George Raft Overview:

Legendary actor, George Raft, was born George Ranft on Sep 26, 1901 in New York City, NY. Raft died at the age of 79 on Nov 24, 1980 in Los Angeles, CA and was laid to rest in Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery (Hollywood Hills) in Los Angeles, CA.

MINI BIO:

Silken-smooth, narrow-eyed, rather menacing American actor who slipped from a somewhat dubious background as consort of criminals and nightclub dancers to portray criminals and dancers on screen. Dark hair slicked down, he glided lizard-like through both guises, but it was gangster roles that won him most public favor and he played thriller leads until he was 60. Died from leukemia.

(Source: available at Amazon Quinlan's Film Stars).

HONORS and AWARDS:

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He was honored with two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in the categories of Television and Motion Pictures. George Raft's handprints and footprints were 'set in stone' at Grauman's Chinese Theater during imprint ceremony #53 on Mar 25, 1940. Raft was never nominated for an Academy Award.

BlogHub Articles:

TCM Summer Under the Stars: Day Twenty-Four —

By shadowsandsatin on Aug 23, 2020 From Shadows and Satin

Hard-boiled on screen and off. was the essence of the 1930s cinema gangster ? calculating, ruthless, and always handy with a gat. Off-screen, he led a life that often mirrored his big-screen persona, rubbing shoulders with such real-life mobsters as Bugsy Siegel and Owney Madden and once... Read full article


Background to Danger (1943) with and Peter Lorre

By Orson De Welles on Mar 3, 2016 From Classic Film Freak

Share This! Love in the midst of intrigue! Many films were made after the gross successes of The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca, mostly by Warner Brothers and repurposing various reconfigurations of the original cast of those two films, though all excluded Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman.? The ?ho... Read full article


Book Look! : The Man Who Would Be Bogart by Stone Wallace

By Vanessa Buttino on Oct 27, 2014 From Stardust

Book Look! : The Man Who Would Be Bogart by Stone Wallace This is a short and sweet - but highly informative - biography about forgotten Hollywood star . Just as an aside, I'd like to mention that after having read this biography of Raft, I now have a dangerously inappr... Read full article


The Gentleman Gangster: Stone Wallace on – Part 2

By Emma on Jul 31, 2014 From Lets Misbehave: A Tribute to Precode Hollywood

This is part two of an interview I completed with biographer, Stone Wallace. For part one, click here. For everyone else, enjoy: Emma: How did Raft get into film acting? Did he have any training before beginning acting or was he simply a natural performer? Stone: George was fr... Read full article


The Gentleman Gangster: Stone Wallace on – Part 2

By Emma on Jul 31, 2014 From Lets Misbehave: A Tribute to Precode Hollywood

This is part two of an interview I completed with biographer, Stone Wallace. For part one, click here. For everyone else, enjoy: Emma: How did Raft get into film acting? Did he have any training before beginning acting or was he simply a natural performer? Stone: George was fr... Read full article


See all articles

George Raft Quotes:

Cliff Taylor: [to Tim] I much rather see you with a hole in your head than serving time in the pen.


Manuel Lopez: Come here. Pour my coffee.


Mary Richards: Ah, couldn't you let a girl sit here 'til it stops raining?
Harry Glynn: Not a chance. The paper says this rain's gonna keep up for ten days.


read more quotes from George Raft...



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George Raft Facts
He turned down High Sierra (1941), The Maltese Falcon (1941), Casablanca (1942) and Double Indemnity (1944).

According to James Cagney's autobiography Cagney By Cagney, (Published by Doubleday and Company Inc 1976), a Mafia plan to murder Cagney by dropping a several hundred pound klieg light on top of him was stopped at the insistence of George Raft. Cagney at that time was President of the Screen Actors Guild and was determined not to let the mob infiltrate the industry. Raft used his 'many' mob connections to cancel the hit.

Not much is known about his marriage to Mulrooney except that she was some years his senior. Although separated early, they were never divorced, and he continued to support her faithfully until her death in 1970.

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