George Macready

George Macready
George Macready in Johnny Allegro.jpg
Macready in Johnny Allegro (1949)
Born(1899-08-29)August 29, 1899
DiedJuly 2, 1973(1973-07-02) (aged 73)
Alma materBrown University
OccupationActor
Years active1926–1971
Spouse
Elizabeth Patterson
(m. 1931; div. 1943)
Children3
RelativesJohn Macready (grandson)

George Peabody Macready Jr. (August 29, 1899 – July 2, 1973) was an American stage, film, and television actor often cast in roles as polished villains.

Early life

Macready was born in Providence, Rhode Island, and graduated from the local Classical High School (1917) and, in 1921, from Brown University, where he was a member of Delta Phi fraternity and won a letter as the football team manager. While in college, Macready sustained a permanent scar on his right cheek after being thrust through the windshield of a Ford Model T when the vehicle skidded on an icy road and hit a telephone pole. He was stitched up by a veterinarian, but he caught scarlet fever during the ordeal. The injury, along with his high brow and perfect diction, gave Macready the Gothic look of an authoritarian or villainous character.

Macready first worked in a bank in Providence and then briefly as a newspaperman in New York City before he turned to stage acting. He claimed to have been descended from the 19th-century Shakespearean actor William Macready.

Acting career

Theatre

Macready made his Broadway debut in 1926, performing in the role of Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale in an adaptation of The Scarlet Letter. Through 1958, he appeared in fifteen plays, both drama and comedy, including The Barretts of Wimpole Street, based on the family of the English poetess Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

Macready's penchant for acting was spurred in part by the director Richard Boleslawski. His Shakespearean stage credits included Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing (1927), Malcolm in Macbeth (1928), and Paris in Romeo and Juliet (1934). On film, he played Marallus in the 1953 film adaptation of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. He also portrayed Prince Ernst in the original stage version of Victoria Regina (1936), starring Helen Hayes.

Film

Macready's first film was Commandos Strike at Dawn (1942), which starred Paul Muni. In Gilda (1946), Macready's character Ballin Mundson enters a deadly love triangle with characters played by co-stars Rita Hayworth and Glenn Ford. He again played opposite Ford several years later in the postwar adventure The Green Glove (1952).

Stanley Kubrick's antiwar film Paths of Glory (1957) provided Macready with his other great role, the sadistic and self-serving French World War I General Paul Mireau, who is brought down by Kirk Douglas's character, Colonel Dax. He had worked with Douglas previously in Detective Story (1951), and later he appeared with Douglas in two more films: Vincente Minnelli's Two Weeks in Another Town (1962) and John Frankenheimer's Seven Days in May (1964). In 1965, he was cast in a rare comedy role as General Kuhster in Blake Edwards's film The Great Race.

One of Macready's last film roles was as United States Secretary of State Cordell Hull in Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970), a depiction of the events leading up to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Television

Macready made four guest appearances on Raymond Burr's Perry Mason, including the role of murder victim Milo Girard in the 1958 episode "The Case of the Purple Woman". He was also cast regularly in such series as Four Star Playhouse, General Electric Theater, The Ford Television Theatre, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Adventures in Paradise and The Islanders.

Macready performed in a variety of television series produced in the 1950s and 1960s, including many Westerns such as Bat Masterson, Bonanza, The Dakotas, Gunsmoke, Have Gun - Will Travel, The Rebel (once in the role of Confederate General Robert E. Lee), The Rifleman, Lancer, Laramie, Riverboat, The Rough Riders, Chill Wills's Frontier Circus, The Texan and Steve McQueen's Wanted: Dead or Alive. Also on TV, he was seen in episodes of The Outer Limits, The Twilight Zone, Boris Karloff's Thriller, Kentucky Jones, Get Smart with Don Adams, and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. with Robert Vaughn.

Macready was cast as Cyrus Canfield, a vengeful father searching for his runaway teenaged daughter, played by Floy Dean, in the May 26, 1962, series finale of NBC's The Tall Man.

In the 1960s, Macready performed for three years in the role of Martin Peyton in ABC's Peyton Place, the first primetime soap opera on American television, with Dorothy Malone in the lead role of Constance MacKenzie.

He played publishing magnate Glenn Howard in the TV movie Fame Is the Name of the Game (1966) starring Anthony Franciosa, but was replaced by Gene Barry in the role when the film was subsequently used as the pilot for the television series The Name of the Game with Franciosa, Barry, and Robert Stack revolving in the lead.

Personal life

An art collector, Macready was a partner with colleague Vincent Price in a Beverly Hills art gallery called The Little Gallery, which they opened in 1943. (Macready had played Price's brother on Broadway in Victoria Regina.) According to Lucy Chase Williams' book The Complete Films of Vincent Price, "In the spring of 1943, during the months he was filming THE SONG OF BERNADETTE for 20th Century Fox, Vincent Price and Macready opened The Little Gallery in Beverly Hills. "We rented a hole in the wall next door to Martindale's book shop and a very popular bar, figuring correctly that we'd catch a mixed clientele of erudites and inebriates." Price and Macready saw the gallery not only as an indulgence of their own interests, but as a showcase for young artists, and a way to expose the general public to art and art appreciation. The establishment merited photos and two full columns in Newsweek magazine, but rent increases forced The Little Gallery to close after two years. Actor Robert Hutton remembers one of the slow days: "[Vincent] was a great guy. I used to go to Martindale's every morning to pick up the trades. I saw Vincent leaning up against the frame of the door and looking like, 'Why did I open up this art shop??'... I said, 'How're things going?'and he just glared at me and said, 'F**k you, Hutton!' He knew that things were not going well, I knew it, and he knew I knew! That just killed me. I was still laughing when I came out of Martindale's. He was such a good guy." When things were better, Price remembered Igor Stravinksy, Thomas Mann and Sergei Rachmaninoff browsing through the Gallery and then going to the deli for lox and bagels."

