George Raft (born
George Ranft; September 26, 1901 – November 24, 1980) was an American film actor and dancer identified with portrayals of
gangsters in
crime melodramas of the 1930s and 1940s. A stylish leading man in dozens of movies, today George Raft is mostly known for his gangster roles in the original
Scarface (1932),
Each Dawn I Die (1939), and
Billy Wilder's 1959 comedy
Some Like it Hot, as a dancer in
Bolero (1934), and a truck driver in
They Drive by Night (1940). Raft's real-life association with New York gangsters gave his screen image in
mob films an added realism.
Early life
Raft was born on September 26, 1901
[1] in
Hell's Kitchen, New York City, the son of Eva (Glockner) and Conrad Ranft. His father was born in Massachusetts to German immigrant parents, and his mother was a German immigrant.
[citation needed] His parents were married on November 17, 1895 in Manhattan (1900 census records give the year of marriage as 1896, and years married as four). His sister, Eva, known as "Katie," was born on April 18, 1896. Although Raft's birth year in obituaries has been reported as 1895, the 1900 Census for New York City lists his elder sister, Katie, as his parents' only child, with two children born and only one living.
[2] On the 1910 Census, he is listed as being eight years old, and his birth record can be found in the New York City birth index as being 1901.
[1][3] A boyhood friend of gangster
Owney Madden (and later a "wheel man" for the mob), Raft admitted narrowly avoiding a life of crime.
[4] Raft spoke German fluently, having learned the language from his parents.
Dancer
As a young man Raft showed aptitude in dancing which, with his elegant fashion sense, enabled him to earn work 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. He 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.
[citation needed] Fred Astaire, in his autobiography
Steps in Time (1959), says Raft was a lightning-fast dancer and did "the fastest
Charleston I ever saw."
[5]
Vi Kearney, later a dancer in shows for
Charles B. Cochran and
André 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. Raft and boxer-turned actor/comedian "Slapsie"
Maxie Rosenbloom were lifelong friends as well - in fact, Raft was Maxie's mentor from childhood. When
Gary Cooper's romantic escapades put him on one gangster's hit list, Raft reportedly interceded and persuaded the mobster to spare Cooper.
[6][7] Orson Welles explained to
Peter Bogdanovich in their interview book
This is Orson Welles that, as Raft's career accelerated, the actor was particularly an idol and role model for actual gangsters of the period in terms of dress and attitude.
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 boxoffice 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.
[8] Raft appeared the following year in
Raoul Walsh's energetic period piece
The Bowery as
Steve Brodie, supposedly the first man to jump off the
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 allegedly turning down some of the most-famous roles in movie history.
Raoul Walsh's
High Sierra and
The Maltese Falcon transformed
Humphrey Bogart from supporting player to a major force in Hollywood in 1941. Raft chose
Raoul Walsh's
Manpower over
The Maltese Falcon because the
Falcon'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 some Warner Bros. memos, this story is
apocryphal.
[9]
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.
Raft's career as a leading man continued through the 1940s with films of gradually declining quality, spiraling steadily downward until his name was finally limited as a
box office draw.
During the 1950s he was reduced to working as a greeter at the Capri Casino in Mob dominated
Havana, Cuba, where he was a part owner.
[10] 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. He wound up occasionally accepting supporting roles in movies, such as playing second fiddle to
Robert Taylor in
Rogue Cop (1954).
Raft 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 11 (1960) opposite the
Rat Pack. He was an American-speaking syndicate leader alongside the French iconic actor, Jean Gabin in the 1966 French gangster movie,
Du rififi à Paname. He also had cameos in 1967's James Bond spoof
Casino Royale and a 'rock group as spies' farce
The Phynx. His final film appearances were in
Sextette (1978), reunited with
Mae West in a cameo, and
The Man with Bogart's Face (1980), a nod to 1940's detective movies.
Ray Danton played Raft in
The George Raft Story (1961), which co-starred
Jayne Mansfield. Raft himself excoriated the movie upon its release due to inaccuracies.
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 the devoutly Catholic Mulrooney refused to grant a divorce, Raft remained married to and supporting 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.
[4][11]
When
James Cagney became president of the
Screen Actors Guild in 1942 for a two-year term, he took a role in the Guild's fight against the
Mafia, which had taken an active interest in the movie industry. Cagney's wife, Billie, once received a phone call telling her that Cagney was dead.
[12] Cagney alleged that, having failed to scare him and the Guild off, they sent a hit man to kill him by dropping a heavy light onto his head. On hearing about the rumor of the hit, George Raft made a call, and the hit was supposedly cancelled.
[13][14]
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.
[15]
Death
Raft died from
leukemia at age of 79 in
Los Angeles, California, on November 24, 1980. Two days earlier,
Mae West had died and their bodies were at one point alongside each other in the hallway of the same mortuary at the same time. Raft was interred in Forest Lawn - Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles.
