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George Raft

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George Raft
from the trailer for Invisible Stripes (1939)
Born
George Ranft

(1901-09-26)September 26, 1901
New York City, New York, U.S.
DiedNovember 24, 1980(1980-11-24) (aged 79)
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
OccupationActor
Years active1929–78
SpouseGrace Mulrooney (1923-70) (her death)

George Raft (September 26, 1901 – November 24, 1980) was an American film actor and dancer identified with portrayals of gangsters in crime melodramas (mob films) of the 1930s and 1940s. A stylish leading man in dozens of movies, today George Raft is mostly known for his gangster roles in Billy Wilder's 1959 comedy Some Like it Hot, the original Scarface (1932), and Each Dawn I Die (1939), and as a dancer in Bolero (1934) and a truck driver in They Drive by Night (1940). Raft's actual association with gangsters as a "wheel man" (getaway driver) in New York prior to his film career gave his iconic image an added verisimilitude.

Early life

Raft was born George Ranft on September 26, 1901 in Hell's Kitchen, New York City to German immigrant Conrad Ranft and his wife Eva Glockner. His parents were married on November 17, 1895 in Manhattan, and his sister, Eva, known as "Katie" was born on April 18, 1896. Although Raft's birth year has been reported to be 1895, the 1900 Census for New York City lists only his sister, Katie, as his parents' only child with two children born and only one living. On the 1910 Census, he is listed as being 8 years old, and his birth record can be found in the New York City birth index as being 1901.[1] A boyhood friend of gangster Owney Madden, he admittedly narrowly avoided a life of crime.[2] Raft spoke German fluently, having learned the language from his parents.

Dancer

As a young man he showed aptitude in dancing which, with his elegant fashion sense, enabled him to gain employment as a dancer in New York City nightclubs, often in the same venues as Rudolph Valentino before Valentino became a movie actor. Raft became part of the stage act of flamboyant speakeasy hostess Texas Guinan and his success led him to Broadway where he again worked as a dancer. Raft later made a semi-autobiographical film called Broadway (1942) about this period in which he plays himself. He also worked in London as a chorus boy in the early 1920s. Fred Astaire, in his autobiography Steps in Time (1959), says Raft was a lightning-fast dancer and did "the fastest Charleston I ever saw."[3]

Vi Kearney, later a dancer in shows for Charles Cochran and Andre Charlot, was quoted as saying:

Oh yes, I knew him (George Raft). We were in a big show together. Sometimes, to eke out our miserable pay, we'd do a dance act after the show at a club and we'd have to walk back home because all the buses had stopped for the night by that time. He'd tell me how he was going to be a big star one day and once he said that when he'd made it how he'd make sure to arrange a Hollywood contract for me. I just laughed and said: 'Come on, Georgie, stop dreaming. We're both in the chorus and you know it.' [Did he arrange the contract?] Yes. But by that time I'd decided to marry... [Was he (Raft) ever your boyfriend?] How many times do I have to tell you ...chorus girls don't go out with chorus boys.[citation needed]

Gangster icon

In 1929, Raft relocated to Hollywood and took small roles. In "Taxi!" (1932) with James Cagney and Loretta Young, Raft has a colorful unbilled dancing role as Cagney's competitor in a dance contest who wins only to be knocked down by Cagney's loonily pugnacious character. His big break came later that same year as the nickel-flipping second lead alongside Paul Muni's raging killer in Scarface (1932), and Raft's convincing portrayal led to speculation that Raft was a gangster. Due to his lifelong friendship with Owney Madden, Raft was a friend or acquaintance of several other crime figures, including Bugsy Siegel and Siegel's old friend Meyer Lansky. When Gary Cooper's romantic escapades put him on one gangster's hit list, Raft reportedly interceded and persuaded the mobster to spare Cooper.[4][5]

He was one of the three most popular gangster actors of the 1930s, with James Cagney and Edward G. Robinson; Raft ranked far above Humphrey Bogart in fame and box office clout throughout the decade. When the studio refused to hire Texas Guinan, the performer upon whom one of the movie's characters was based, because of her age, Raft advocated for the casting of his friend, Mae West, in a supporting role in his first film as leading man, Night After Night (1932), which launched her movie career.[6] Raft appeared the following year in Raoul Walsh's energetic period piece The Bowery as Steve Brodie, supposedly the first man to jump off Brooklyn Bridge and survive, with Wallace Beery, Jackie Cooper, Fay Wray and Pert Kelton. Raft memorably dances into the picture in his opening scene wearing a derby.

Some of his other movies include If I Had A Million (1932; an episodic ensemble film in which he plays a forger hiding from police, suddenly given a million dollars with no place to cash the check), Bolero (1934; in a rare role as a dancer rather than a gangster), Limehouse Blues (1934; with Anna May Wong), a brutal and fast-paced adaptation of Dashiell Hammett's The Glass Key (1935; remade in 1942 with Alan Ladd in Raft's role as a result of the success of the remake of Hammett's The Maltese Falcon), Souls at Sea (1937; with Gary Cooper), Spawn of the North (1938; with Raft garnering top billing over Henry Fonda and John Barrymore), two with Humphrey Bogart: Invisible Stripes (1939) and They Drive by Night (1940), with Bogart in supporting roles, Each Dawn I Die (1939; with James Cagney and Raft as convicts in prison), and Manpower (1941; with Edward G. Robinson and Marlene Dietrich). Although Raft received third billing in Manpower, he played the lead.