In 1931, Macready married actress Elizabeth Dana Patterson; they divorced in 1943. He was the father of activist Elizabeth Dana Macready, actor/producer Michael Macready, and Marcia Macready. He was the grandfather of gymnast John Macready.

Death

Macready died of emphysema in 1973 and his body was donated to the UCLA School of Medicine.

Filmography

Year Film Role Director Notes
1942 Commandos Strike at Dawn Schoolteacher John Farrow
1944 Follow the Boys Walter Bruce A. Edward Sutherland
1944 The Story of Dr. Wassell Dutch Army captain Cecil B. DeMille uncredited
1944 Wilson William McCombs Henry King uncredited
1944 The Seventh Cross Bruno Sauer Fred Zinnemann
1944 The Soul of a Monster Dr. George Winson Will Jason
1944 The Conspirators Schimitt's Special Agent Jean Negulesco uncredited
1944 The Missing Juror Harry Wharton / Jerome K. Bentley Budd Boetticher(as Oscar Boetticher Jr.)
1945 The Bandit of Sherwood Forest Fitz-Herbert George Sherman
1945 A Song to Remember Alfred de Musset Charles Vidor uncredited
1945 I Love a Mystery Jefferson Monk Henry Levin
1945 The Monster and the Ape Prof. Ernst Howard Bretherton
1945 Counter-Attack Col. Semenov Zoltan Korda
1945 Don Juan Quilligan District Attorney Frank Tuttle uncredited
1945 My Name is Julia Ross Ralph Hughes Joseph H. Lewis
1946 The Fighting Guardsman Gaston de Montrevel Henry Levin
1946 Gilda Ballin Mundson Charles Vidor
1946 The Man Who Dared Donald Wayne John Sturges
1946 The Walls Came Tumbling Down Matthew Stoker Lothar Mendes
1946 The Return of Monte Cristo Henri de la Roche Henry Levin
1947 Down to Earth Joe Manion Alexander Hall
1948 The Swordsman Robert Glowan Joseph H. Lewis
1948 The Black Arrow Sir Daniel Brackley Gordon Douglas
1948 The Big Clock Steve Hagen John Farrow
1948 Coroner Creek Younger Miles Ray Enright
1948 Beyond Glory Maj. General Bond John Farrow
1949 The Gallant Blade Gen. Cadeau Henry Levin
1949 Knock on Any Door Dist. Atty. Kerman Nicholas Ray
1949 Alias Nick Beal Reverend Thomas Garfield John Farrow
1949 Johnny Allegro Morgan Vallin Ted Tetzlaff
1949 The Doolins of Oklahoma Marshal Sam Hughes Gordon Douglas
1950 The Nevadan Edward Galt Gordon Douglas
1950 Fortunes of Captain Blood Marquis de Riconete Gordon Douglas
1950 Rogues of Sherwood Forest King John Gordon Douglas
1950 A Lady Without Passport Palinov Joseph H. Lewis
1950 The Desert Hawk Prince Murad Frederick De Cordova
1951 Tarzan's Peril Radijeck Byron Haskin
1951 The Golden Horde Raven the Shaman George Sherman
1951 The Desert Fox Gen. Fritz Bayerlein Henry Hathaway
1951 Detective Story Dr. Karl Schneider William Wyler
1952 The Green Glove Count Paul Rona Rudolph Maté
1953 Treasure of the Golden Condor Marquis de St. Malo Delmer Daves
1953 I Beheld His Glory Cornelius TV Movie
1953 Julius Caesar Marullus Joseph L. Mankiewicz
1953 The Stranger Wore a Gun Jules Mourret André DeToth
1953 The Golden Blade Jafar Nathan Juran
1954 Duffy of San Quentin John C. Winant Walter Doniger
1954 Vera Cruz Emperor Maximilian Robert Aldrich
1956 A Kiss Before Dying Leo Kingship Gerd Oswald
1956 Thunder Over Arizona Mayor Ervin Plummer Joseph Kane
1957 The Abductors Jack Langley Andrew V. McLaglen(as Andrew McLaglen)
1957 Paths of Glory Brigadier General Paul Mireau Stanley Kubrick
1957 Gunfire at Indian Gap Mr. Jefferson Joseph Kane
1959 Plunderers of Painted Flats Ed Sammpson Albert C. Gannaway
1959 The Alligator People Dr. Mark Sinclair Roy Del Ruth
1959 Jet Over the Atlantic Lord Robert Leverett Byron Haskin
1960 Family Classics: The Three Musketeers TV Movie
1962 Two Weeks in Another Town Lew Jordan Vincente Minnelli
1962 Taras Bulba Governor J. Lee Thompson
1964 Seven Days in May Christopher Todd John Frankenheimer
1964 Dead Ringer Paul Harrison Paul Henreid
1964 Where Love Has Gone Gordon Harris Edward Dmytryk
1965 The Human Duplicators Prof. Vaughn Dornheimer Arthur C. Pierce
1965 Memorandum for a Spy Graham Jutland TV Movie
1965 The Great Race General Kuhster Blake Edwards
1966 Fame Is the Name of the Game Gleen Howard Stuart Rosenberg TV Movie
1969 Night Gallery William Hendricks TV Movie, segment "The Cemetery"
1969 Daughter of the Mind Dr. Frank Ferguson Walter Grauman TV Movie
1970 Count Yorga, Vampire Narrator Bob Kelljan
1970 Tora! Tora! Tora! Cordell Hull Kinji Fukasaku
1971 The Return of Count Yorga Prof. Rightstat Bob Kelljan final film role

Partial television credits


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