Filmography
- Queen of the Night Clubs (1929) with Texas Guinan
- Gold Diggers of Broadway (1929)
- Side Street (1929) with Tom Moore, Owen Moore, and Matt Moore (Raft unbilled dancer)
- Quick Millions (1931) with Spencer Tracy and Marguerite Churchill
- Goldie (1931) with Spencer Tracy and Jean Harlow
- Hush Money (1931) with Joan Bennett and Myrna Loy
- Palmy Days (1931) with Eddie Cantor
- Scarface (1932) with Paul Muni and Ann Dvorak (Raft flips the nickel in his breakthrough role)
- Love Is a Racket (1932) (scenes deleted)
- Madame Racketeer (1932) with Alison Skipworth and Richard Bennett
- Night World (1932) with Lew Ayres, Mae Clarke, and Boris Karloff
- Dancers in the Dark (1932) with Miriam Hopkins
- Taxi! (1932) with James Cagney and Loretta Young
- Winner Take All (1932) with James Cagney
- Night After Night (1932) with Mae West as a fictionalized Texas Guinan (Raft's 1st leading role)
- Under Cover Man (1932) with Nancy Carroll
- If I Had a Million (1932; Raft plays a man on Death Row)
- Pick-Up (1933) with Sylvia Sidney
- The Bowery (1933) with Wallace Beery, Fay Wray, and Pert Kelton (Raft 2nd billed)
- The Midnight Club (1933) with Clive Brook (Raft 2nd billed)
- The Trumpet Blows (1934) with Adolphe Menjou
- All of Me (1934) with Fredric March and Miriam Hopkins (Raft 3rd billed)
- Bolero (1934) with Carole Lombard and Ray Milland (besides Scarface, Raft's signature film)
- Limehouse Blues (1934) with Anna May Wong
- Every Night at Eight (1935) with Alice Faye and Frances Langford
- The Glass Key (1935) with Edward Arnold
- She Couldn't Take It (1935) with Joan Bennett
- Stolen Harmony (1935) with Lloyd Nolan and William Cagney
- Rumba (1935) with Carole Lombard
- Yours for the Asking (1936) with Dolores Costello and Ida Lupino
- It Had to Happen (1936) with Rosalind Russell
- Souls at Sea (1937) with Gary Cooper (Raft 2nd billed)
- You and Me (1938) with Sylvia Sidney (with bizarre musical interludes by Kurt Weill)
- Spawn of the North (1938) with Henry Fonda and John Barrymore
- I Stole a Million (1939) with Claire Trevor
- The Lady's from Kentucky (1939) with Ellen Drew
- Each Dawn I Die (1939) with James Cagney (Raft 2nd billed)
- The House Across the Bay (1940) with Joan Bennett
- They Drive by Night (1940) with Ann Sheridan, Ida Lupino, and Humphrey Bogart
- Invisible Stripes (1940) with William Holden and Humphrey Bogart
- Manpower (1941) with Edward G. Robinson and Marlene Dietrich (Raft 3rd billed but played the lead)
- Broadway (1942) with Pat O'Brien and Broderick Crawford (Raft plays himself as a young B'way dancer)
- Background to Danger (1943) with Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre
- Stage Door Canteen (1943) with an all-star cast
- Follow the Boys (1944) with Vera Zorina
- Nob Hill (1945) with Joan Bennett
- Johnny Angel (1945) with Claire Trevor and Hoagy Carmichael
- Whistle Stop (1946) with Ava Gardner and Victor McLaglen
- Nocturne (1946) with Lynn Bari
- Mr. Ace (1946) with Sylvia Sidney
- Intrigue (1947) with June Havoc
- Christmas Eve (1947) with George Brent, Randolph Scott, and Joan Blondell
- Race Street (1948) with William Bendix and Marilyn Maxwell
- A Dangerous Profession (1949)
- Johnny Allegro (1949) with Nina Foch and Will Geer
- Outpost in Morocco (1949) with Marie Windsor and Akim Tamiroff
- We Shall Go to Paris (1949) aka Nous Irons a Paris (Raft cameo)
- Red Light (1949) with Virginia Mayo, Gene Lockhart, and Raymond Burr
- A Dangerous Profession (1949) with Ella Raines, Pat O'Brien, and Jim Backus
- I'll Get You For This (1951; AKA "Lucky Nick Cain") with Coleen Gray
- Loan Shark (1952) with Dorothy Hart
- Dramma nella Kasbah (1953; AKA The Man from Cairo)
- I'm the Law (1954; 3-episode TV series)
- Black Widow (1954) with Ginger Rogers, Van Heflin, and Gene Tierney (Raft 4th billed)
- Rogue Cop (1954) with Robert Taylor and Janet Leigh (Raft 3rd billed)
- A Bullet for Joey (1955) with Edward G. Robinson (Raft 2nd billed)
- Around the World in 80 Days (1956) with David Niven and Marlene Dietrich (Raft cameo)
