Raymond Massey
Raymond Hart Massey (August 30, 1896 – July 29, 1983) was a Canadian actor, known for his commanding, stage-trained voice. For his lead role in Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1940), Massey was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor. He reprised his role as Lincoln on television and in How the West Was Won (1962). Among his other well-known roles were Dr. Gillespie in the NBC television series Dr. Kildare (1961–1966), John Brown in Santa Fe Trail (1940) and Seven Angry Men (1955), Abraham Farlan in A Matter of Life and Death (1946), and Jonathan Brewster in Arsenic and Old Lace (1944).[1]
Raymond Massey
July 29, 1983 (aged 86)
Beaverdale Memorial Park in New Haven, Connecticut
1918–1973
3, including Anna Massey and Daniel Massey
Vincent Massey (brother)
Lionel Massey (nephew)
Early life[edit]
Massey was born in Toronto, Ontario, the son of Anna Vincent, who was American-born, and her husband Chester Daniel Massey, the wealthy co-owner of the Massey-Harris tractor company. He was the grandson of businessman Hart Massey and great-grandson of company founder Daniel Massey.[2] His branch of the Massey family immigrated to Canada from New England a few years before the War of 1812, their ancestors having migrated from England to the Massachusetts colony in the 1630s.
He attended secondary school at Upper Canada College in Toronto for two years before transferring to Appleby College in Oakville, Ontario.[3] He also took several courses at the University of Toronto, where he was an active member of the Kappa Alpha Society.
Military service[edit]
First World War[edit]
Massey joined the Canadian Army at the outbreak of World War I, and served on the Western Front in the Royal Regiment of Canadian Artillery. Lieutenant Massey returned to Canada after being wounded at Zillebeke in Belgium during the Battle of Mont Sorrel in 1916 and was engaged as an army instructor for American officers at Yale University.[4][5][6] In 1918, he was recalled to active service and joined the Canadian Siberian Expeditionary Force that went to Siberia during the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War. On the orders of his commanding general, he organized a minstrel show troupe with himself as end man in blackface to bolster morale of allied troops on occupation duty in Vladivostok.[7]
After returning home in 1919, he graduated from Balliol College, Oxford. He later went to work in the family business, selling farm implements, but he was drawn to the theater. He persuaded his reluctant family to allow him to pursue this career.[4]
Second World War[edit]
In 1942, during World War II, Massey rejoined the Canadian Army and served as a major in the adjutant general's branch.[5] After being wounded, he was invalided from the Canadian Army in 1943. He became an American citizen in 1944.[8]
Massey was married three times.
His high-profile estrangement and divorce from Adrianne Allen was the inspiration for Ruth Gordon's and Garson Kanin's script for the film Adam's Rib (1949), starring Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, and indeed Massey married the lawyer who represented him in court, Dorothy Whitney, while his then former wife, Allen, married the opposing lawyer, William Dwight Whitney.[12][13]
Massey's older brother, Vincent Massey, was the first Canadian-born governor general of Canada. Massey also dabbled in politics, appearing in a 1964 television advertisement in support of the conservative Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater. Massey denounced U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson for a "no-win" strategy in the Vietnam War, suggesting that Goldwater would pursue an aggressive strategy and win the war quickly.[14]
Death[edit]
Massey died of pneumonia in Los Angeles, California on July 29, 1983, a month before he would have turned 87.[4] His death came on the same day as that of David Niven, with whom he had co-starred in The Prisoner of Zenda and A Matter of Life and Death. Massey is buried in New Haven, Connecticut's Beaverdale Memorial Park.
Honors[edit]
Massey has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, one for films at 1719 Vine Street and one for television at 6708 Hollywood Boulevard.[15] His achievements have also been recognized in a signature cocktail, the Raymond Massey.