Raymond Massey

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Raymond Massey photographed by Carl Van Vechten

Raymond Hart Massey (August 30, 1896–July 29, 1983) was a Canadian actor. Born in Toronto, Ontario, he was a son of Chester D. Massey, the wealthy owner of the Massey-Ferguson Tractor Company. He attended secondary school briefly at Upper Canada College, before transferring to Appleby College^[1] in Oakville, Ontario, and graduated from university at University of Toronto where both he and his brother were active members in the Kappa Alpha Society, and Balliol College, Oxford.

At the outbreak of World War I, he joined the Canadian Army, serving with the artillery on the Western Front. He returned to Canada suffering shell-shock and was engaged as an army instructor for American officers at Yale. In 1918, he was sent to serve at Siberia, where he made his first stage appearance, entertaining American troops on occupation duty. Severely wounded in action in France, he was sent home, where he eventually worked in the family business, selling farm implements.

1 Acting career
2 Personal life
3 Honors
4 Selected filmography
5 See also
6 Footnote
7 External links

[edit] Acting career

Drawn to the theater, in 1922, he appeared on the London stage. His first movie role was High Treason in 1927. He played Sherlock Holmes in The Speckled Band in the following year. In 1936, he starred in H. G. Wells' Things to Come. Although there was a great outcry when a Canadian was cast as an American president, he scored a great triumph on Broadway in Robert E. Sherwood's play Abe Lincoln in Illinois, and repeated his role in the 1940 film version. Early in Massey's career, Lincoln's son, Robert Todd Lincoln, heard him perform and was struck by the similarity between Massey's speaking voice and that of his father.^{[citation needed]}

Despite being Canadian, Massey became famous for his quintessential American roles, as Abraham Lincoln in Abe Lincoln in Illinois (for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor), abolitionist John Brown in 1940's Santa Fe Trail, Lincoln again in 1962's How the West Was Won, and again as John Brown in the low-budget film Seven Angry Men. Interestingly, his second portrayal of Brown was much more sympathetic, presenting him as a well-intentioned, but misguided figure, while in Santa Fe Trail he was presented as a wild-eyed lunatic. Massey only played a Canadian on screen once, in Forty-Ninth Parallel (1941).

He rejoined the Canadian Army for World War II, though he would eventually be released from service and return to acting work. Following the war, he became an American citizen. Massey became well-known on television in the 1950s and 1960s, especially as Doctor Gillespie in the popular series Dr. Kildare.

[edit] Personal life

Massey was married three times.

Margery Fremantle from 1921 to 1929 (divorce); they had one child, Geoffrey Massey.
Adrianne Allen (February 7, 1907-September 14, 1993), the noted London and Broadway stage actress, from 1929 to 1939 (divorce). They had two children who followed him into acting: Anna Massey CBE, and the late Daniel Massey.
Dorothy Whitney from 1939 until his death.