Dancer

George Raft

American actor (1895–1980)

Born 1901 · New York CityDied 1980United States
George Raft
Image: Whitey Schafer · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

George Raft was an American dancer, born in 1901 in New York City, who died in 1980.

Biography

George Raft (né Ranft; September 26, 1901 – November 24, 1980) was an American film actor and dancer identified with portrayals of gangsters in crime melodramas of the 1930s and the 1940s. A stylish leading man in dozens of movies, Raft is remembered for his gangster roles in Quick Millions (1931) with Spencer Tracy, Scarface (1932) with Paul Muni, Each Dawn I Die (1939) with James Cagney, Invisible Stripes (1939) with Humphrey Bogart, and Billy Wilder's comedy Some Like It Hot (1959) with Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon; and as a dancer in Bolero (1934) with Carole Lombard and a truck driver in They Drive by Night (1940) with Ann Sheridan, Ida Lupino and again with Bogart.

Raft's association with organized crime figures resulted in controversy throughout his life, and led to a ban from Great Britain in 1967.

From the Wikipedia article “George Raft”, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Contemporaries

Facts from Wikidata (Q436187), CC0.