Farley Granger

A while back I was on a Hitchcock kick, and I happened on Strangers on a Train. (This is a really good movie by the way.) In the first scene, an actor appeared who was so drop dead  gorgeous that I was perplexed by the fact that I had never seen him before.

Farley Granger was a Hollywood actor who appeared in a number of fine films, including The Purple Heart, They Live By Night, Side Street, Rope, and Senso, along with Strangers on a Train. He left the film business to have a successful career on stage, and also appeared in soap operas.

I have to direct you to his autobiography, "Include Me Out." This book is laugh-out-loud funny and includes Mr. Granger's observations about everyone from Barbara Stanwyck to Luchino Visconti. His comments about the various films he made are very insightful. If you're into Hitchcock, you will find his remarks about Rope and Strangers on a Train quite interesting. Mr. Granger's  attitude toward his sexuality was very liberated and I found it refreshing. He refused to define himself as gay, straight, or bisexual, approaching each relationship purely in terms of his connection to the person. While serving in the Navy during WWII, he lost his virginity twice in the same night, first to a woman, and then a man, in Hawaii yet. He described Shelley Winters as the love of his life, and had affairs with Leonard Bernstein, Authur Laurents, and Jean Marais (among numerous others).

When my friend Gordon's mother Lucy was in town, the three of us went out to dinner. Lucy and I got into gushing about how hot Farley Granger was. It was an excellent moment of cross-generational straight-female solidarity.