A fond farewell to the actor Farley Granger, who died this weekend at the age of 85 at his home in Manhattan. One of the last of the living Alfred Hitchcock leading men of the golden age, Granger always came across as the sensitive, quiet and vulnerable young man that he was, off-screen as well. Granger was one of the very few major stars who went to no great lengths to hide his homosexuality, and he starred in two Hitchock classics: 1951's Strangers on a Train and 1948's Rope, both films that had strong gay overtones (below, w/James Stewart, in Rope).
In recent years, he was very much on the theatrical and social scenes in New York, and by all accounts, he was a kind, funny and very nice gentleman, through and through.
He wrote his autobiography, Include Me Out: My Life from Goldwyn to Broadway just a few years ago, and it's a very candid, well-written and interestingly told life story that I recommend highly. It's available (link below) at Amazon, for less than $4.00 for a used hardcover (also available on Kindle):
(Below, two stills from They Live By Night, Nicholas Ray's noir classic, 1949, which many consider Granger's finest performance)