Unexpected career decline

The years 1940 and 1941 proved to be Raft's career peak. He went into a gradual professional decline over the next decade, in part due to turning down some of the famous roles in movie history, notably Raoul Walsh's High Sierra and The Maltese Falcon; both roles unexpectedly transformed Humphrey Bogart from supporting player to a major force in Hollywood in 1941. Raft understandably chose Raoul Walsh's Manpower over The Maltese Falcon because the latter film's director, John Huston, had never directed before and a racier pre-Code version of the film already existed. Raft was also reported to have turned down Bogart's role in Casablanca (1942), although according to Warner Bros. memos, this story is apocryphal.[7]

Following the release of the espionage thriller Background to Danger (1943), a film intended to capitalize on the success of Casablanca, Raft demanded termination of his Warner Brothers contract. Jack Warner was prepared to pay Raft a $10,000 settlement, but the actor either misunderstood or was so eager to be free of the studio that it was he who gave Warner a check in that amount.[citation needed] Raft is widely believed to have been functionally illiterate, which could account for the confusion.

Judy Canova and George Raft pictured in 1979

Raft's career as a leading man continued through the 1940s with films of gradually declining quality and his career spiraled steadily downward as a result until the iconic star was finally limited as a box office draw.

During the 1950s he was reduced to working as a greeter at the Capri Casino in Havana, Cuba, where he was part owner along with Meyer Lansky and Santo Trafficante.[8] In 1953, Raft also starred as Lt. George Kirby in a syndicated television series police drama titled I'm the Law, which ran for one season and was one of the earliest instances of a movie star of his previous calibre accepting the lead in a TV series. Raft wound up occasionally accepting supporting roles in movies, such as playing second fiddle to Robert Taylor in Rogue Cop (1954).

He satirized his gangster image with a well-received supporting performance in Some Like it Hot (1959), but this did not lead to a comeback, and he spent the remainder of the decade making films in Europe. He played a small role as a casino owner in Ocean's Eleven (1960) opposite the Rat Pack. His final film appearances were in Sextette (1978), reunited with Mae West in a cameo, and The Man with Bogart's Face (1980).

Ray Danton played Raft in The George Raft Story (1961), which co-starred Jayne Mansfield. Raft himself excoriated the movie's inaccuracies upon its release.

In the 1991 biographical movie Bugsy, the character of George Raft was played by Joe Mantegna.

Raft has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, for contributions to Motion Pictures at 6150 Hollywood Boulevard, and for Television at 1500 Vine St.

Personal life

Raft married Grayce Mulrooney, several years his senior, in 1923, long before his stardom. The pair separated soon thereafter, but Grayce, a devout Catholic, refused to grant Raft a divorce, and he remained married to and supported her until her death in 1970. A romantic figure in Hollywood, Raft had love affairs with Betty Grable, Marlene Dietrich, and Mae West. He stated publicly that he wanted to marry Norma Shearer, with whom he had a long romance, but his wife's refusal to allow a divorce eventually caused Shearer to end the affair.[2][9]

Raft is widely believed to have been unable to read or write and had his film scripts read to him.

In 1965, Raft was indicted for, and pled guilty to, income tax evasion and could have ended his life behind bars, but the court proved merciful when he wept before the judge, begging that he not be sent to prison, and he was sentenced to probation.

In 1967 he was denied entry into the United Kingdom (where he had been installed as Casino Director at a casino known as the "Colony Club") due to his underworld associations. [10]

Death

Raft died from leukemia at age 79 in Los Angeles, California, on November 24, 1980. Two days earlier, Mae West had died and their bodies were in the same mortuary at the same time. Raft was interred in Forest Lawn - Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles.

Filmography

Short Subjects:

  • Hollywood on Parade No. A-9 (1933)
  • Hollywood on Parade No. B-5 (1933)
  • Hollywood on Parade No. B-8 (1934)
  • The Fashion Side of Hollywood (1935)
  • Screen Snapshots Series 18, No. 4 (1938)
  • Meet the Stars #6: Stars at Play (1941)
  • Hedda Hopper's Hollywood No. 2 (1941)
  • Hollywood Park (1946)
  • Screen Snapshots: Vacation at Del Mar (1949)

Footnotes

  1. ^ via Associated Press, "'Tough guy' George raft dies of emphysema at 85", The Milwaukee Sentinel, November 25, 1980. Accessed August 10, 2009. "After growing up in New York's tough Hell's Kitchen area, Raft was a boxer, electrician and baseball player before landing a job as a dancer in nightclubs in the 1920s."
  2. ^ a b Beaver, Jim. George Raft. Films in Review, April, 1978.
  3. ^ Astaire, Fred, Steps in Time. ISBN 0061567566.
  4. ^ Beaver, Jim "George Raft", Films in Review, April, 1978.
  5. ^ Yablonsky, Lewis George Raft, New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1974. ISBN 0070722358.
  6. ^ Parish, James Robert. The George Raft File: The Unauthorized Biography. New York: Drake Publishers, 1973. ISBN 0877495203.
  7. ^ Behlmer, Rudy Inside Warner Bros. (1913-1951), ISBN 0671631357.
  8. ^ http://cuban-exile.com/doc_276-300/doc0288.html
  9. ^ Wallace, Stone. George Raft: The Man Who Would Be Bogart. ISBN 1593932049.
  10. ^ http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/written_answers/1967/mar/02/mr-george-raft

Further reading

  • Beaver, Jim. George Raft. Films in Review, April, 1978.
  • Lewis, Brad. Hollywood's Celebrity Gangster. The Incredible Life and Times of Mickey Cohen. Enigma Books: New York, 2007. ISBN 978-1-929631-65-0.
  • Parish, James Robert. The George Raft File: The Unauthorized Biography. New York: Drake Publishers, 1973. ISBN 0877495203.
  • Wallace, Stone. George Raft-The Man Who Would Be Bogart. Albany: BearManor Media, 2008. ISBN 1-59393-123-9.
  • Yablonsky, Lewis. George Raft. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1974. ISBN 0070722358.
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