RAYMOND MASSEY, FAMOUS FOR HIS PORTRAYAL OF LINCOLN
July 31, 1983
Raymond Massey, who starred in movies as Abraham Lincoln and on television as Dr. Gillespie in the ''Dr. Kildare'' series, died Friday at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles, relatives said today.
Mr. Massey had been hospitalized for three and a half weeks with pneumonia, a son, Geoffrey Massey, said.
The actor, who was 86 years old and lived in retirement in Beverly Hills, had just completed filming an autobiographical program to be shown on Canadian television. ---- Long and Successful Career By MURRAY SCHUMACH
Raymond Massey's imposing presence, craggy handsomeness, vibrant voice, and solid professionalism brought him a long and successful career in the theater, movies, and television.
His career ranged from Shakespeare, Strindberg, Shaw, O'Casey, and O'Neill in the theater to a wide range of villains and heroes in films, and the role of the mature Dr. Gillespie in the television series ''Dr. Kildare.'' But to Americans, Mr. Massey was probably most vividly recalled as Lincoln in Robert Sherwood's Pulitzer Prize-winning play ''Abe Lincoln in Illinois,'' whom he also portrayed in the movie version.
He seemed singularly suited to the portrayal of Lincoln, with a 6-foot 3-inch figure and somber mien. His considerable talent won him critical acclaim, with one reviewer calling the stage performance ''exalted, informed with an inner passion.'' For years after, it was written of him that this performance ''took the face of Lincoln off the penny and put it into the hearts of millions of Americans.'' Praised for 'Ethan Frome'
Mr. Massey also won high praise in the title role of ''Ethan Frome,'' co-starring with Ruth Gordon and Pauline Lord; as Henry Higgins, opposite Gertrude Lawrence's Eliza, in ''Pygmalion''; as God in Archibald MacLeish's ''J.B.'' and in a dramatic reading of Stephen Vincent Benet's ''John Brown's Body,'' with Judith Anderson and Tyrone Power.
Yet, for all his devotion to his art and his impressive talent, his shortcomings kept him from the very top rank of stardom. Thus, although he was praised for his sensitivity in the title role of Strindberg's ''The Father,'' critics had reservations. His Brutus in Shakespeare's ''Julius Caesar'' was considered weak.
He was, however, much better than the one-dimensional roles of most of his movies - the power-mad publisher in ''The Fountainhead,'' the cruel mine owner in ''Barricade'' or the houseburner in ''Dallas.'' When given the part of John Brown in two films, he was better than the movies.
Unlike a number of stars of his generation who had started in the theater, he did not look down on movies.
Both, he said, were ''show business.''
He was offended, though, by what he considered excessive vulgarity in the theater in the 1970's. ''To me,'' he said, ''the theater should be an enchantment, make-believe, let's pretend. Today it's sex, obscenity, and squalor.''
Although he wrote two books about his career, ''When I Was Young'' and ''A Hundred Different Lives,'' he did not enliven them, as was the fashion in such books, with malicious gossip, scandal, or sexual episodes.
In one respect he became active outside his work, as an advocate of political conservatism.
When Senator Barry Goldwater ran for President, Mr. Massey was an active supporter, touring with the Republicans and working on a campaign film.
Mr. Massey came by his conservatism naturally. He was born in Toronto on Aug. 30, 1896, into a wealthy and prominent Canadian family that had roots in the pre-Revolutionary American colonies. He was educated at the University of Toronto and at Oxford. His brother Vincent was to become the first Canadian-born Governor General of Canada. His family, which controlled a large farm implement business, was so devoutly Methodist that it at first opposed his desire to be an actor.
Mr. Massey did not become a naturalized United States citizen until 1944. Volunteered for the Canadian Army.
It took World War I to persuade Mr. Massey that he ought to become an actor. He volunteered for the Canadian army and went to France as a lieutenant. He was wounded twice at Ypres and, after more than four months in the hospital, he was sent to the United States as an instructor in gunnery for the Reserve Officer Training Corps. He rejoined the Canadian forces and was with them in their invasion of Siberia of 1918, following the Communist Revolution in Russia. It was in Siberia that he organized theatricals for the troops and, as he said later, ''The bug bit me.''
After he was mustered out, he went to Balliol College, Oxford. Back in Canada, he tried the farm-implement business, but pleaded with his family to let him go into the theater. His father gave permission on the condition that he would not rehearse on the Sabbath. The young man set out for England to become a professional actor, but rehearsed on the Sabbath. He encountered more than the usual difficulty at first because the English regarded his speech as too American, just as Broadway was later to think of it for a time as too English. But the special accent enabled him, in 1922, to get into his first play in England, O'Neill's ''In the Zone.''
For nearly 10 years, he acted in England in several dozen plays and directed numerous others. He made his Broadway debut in 1931 in an unorthodox production of ''Hamlet'' that had little melancholia. Mr. Massey's performance did not get good reviews. He made other Broadway appearances, but the high point of his career was his poignant, laconic portrayal of the lonely young man who became President in ''Abe Lincoln in Illinois'' in 1938.
His solid craftsmanship in subsequent years made him a regular performer in Hollywood, his films including ''The Scarlet Pimpernel,'' ''The Prisoner of Zenda,'' ''Reap the Wild Wind,'' ''Mourning Becomes Electra,'' ''Arsenic and Old Lace,'' ''East of Eden''and ''Seven Angry Men.''
He was married three times - to Peggy Fremantle, Adrienne Allen, and Dorothy Ludington Whitney. He had another son, Daniel, and a daughter, Anna, and a stepdaughter, Dorothy Whitney.
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