George Macready

Biography

George Macready--the name probably doesn't 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…