George Macready

George Macready--the name probably does not ring any bells for most but
the voice would be unmistakable. He attended and graduated from Brown
University and had a short stint as a New York newspaperman, but became
interested in acting on the advice of colorful Polish émigré classical
stage director Richard Boleslawski,
who would go on to Hollywood to direct some notable and important
films, including
Rasputin and the Empress (1932)--the
only film in which siblings
John Barrymore,
Ethel Barrymore and
Lionel Barrymore appeared together--and
Clive of India (1935) with
Ronald Colman. Perhaps acting was
meant for Macready all along--he claimed that he was descended from
19th-century Shakespearean actor William Macready.In 1926 Macready made his Broadway debut in "The Scarlet Letter". His
Broadway career would extend to 1958, entailing 15 plays--mainly dramas
but also some comedies--with the lion's share of roles in the 1930s.
His Shakespearean run included the lead as Benedick in "Much Ado About
Nothing" (1927), "Macbeth" (1928) and "Romeo and Juliet" (1934), with
Broadway legend Katharine Cornell. He
co-starred with her again in "The Barretts of Wimpole Street" and with
with Helen Hayes in "Victoria
Regina" twice (1936 and 1937).Macready's aquiline features coupled with distinctive high-brow
bottom-voiced diction and superior, nose-in-the-air delivery that could
be quickly tinged with a gothic menace made him perfect as the cultured
bad guy. Added to his demeanor was a significant curved scar on his
right cheek, remnant of a car accident in about 1919--better PR that it
was a saber slash wound from his dueling days as a youth. He did not
turn to films until 1942 and did not weigh-in fully committed until
1944, with a host of both well-crafted and just fair movies until the
end of World War II. When he went all in, though, he excelled as
strong-willed authoritarian and ambitious, murderous--but
well-bred--villains. Among his better roles in that period were in
The Seventh Cross (1944),
The Missing Juror (1944),
Counter-Attack (1945) and
My Name Is Julia Ross (1945)
with a young Nina Foch. Averaging six or more
films per year throughout the 1940s, he appeared not only in dramas and
thrillers, but also period pieces and even some westerns. His standout
role, however--and probably the one he is best remembered for--was the
silver-haired, dark-suited and mysteriously rich Ballin Mundson in
Gilda (1946), who malevolently inserted
himself into the lives of smoldering
Rita Hayworth and moody
Glenn Ford.By the early 1950s he had sampled the waters of early TV. He had many
appearances on such anthology series as
Four Star Playhouse (1952),
The Ford Television Theatre (1952)
and
Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955),
among others. He became a familiar presence in episodic TV series
beginning in 1954. He made the rounds of most of the hit shows of the
period, including a slew of westerns, including such obscure series as
The Texan (1958) and
The Rough Riders (1958). He
was familiar to viewers of crime dramas--such as
Perry Mason (1957)--and such
classic sci-fi and horror series as
Thriller (1960),
The Outer Limits (1963) and
Night Gallery (1969). He did
some 200 TV roles altogether, but still continued his film appearances.
He assayed what many consider his best role as the ambitious French Gen.
Paul Mireau, a fanatic and martinet whose lust for fame and glory leads
to the deaths of hundreds of French soldiers in a senseless frontal
attack on heavily fortified German lines in
Stanley Kubrick classic antiwar film
Paths of Glory (1957). Macready's
performance stood out in a film brimming with standout performances,
from such veterans as Kirk Douglas,
Adolphe Menjou,
Ralph Meeker and
Timothy Carey. The film was even more
striking when it turns out that it was based on a true incident.Macready stayed busy into the 1960s, mainly in TV roles. He had a
three-year run as Martin Peyton in the hit series
Peyton Place (1964), the first
prime-time soap opera and a launching pad for many a young rising star
of the time. His film roles became fewer, but there were some good
ones--the Yul Brynner adventure period piece
Taras Bulba (1962) and a meaty role
as an advisor to US Prlesident
Fredric March attempting to stop a coup by
a right-wing general played by
Burt Lancaster in the gripping
Seven Days in May (1964). His
next-to-last film appearance was as a very human
Cordell Hull, Secretary of State, in
Universal's splashy, big-budget but somewhat uneven story of Pearl
Harbor,
Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970).Another role that stands out in his career is a one-in-a-kind film
which you would not expect to find George
Macready--Blake Edwards'
uproarious comedy -The Great Race (1965) -. Macready shined in one
of the film's several subplots, this one a spoof of the "Ruritanian"
chestnut "The Prisoner of Zenda", in which the racers find themselves
in the middle of palace intrigue in a small European monarchy. Macready
played a general trying to stave off a coup by using Professor Fate
(Jack Lemmon, who is a double for the
drunken ruler. Macready held his own with such comedy veterans as
Lemmon, Tony Curtis,
Natalie Wood and a host of others.
To top it of, Macready gets involved in one of the great pie fights in
film history, and takes one right in the kisser!In real life George Macready was as cultured as he appeared to be on-screen. He was a well-regarded connoisseur of art, and he and a fellow
art devotee--and longtime friend--Vincent Price, opened a very successful Los Angeles
art gallery together during World War II. As far as the villain roles
went, Macready was grateful for the depth they allowed him through his
years as both film and television actor. "I like heavies," he once
said, and to that he added with a philosophic twinkle, "I think there's
a little bit of evil in all of us."