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| Also Known As: | Raymond Hart Massey | Died: | July 29, 1983 |
| Born: | August 30, 1896 | Cause of Death: | pneumonia |
| Birth Place: | Toronto, Ontario, CA | Profession: | actor, producer, playwright, director |
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Veteran stage and film star in both England and the US, long associated with his performance as "Abe Lincoln in Illinois" (1940), written for Massey by playwright Robert Sherwood. Lanky and not conventionally handsome, with a long, saturnine face and full lips, Massey brought an intense, commanding presence to features and often played discomforting authority figures. Notable examples of this type of role include his nasty Chauvelin in "The Scarlet Pimpernel" (1935), his principled John Brown in "Santa Fe Trail" (1940), his stern prosecutor in the Heaven-set sequences of the imaginative Michael Powell-Emeric Pressburger fantasy, "A Matter of Life and Death" (1945), and his excellent work as James Dean's emotionally distant father in "East of Eden" 1955).Massey also played many villains (witness his wonderful Black Michael in "The Prisoner of Zenda" 1937), though he was capable of handling the occasional relaxed and likable romantic lead, as he did in James Whale's superb "The Old Dark House" (1932). And, of course, late in life Massey became widely known to a new generation of audiences as the kindly Dr. Gillespie of TV's long-running "Dr. Kildare" series (1961-66). Father, by actor Adrianne Allen...
Veteran stage and film star in both England and the US, long associated with his performance as "Abe Lincoln in Illinois" (1940), written for Massey by playwright Robert Sherwood. Lanky and not conventionally handsome, with a long, saturnine face and full lips, Massey brought an intense, commanding presence to features and often played discomforting authority figures. Notable examples of this type of role include his nasty Chauvelin in "The Scarlet Pimpernel" (1935), his principled John Brown in "Santa Fe Trail" (1940), his stern prosecutor in the Heaven-set sequences of the imaginative Michael Powell-Emeric Pressburger fantasy, "A Matter of Life and Death" (1945), and his excellent work as James Dean's emotionally distant father in "East of Eden" 1955).
Massey also played many villains (witness his wonderful Black Michael in "The Prisoner of Zenda" 1937), though he was capable of handling the occasional relaxed and likable romantic lead, as he did in James Whale's superb "The Old Dark House" (1932). And, of course, late in life Massey became widely known to a new generation of audiences as the kindly Dr. Gillespie of TV's long-running "Dr. Kildare" series (1961-66). Father, by actor Adrianne Allen (to whom he was married from 1929 to 1939), of British actors Daniel and Anna Massey.
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Source: Wikipedia The Internet Encyclopedia
Raymond Hart Massey (August 30, 1896–July 29, 1983) was a Canadian actor. Born in Toronto, Ontario, he was a son of Chester D. Massey, the wealthy owner of the Massey-Ferguson Tractor Company. He attended secondary school briefly at Upper Canada College, before transferring to Appleby College in Oakville, Ontario, and graduated from university at University of Toronto. Drawn to the theater, in 1922, he appeared on the London stage. His first movie role was High Treason in 1927. He played Sherlock Holmes in The Speckled Band in 1931. In 1936, he starred in H. G. Wells' Things to Come. Although there was a great outcry when a Canadian was cast as an American president, he scored a great triumph on Broadway in Robert E. Sherwood's play Abe Lincoln in Illinois, and repeated his role in the 1940 film version (for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor). Early in Massey's career, Lincoln's son, Robert Todd Lincoln, heard him perform and was struck by the similarity between Massey's speaking voice and that of his father. Massey portrayed the character of "Jonathan Brewster" in the film version of Arsenic and Old Lace. The character had originally been played by Boris Karloff for the stage version and the character was written to resemble Karloff (an ongoing joke in the play and film). Massey and Karloff had appeared together in the 1932 James Whale suspense film The Old Dark House. Massey was married three times. Margery Fremantle from 1921 to 1929 (divorce); they had one child, Geoffrey Massey. Adrianne Allen (February 7, 1907-September 14, 1993), the noted London and Broadway stage actress, from 1929 to 1939 (divorce). They had two children who followed him into acting: Anna Massey CBE, and the late Daniel Massey. Dorothy Whitney from 1939 until his death. He died of pneumonia on July 29, 1983 (the same day as his The Prisoner of Zenda and A Matter of Life and Death co-star David Niven) in Los Angeles, California, at the age of 86, and is buried in New Haven, Connecticut. Massey has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, one for movies at 1719 Vine Street and one for television at 6708 Hollywood Blvd.
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