Oscar Actors: Massey, Raymond–Background, Career, Awards (Cumulative Advantage)

Raymond 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 Best Actor Oscar.

My Oscar Book:

Among his well-known roles were Dr Gillespie in the NBC television series Dr. Kildare (1961–1966), Abraham Farlan in A Matter of Life and Death, and Jonathan Brewster in Arsenic and Old Lace (1944).

Massey was born in Toronto, Ontario, the son of Anna (née Vincent), who was American-born, and Chester Daniel Massey, the wealthy owner of the Massey-Harris Tractor Company. He was the grandson of businessman Hart Massey and great-grandson of founder Daniel Massey.

His branch of the Massey family emigrated 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 briefly at Upper Canada College in Toronto, Ontario before transferring after 2 years to Appleby College in Oakville, Ontario, and taking several courses at the University of Toronto, where he was an active member of the Kappa Alpha Society.

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.

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. He organized a minstrel show troupe with himself as end man in blackface to bolster morale of allied troops on occupation duty in Vladivostok.

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.

In 1942, during World War II, Massey rejoined the Canadian Army and served as a major in the adjutant general’s branch. After being wounded, he was invalided from the Canadian Army in 1943. He became an American citizen in 1944.

He first appeared on the London stage in 1922 in Eugene O’Neill’s In the Zone.

He performed in over 80 plays, including Pygmalion with Gertrude Lawrence; Ethan Fromme with Ruth Gordon; and the George Bernard Shaw works The Doctor’s Dilemma and Candida with Katharine Cornell. In 1929, he directed the London premiere of The Silver Tassie. He received poor reviews in his debut on Broadway in an unorthodox 1931 production of Hamlet.

His first movie was High Treason (1928).

In 1931, he played Sherlock Holmes in The Speckled Band, the first sound film version of the story.

In 1934, he played the villain in The Scarlet Pimpernel, and in 1936, he starred in Things to Come, a film adaptation by H.G. Wells of his own speculative novel The Shape of Things to Come (1933). In 1944, Massey played the district attorney in Fritz Lang’s classic film noir The Woman in the Window, which starred Edward G. Robinson and Joan Bennett. He portrayed the American Revolutionary War character Abraham Farlan, who hated the British for making him a casualty of that war, in the 1946 film A Matter of Life and Death (titled Stairway to Heaven in the U.S.)

Despite being Canadian, Massey became famous for playing archetypal American figures.

He played abolitionist-insurrectionist John Brown in two films: Santa Fe Trail (1940) and again in the low-budget Seven Angry Men (1955).  Brown’s character is wild-eyed lunatic in Santa Fe Trail, whereas he is well-intentioned but misguided character in the sympathetic Seven Angry Men.

Massey scored a great triumph on Broadway in Robert E. Sherwood’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play Abe Lincoln in Illinois despite reservations about Lincoln’s being portrayed by a Canadian.

Typecast as President Abe Lincoln

He repeated his stage role in the 1940 film version, for which he was nominated for Best Actor Oscar.

Massey again portrayed Lincoln in The Day Lincoln Was Shot on Ford Star Jubilee (1956), a silent appearance in How the West Was Won (1962), and two TV adaptations of Abe Lincoln in Illinois broadcast in 1950 and 1951.

He once complained jokingly that he was “the only actor ever typecast as a president.” His preparation for the role was so detailed and obsessive that one person commented that Massey would not be satisfied with his Lincoln impersonation until someone assassinated him.

On stage in a dramatic reading of Stephen Vincent Benét’s John Brown’s Body (1953), Massey, in addition to narrating along with Tyrone Power and Judith Anderson, took on the roles of both John Brown and Lincoln.

Massey played Canadian on-screen only once, in 49th Parallel (1941).

During World War II, he teamed up with Katharine Cornell and other leading actors in a revival of Shaw’s Candida to benefit the Army Emergency Fund and the Navy Relief Society.

Massey portrayed Jonathan Brewster in the film version of Arsenic and Old Lace. The character had been created by Boris Karloff for the stage version, and a running gag in the play and the film was the character’s resemblance to Karloff.

Even though the film was released in 1944, it was shot in 1941, at which time Karloff still was contracted to the Broadway play and could not be released for the filming (unlike costars Josephine Hull, Jean Adair and John Alexander).

Massey and Karloff had appeared together in James Whale’s suspense film The Old Dark House (1932).

After Massey became US citizen, he continued to work in Hollywood.

Memorable film roles included the husband of Joan Crawford during her Oscar-nominated role in Possessed (1947) and the doomed publishing tycoon Gail Wynand in The Fountainhead (1949), with Patricia Neal and Gary Cooper.

In 1955, he starred in East of Eden as Adam Trask, father of Cal, played by James Dean, and Aron, played by Richard Davalos.

