Golden Age Of Hollywood Stewart Granger
Stewart Granger had a swashbuckling image in his early career but went on to take a wide range of film and TV roles
The Early Days
Born James Lablache Stewart in Kensington, London on May 6, 1913, he attended Epsom School and later went to the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art. He was the great-grandson of the opera singer Luigi Lablache and his grandfather was an actor, too. His first screen appearances were as an extra in 1933 and 1934, and it was at this time that he met and became friends with Michael Wilding, and the two would remain good friends for their whole lives. Several years working in theatre followed, including Hull and Birmingham Repertory Companies before securing work in several London theatres.
Screen Star
When war broke out, he enlisted in the Gordon Highlanders, then transferred to the Black Watch with the rank of second lieutenant. However, he suffered from stomach ulcers and was invalided out in 1942. He had been advised to change his name to avoid confusion with the Hollywood star James Stewart, so he took Granger, his grandmother’s maiden name. He got his first starring role in the 1943 film The Man In Grey, a hit movie that made stars of Granger and his three co-stars, James Mason, Phyllis Calvert and Margaret Lockwood. He then starred in several British movies, including Fanny by Gas light and Sara band For Dead Lovers.
In 1949, MGM was looking for someone to play the hero in King Solomon’ s Mines. Errol Flynn had turned it down and Stewart was offered the role. The movie was a huge success and he was offered a seven-year contract. He starred in the Wild North, Scaramouche, and a remake of The Prisoner Of Z end a, all big successes with Granger at the height of his swashbuckling
Off To Hollywood
persona. He starred opposite Rita Hayworth in 1953 in Salome, another hit, then it was back to MGM to make Beau Brummell with Elizabeth Taylor. But some movies did not fare so well. Moonfleet (1955), The Last Hunt (1956) and Bhowani Junction (1956) were all box-office flops. As his MGM contract came to an end, Granger’s star was waning.
New Horizons
In the early Sixties, Stewart spent a lot of time working in Europe, making films in Italy and Germany, including Sodom and Gomorrah and Commando. In the Seventies, he returned to the USA and appeared on television as the new owner of the Shiloh ranch in The Virginian. He largely retired from working but occasionally took on a role such as The Wild Geese in 1978, an episode of Murder She Wrote in 1985 and a guest appearance on The Fall Guy with Lee Majors in 1985.
Offscreen Life
Stewart Granger met and married Elspeth March while in repertory in the Thirties and they had two children, Jamie and Lindsay. They divorced and Stewart went on to marry Jean Simmons, and they had a daughter, Tracy. But as Granger’s star waned, Simmons’ was reaching ever-starrier heights and the relationship could not survive. He later married
Caroline LeCerf and they had a child, Samantha but divorced after only five years. Granger tried his hand at cattle ranching and owned land in New Mexico and Arizona. He is credited with introducing Charolais cattle to America. He also lived in southern Spain for a while in the Seventies where he invested in real estate. He died of cancer in Santa Monica on August 16, 1993, at the age of 80.
Granger’s niece, the daughter of his sister, Iris, is Bunny Campione, who regularly appears as an expert on The Antiques Roadshow