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Biography: Raymond Massey

As one of several sons of the owner of Toronto's Massey/Harris Agricultural Implement Company, Raymond Massey was expected to distinguish himself in business or politics or both (indeed, one of Raymond's brothers, Vincent Massey, later became Governor General of Canada). But after graduating form Oxford University, Massey defied his family's wishes and became an actor. He made his first stage appearance in a British production of Eugene O'Neill's In the Zone in 1922. By 1930, Massey was firmly established as one of the finest classical actors on the British stage; that same year he came to Broadway to play the title role in Hamlet. In 1931, Massey starred in his first talking picture, The Speckled Band, portraying Sherlock Holmes. One year later, he was co-starred with Charles Laughton, Melvyn Douglas, Gloria Stuart and Ernst Thesiger in his first Hollywood film, the classic The Old Dark House (1932). Returning to England, Massey continued dividing his time between stage and screen, offering excellent performances in such major motion-picture efforts as The Scarlet Pimpernal (1935) and Things to Come (1936). In 1938, he was cast in his most famous role: Abraham Lincoln, in Robert E. Sherwood's Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway production Abe Lincoln in Illinois. Massey repeated his Lincoln characterization in the 1940 film version of the Sherwood play, and 22 years later played a cameo as Honest Abe in How the West Was Won (1962). Refusing to allow himself to be pigeonholed as Lincoln, Massey played the controversial abolitionist John Brown in both Santa Fe Trail (1940) and Seven Angry Men (1955), and gave an effectively straight-faced comic performance as mass murderer Jonathan Brewster (a role originally written for Boris Karloff) in Frank Capra's riotous 1941 filmization of Arsenic And Old Lace. Though he would portray a wisecracking AWOL Canadian soldier in 1941's 49th Parallel and a steely-eyed Nazi officer in 1943's Desperate Journey, Massey served valiantly in the Canadian Army in both World Wars. On television, Massey played "Anton the Spymaster", the host of the 1955 syndicated anthology I Spy; and, more memorably, portrayed Dr. Gillespie in the 1960s weekly Dr. Kildare. An inveterate raconteur, Massey wrote two witty autobiographies, When I Was Young and A Thousand Lives (neither of which hinted at his legendary on-set contentiousness). Married three times, Raymond Massey was the father of actors Daniel and Anne Massey. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide less

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The Fiercest Heart (1961)
Cast: Geraldine Fitzgerald
Tags: Drama Adventure Adventure Drama
Length: 91min
Something of a variant on the American western where colonialists face off with Native Americans, The Fiercest Heart by George Sherman is set in 1837 and focuses on a group of Boers (Dutch colonialists in South Africa) and their enemies, the Zulus....
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The Naked and the Dead (1958)
Cast: Cliff Robertson Raoul Walsh
Tags: War Drama War
Length: 131min
Despite an ad campaign wherein RKO Radio congratulated itself for its "guts", this long-delayed film version of Norman Mailer's bestselling WW2 novel The Naked and the Dead still had to pull most of its punches (especially when it came to four-letter...
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Uncle Tom's Cabin (1958)
Tags: Message Movie Historical Film
Length: 93min
The ever-mounting Civil Rights movement of 1958 prompted entrepreneurs Jules B. Weill and Carroll L. Puciato to reissue the 1926 screen version of Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. Narrated by Raymond Massey, who also appears in a newly...
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East of Eden (1955)
Cast: Elia Kazan James Dean Burl Ives
Tags: Americana Rural Drama Drama Family Drama
Length: 115min
This truncated screen version of John Steinbeck's best-seller was the first starring vehicle for explosive 1950s screen personality James Dean, who plays Cal Trask, the "bad" son of taciturn Salinas valley lettuce farmer Adam Trask (Raymond Massey)....
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Omar Khayyam (1957)
Cast: Cornel Wilde
Tags: Adventure Biopic Period Film
Length: 101min
Frank Freeman Jr., son of the longtime head of Paramount Pictures, made his debut as producer with the opulent but empty Omar Khayyam. Cornel Wilde stars as the legendary Persian poet, here depicted as not only a philosopher but a scientist,...
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Prince of Players (1955)
Cast: Bernard Herrmann Richard Burton
Tags: Biopic Drama
Length: 102min
Screenwriter Philip Dunne doubled as director on the elaborate filmed biography Prince of Players. Richard Burton stars as the eminent American tragedian Edwin Booth, whose life and career is thrown into turmoil after his younger brother John Wilkes...
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Seven Angry Men (1955)
Cast: Dennis Weaver
Tags: Historical Film Drama Biopic
Length: 90min
In Seven Angry Men, Raymond Massey stars as controversial 19th-century abolitionist John Brown, a role he'd previously essayed in 1940's Santa Fe Trail. Without glossing over Brown's murderous fanaticism and cold-bloodedness, the film manages to...
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The Naked Eye (1956)
Cast: Raymond Massey
Tags: Visual Arts Graphic & Applied Arts
Length: 71min
This 71-minute documentary is a celebration of photographers and photography. No mere dry treatise, the film endeavors to convey the fun and enjoyment of photography to the uninitiated. Filmmaker Clyde Stoumen achieves the near-impossible by bringing...
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The Desert Song (1953)
Tags: Operetta Drama Musical Romance
Length: 110min
The Desert Song is the third film version of the famous Sigmund Romberg/Oscar Hammerstein Jr. stage operetta. Gordon MacRae plays the wimpish American tutor of lovely Kathryn Grayson, the daughter of a military officer stationed in Arabia. Under cover...
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The Queen's Guards (1955)
Cast: Michael Powell
Tags: Drama
Length: 110min
Opening with elaborate preparations for the Queen of England's birthday, The Queen's Guards introduces the audience via voiceover to John Fellowes, a young captain overseeing the participation of the Grenadier Guards in the celebratory parade. A...
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