Massey became well known on TV in the 1950s and 1960s. He was cast in 1960 as Sir Oliver Garnett in the episode “Trunk Full of Dreams” of the NBC series Riverboat.

Massey is remembered as Dr. Gillespie in the popular 1961–1966 NBC series Dr. Kildare, with Richard Chamberlain in the title role.

Massey and his son Daniel were cast as father and son in The Queen’s Guards (1961).

Massey was married three times.

Margery Fremantle from 1921 to 1929 (divorce); they had one child, architect Geoffrey Massey.

He was married to Adrianne Allen, stage actress in London and on Broadway, from 1929 to 1939. They had two children who followed them into acting: Anna Massey and Daniel Massey.

His third wife was Dorothy Whitney, from 1939 until her death in 1982.

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.

Massey married the lawyer who represented him in court, Dorothy Whitney, while his then wife Allen married the opposing lawyer, William Dwight Whitney.

Massey’s older brother, Vincent Massey, was the first Canadian-born governor general of Canada. Massey also dabbled in politics, appearing in 1964 TV 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 aggressive strategy and win the war quickly.

Massey died of pneumonia in Los Angeles, California on July 29, 1983, a month before he would have turned 87.

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.

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.

His achievements have been recognized in a signature cocktail, the Raymond Massey.

Filmography

1928 High Treason Member of Federated States Council Uncredited
1929 The Crooked Billet Undetermined role Uncredited
1931 The Speckled Band Sherlock Holmes
1932 The Face at the Window Paul le Gros
The Old Dark House Philip Waverton
1934 The Scarlet Pimpernel Citizen Chauvelin
1936 Things to Come John Cabal / Oswald Cabal
1937 Fire Over England Philip II of Spain
Dreaming Lips Miguel del Vayo
Under the Red Robe Cardinal Richelieu
The Prisoner of Zenda Black Michael
The Hurricane Governor Eugene De Laage
1938 The Drum Prince Ghul
Black Limelight Peter Charrington
1940 Abe Lincoln in Illinois Abraham Lincoln Nominated for Best Actor
Santa Fe Trail John Brown
1941 49th Parallel Andy Brock
Dangerously They Live Dr. Ingersoll
1942 Reap the Wild Wind, King Cutler
Desperate Journey Major Otto Baumeister
1943 Action in the North Atlantic Capt. Steve Jarvis
1944 Arsenic and Old Lace Jonathan Brewster
The Woman in the Window Dist. Atty. Frank Lalor
1945 Hotel Berlin Arnim von Dahnwitz
God Is My Co-Pilot Maj. Gen. Claire L. Chennault
1946 A Matter of Life and Death Abraham Farlan
1947 Possessed Dean Graham
Mourning Becomes Electra Brig. Gen. Ezra Mannon
1949 The Fountainhead Gail Wynand
Roseanna McCoy Old Randall McCoy
1950 Chain Lightning Leland Willis
Barricade Boss Kruger
Dallas Will Marlow
1951 Sugarfoot Jacob Stint
David and Bathsheba Nathan
Come Fill the Cup John Ives
1952 Carson City A. J. “Big” Jack Davis
1953 The Desert Song Sheik Yousseff
1955 Prince of Players Junius Brutus Booth
Battle Cry Maj. Gen. Snipes
East of Eden Adam Trask
Seven Angry Men John Brown
1957 Omar Khayyam The Shah
1958 The Naked and the Dead Gen. Cummings

1959 Alfred Hitchcock Presents Colonel Archie Dittman Season 5, episode 11, “Road Hog”
1960 Wagon Train Montezuma IX Season 4, episode 6, “Princess of a Lost Tribe”
1961 The Great Impostor Abbott Donner
The Fiercest Heart Willem Prinsloo
The Queen’s Guards Capt. Fellowes
1961–1966 Dr. Kildare Dr. Leonard Gillespie
1962 How the West Was Won Abraham Lincoln
1969 Mackenna’s Gold The Preacher
1971–1972 Night Gallery Colonel Archie Dittman
Doctor Glendon Season 1, episode 4, second segment: “Clean Kills and Other Trophies”
Season 3, episode 4: “Rare Objects”
1972 All My Darling Daughters Matthew Cunningham TV Movie
1973 The President’s Plane Is Missing Secretary of State Freeman Sharkey

TV movie

My Darling Daughters’ Anniversary Matthew Cunningham TV MovieRadio appearances

Year Program Episode/source
1941 Philip Morris Playhouse Wuthering Heights[16]
1942 Philip Morris Playhouse The Man Who Played God [17]
1944 The Doctor Fights Narrator
1945 Inner Sanctum Mystery Death Across the Board[18]
1952 Cavalcade of America With Malice Towards None[19]
1952 The Endless Frontier Only One to a Customer[20]