Hitchcock star Granger dies in New York

The American actor, Farley Granger, has died in New York at the age of eighty five.
He will be best known for his leading roles in two Alfred Hitchcock thrillers, Rope and Strangers on a Train.
Farley Granger was spotted by talent scouts for the movie mogul Samuel Goldwyn, as a teenager at a theatre group in North Hollywood and cast in a World War II film, The North Star, in 1943.
He described his professional life as a miracle career. “I had no talent and no training,” he once remarked.
Fan magazines in the 1950s often pictured him with actresses such as Debbie Reynolds and Ann Blyth, but he always said his only serious romance with a woman was with Shelley Winters. He also had what he described as a short, pretty intense and enormously fun affair with Ava Gardner.
In his 2007 memoirs, he said he was bisexual. He said that as a twenty one year old, he lost his virginity twice in the same night — firstly to a female prostitute and later to a handsome Navy officer.
His male partners included Arthur Laurents, who wrote West Side Story and he also said he’d had a two-night fling with Leonard Bernstein.
During a career that spanned six decades, as well as the two Hitchcock thrillers, Granger also starred in films including They Live By Night, Roseanna McCoy and Edge of Doom. In the mid fifties, he bought himself out of his Hollywood contract to go to New York to study stage acting with Stella Adler, Lee Strasberg and Sanford Meisner, before forging a successful stage acting career. He also enjoyed success in television drama.
Farley Granger said he always felt more relaxed in front of an audience than a camera. “The live audience really turns me on,” he once said.

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