Stewart Granger

James Leblance Stewart aka Stewart Granger was born in London on May 6, 1913. He made his stage debut in The Cardinal in 1935 and from 1936-37 he worked with the Birmingham Repertory Company. He joined the British Army in 1940, but was eventually disabled and was released from military service.

British movies needed leading men after WWII and Granger landed his first film part in The Man in Grey. Granger was handsome and dashing and he was always cast as the hero type. To him these parts were unsatisfying but he eventually worked up to portray a stronger part in Caesar and Cleopatra (1945). He longed to work in Hollywood and after his marriage to Jean Simmons in 1949 they moved to California where Granger starred in The Prisoner of Zenda and Scaramouche (1952). His wife, Jean Simmons, was much more popular than Stewart and this lead to their divorce in 1960.

Granger did films in Germany, Italy and Spain and in the 1970s he was relegated to small parts and television. His criticism of Hollywood was written in his autobiography "Sparks Fly Upwards". Stewart did not have the depth for roles he wanted to play, according to critics, but he did have solid acting in the parts he was awarded. Granger made more than 60 movies and he often complained that he hated them all. Granger did his own stunt work in movies and took the sword play seriously for his role in the Prisoner of Zenda.

Granger along with his wife Jean Simons became a naturalized US citizens in 1956. In 1967 Granger renounced his American citizenship and returned to Great Britain. He returned to the US where he passed away on August 16, 1993 in Santa Monica, California from prostate cancer. At the time he was recently divorced from Caroline LeCerf.