to Farley Granger.
I remember seeing Visconti’s Senso in France when working there in the 1960s and seeing beautiful Farley Granger against a backdrop of a very grubby Venice, since then well cleaned up. As a young in the closet gay guy, who only came out in the 1970s I knew that Granger was gay inclined and regret he wasn’t in more big picture roles. He was certainly up to it.