- Jet Over the Atlantic (1959) with Guy Madison and Virginia Mayo (Raft 3rd billed)
- Some Like It Hot (1959) with Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, and Jack Lemmon (Raft 4th billed)
- Ocean's 11 (1960) with the Rat Pack (Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., Peter Lawford, and Joey Bishop)
- The Ladies Man (1961) with Jerry Lewis (Raft cameo)
- For Those Who Think Young (1964) (Raft cameo)
- The Patsy (1964)
- The Upper Hand (1966) with Jean Gabin (Raft 2nd billed)
- Five Golden Dragons (1967) with Robert Cummings and Klaus Kinski
- Casino Royale (1967) (Raft cameo)
- Skidoo (1968) with Jackie Gleason and Groucho Marx
- Madigan's Millions (1968)
- Hammersmith Is Out (1972) with Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, and Peter Ustinov
- Deadhead Miles (1972) (Raft cameo)
- Sextette (1978) with Mae West and Timothy Dalton (Raft cameo)
- The Man with Bogart's Face (1980)
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)
Roles Rejected
Raft turned down roles in the following films:
[16][17]
- ^ a b United States Census 1910; Census Place: Manhattan Ward 12, New York, New York; Roll: T624_1025; Page: 19A; Enumeration District: 0668; Image: 1107; FHL Number: 1375038.
- ^ United States Census 1900; Census Place: Manhattan, New York, New York; Roll: T623_1109; Page: 4B; Enumeration District: 642.
- ^ 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."
- ^ a b Beaver, Jim. George Raft. Films in Review, April, 1978.
- ^ Astaire, Fred, Steps in Time. ISBN 0-06-156756-6.
- ^ Beaver, Jim "George Raft", Films in Review, April, 1978.
- ^ Yablonsky, Lewis George Raft, New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1974. ISBN 0-07-072235-8.
- ^ Parish, James Robert. The George Raft File: The Unauthorized Biography. New York: Drake Publishers, 1973. ISBN 0-87749-520-3.
- ^ Behlmer, Rudy Inside Warner Bros. (1913-1951), ISBN 0-671-63135-7.
- ^ http://cuban-exile.com/doc_276-300/doc0288.html
- ^ Wallace, Stone. George Raft: The Man Who Would Be Bogart. ISBN 1-59393-204-9.
- ^ Warren, Doug & Cagney, James (1986) [1983]. Cagney: The Authorized Biography (Mass Market ed.). New York: St. Martin's Press. p. 166. ISBN ISBN 0-312-90207-7.
- ^ Warren, Doug & Cagney, James (1986 [1983]). Cagney: The Authorized Biography (Mass Market ed.). New York: St. Martin's Press. p. 166. ISBN ISBN 0-312-90207-7.
- ^ Cagney, James (2005 [1976]). Cagney by Cagney. Doubleday. ISBN 0-385-52026-3.
- ^ http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/written_answers/1967/mar/02/mr-george-raft
- ^ Everett Aaker, The Films of George Raft, McFarland & Company, 2013 p 184-188
- ^ A.M. Sperber & Eric Lax, Bogart, Pheonix 1998
- ^ PROJECTION JOTTINGS New York Times (1923-Current file) [New York, N.Y] 19 Feb 1933: X5.
- ^ Joan Bennett Set for 'Man in Iron Mask': Brent Plays Minister Atwill in 'The Gorilla' New Television Plans New Raft Controversy Schallert, Edwin. Los Angeles Times (1923-Current File) [Los Angeles, Calif] 20 Jan 1939: 10.
- 1900 United States Federal Census, Census Place: Manhattan, New York, New York; Roll T623_1109; Page: 4B; Enumeration District: 642.
- 1910; Census Place: Manhattan Ward 12, New York, New York; Roll T624_1025; Page: 19A; Enumeration District: 668; Image: 1104
- Ancestry.com. New York City Births, 1891-1902 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2000.
- New York City Grooms Index, http://www.italiangen.org/NYCmarriageresults.asp?kind=exact&Esurname=ranft&Efirst=&CertNbr=&StartYear=&EndYear=&B1=Submit.
- New York City Birth Index, familysearch.org, https://beta.familysearch.org/s/recordDetails/show?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fpilot.familysearch.org%2Frecords%2Ftrk%3A%2Ffsrs%2Frr_655994601%2Fp1&hash=MPAfKvgWGXfZ5STyuqUCQxOVNk8%253D.
- Social Security Death Index, Ancestry.com.
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 0-87749-520-3.
- 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 0-07-072235-8.
