Stewart Granger (Actor)

Stewart Granger in Caesar and Cleopatra. (Photo: MGM)

Tall, strapping leading man who, after gaining stage experience, began a film career in the late 1930s. Granger and co-stars Margaret Lockwood, James Mason and Phyllis Calvert immediately became major stars with their appearances in the melodramatic period romp, "The Man in Grey" (1943), and for the rest of the decade Granger reigned as one of Britain's premiere leading men. With his strong profile, his deep, dulcet voice and a shock of wavy hair he typically appeared in historical romances and actioners for Gainsborough and Rank including "Fanny by Gaslight" (1943), "Madonna of the Seven Moons" (1944), "Caravan" (1946), "Blanche Fury" (1947) and "Saraband for Dead Lovers" (1948).

Signed by MGM in 1949, Granger spent most of the next seven years playing virile swashbucklers and great white hunters in stylish if sometimes derivative remakes of classic Hollywood adventures including "King Solomon's Mines" (1950), "The Prisoner of Zenda" (1952), "Scaramouche" (1952) and "Beau Brummell" (1954). His stardom slipped late in the decade and, after co-starring with John Wayne in the rowdy comedy-drama "North to Alaska" (1960), Granger ventured to Europe, where he continued playing leading roles in routine action films, among the more interesting of which was Robert Aldrich's dull but intermittently campy epic, "Sodom and Gomorrah" (1962).

TV beckoned Granger in the 1970s and 80s: he starred for a season in the gritty western series "The Men from Shiloh" (1970-71), played Sherlock Holmes in an enjoyable adaptation of "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (1972), and made a stalwart Prince Philip in "The Royal Romance of Charles and Diana" (1982). Granger also returned occasionally to the stage, his last appearance being his well-received work opposite Rex Harrison and Glynis Johns in "The Circle" on Broadway in 1991. Granger was married to character actress Elspeth March and later, from 1950 to 1960, to actress Jean Simmons.