Fredric March began his career in 1920, by working as an extra in movies filmed in New York City.
19 Facts About Fredric March
2.
Fredric March made his stage debut on Broadway in 1926 at the age of 29, and by the end of the decade, he signed a film contract with Paramount Pictures.
3.
Fredric March closed out his career playing opposite Jeff Bridges and Lee Marvin in the 1973 film The Iceman Cometh.
4.
Fredric March began a career as a banker, but an emergency appendectomy caused him to re-evaluate his life, and in 1920, he began working as an "extra" in movies made in New York City, using a shortened form of his mother's maiden name.
5.
Fredric March appeared on Broadway in 1926, and by the end of the decade, he signed a film contract with Paramount Pictures.
6.
Fredric March received an Oscar nomination for the 4th Academy Awards in 1930 for The Royal Family of Broadway, in which he played a role modeled on John Barrymore.
7.
Fredric March won the Academy Award for Best Actor for the 5th Academy Awards in 1932 for Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.
8.
Fredric March returned to Broadway after a ten-year absence in 1937 with a notable flop, Yr.
9.
Fredric March won two Best Actor Tony Awards: in 1947 for the play Years Ago, written by Ruth Gordon and in 1957 for his performance as James Tyrone in the original Broadway production of Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night.
10.
Fredric March had major successes in A Bell for Adano in 1944 and Gideon in 1961, and he played in Ibsen's An Enemy of the People on Broadway in 1951.
11.
Fredric March won his second Oscar in 1946 for The Best Years of Our Lives.
12.
Fredric March later regretted turning down the role and finally played Willy Loman in Columbia Pictures's 1951 film version of the play, directed by Laslo Benedek.
13.
In 1957, Fredric March was awarded the George Eastman Award, given by George Eastman House for "distinguished contribution to the art of film".
14.
Fredric March co-starred with Spencer Tracy in the 1960 Stanley Kramer film Inherit the Wind, in which he played a dramatized version of famous orator and political figure William Jennings Bryan.
15.
Fredric March made several spoken word recordings, including a version of Oscar Wilde's The Selfish Giant issued in 1945 in which he narrated and played the title role, and The Sounds of History, a twelve volume LP set accompanying the twelve volume set of books The Life History of the United States, published by Time-Life.
16.
Fredric March was married to actress Florence Eldridge from 1927 until his death in 1975, and they had two adopted children.
17.
In July 1936, Fredric March co-founded the Hollywood Anti-Nazi League, along with the writers Dorothy Parker and Donald Ogden Stewart, the director Fritz Lang, and the composer Oscar Hammerstein.
18.
In 1938, Fredric March was one of many Hollywood personalities who were investigated by the House Un-American Activities Committee and the hunt for Communists in the film community.
19.
Fredric March died of prostate cancer in Los Angeles on April 14,1975, at the age of 77.