Home> Facts and Trivia > Stars > Fredric March
Fredric March Facts
| Sign | Virgo |
| Born |
Aug 31, 1897 Racine, WI |
| Died |
Apr 14, 1975 Los Angeles, CA |
| Age | Died at 77 |
| Total Facts | 44 |
"We did 'Long Day's Journey...' for two years - that was enough! I've had the theater. It becomes a damn bore night after night.".
Marlon Brando praised March as his favorite actor in his youth.
A 500-seat theater was named after him on October 15, 1971, at the University of Wisconsin branch in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.
Adopted 2 Children with his wife, Florence Eldridge: Penelope ("Penny," born 1932) and Anthony (born 1934).
After he and his wife Florence Eldridge appeared in the heavily panned play, "Yr. Obedient Husband" in 1938, they ran an ad in New York newspapers; a cartoon borrowed from the New Yorker magazine, it showed a a trapeze artist missing his partner. The caption read: "Oops! Sorry!"
Although it was not used, he proposed the following epitaph for his tombstone: "This is just my lot.".
Because he considered 12 his lucky number, he shortened Frederick to Fredric, shortened his mother's maiden name from Marcher to March, and as of New Year's Day, 1924, Fredric March was born.
Beverly Hills mansion built for March in 1931 was the first home of Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston. It is now owned by Madonna.
Bogart and March played chess every day during breaks in the filming of the Desperate Hours.
Director John Frankenheimer calls Fredric March "the finest human being I've ever known, as well as the best actor I ever worked with," citing March's celebrated turns in The Iceman Cometh and Seven Days in May.
Early in March's career, director John Cromwell, persuaded him to change his last name. His first wife wanted him to use his middle name and her first name: McIntyre Ellis. But he could not abide a name like that, being too used to Fred. Finally, they settled on his idea, Fredric March.
Elected class president in his last year of grammar school, his senior year of high school and again in his senior year of college.
For a while after undergoing major surgery for prostate cancer in 1970 it seemed March's acting career was finished. However he was able to give one final great performance in The Iceman Cometh (1973).
For many years he maintained his primary residence in New Milford, Connecticut. After his death, the property was subsequently leased to playwright Lillian Hellman as well as to Henry Kissinger.
Graduated with honors from the University of Wisconsin with a degree in economics.
He and Basil Rathbone both appeared together in two television adaptations of "A Christmas Carol", shown in the 1950s. In the first, telecast in 1954 as part of the "Shower of Stars" (1954) series, March played Scrooge and Rathbone played Marley's Ghost. In the second, telecast in 1958 as part of the "Fredric March Presents Tales from Dickens" (1958) series, March was the narrator, and Rathbone played Scrooge.
He entered the banking business in New York in 1920, working at what was then known as First National City Bank (now Citibank) when a ruptured appendix nearly killed him. While he was recuperating, his landlady (a former actress) related anecdotes from her days in the theater and he was so enchanted that he decided to pursue his real dream and become an actor.
He is the first actor to win an Academy Award for a horror film (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931)). The next would not be until Anthony Hopkins in The Silence of the Lambs (1991).
He singled out The Best Years of Our Lives as his favorite movie role and Long Day's Journey into Night as his favorite stage play. He considered work in television "an awful experience".
His stage name was a shortened version of his mother's maiden name (Marcher).
His wife, actress Florence Eldridge, appeared with him in The Studio Murder Mystery (1929), Les Misérables (1935), Another Part of the Forest (1948), An Act of Murder (1948), Christopher Columbus (1949), and Inherit the Wind (1960). On TV, she appeared with him in the "Producers' Showcase" (1954) presentation of 'Dodsworth' on 30 April 1956.
In 1937, March was listed as the fifth highest paid individual in America, earning a half-million dollars.
In 1938, March came in second in an audience poll for the role of Rhett Butler in Gone With the Wind.
In 1943, March made tours for the USO covering nearly 40,000 miles. His other contributions to the war effort included volunteering at the Stage Door Canteen and fund-raising activities.
In 1955 an informal poll of some thirty top stars, directors and producers was tabulated and announced. Fredric March was picked as Best Film Actor two to one, with runners-up Marlon Brando, William Holden, Ronald Colman, and Spencer Tracy.
In 1959, March was accorded the honor of reading the Gettysburg Address to a joint session of Congress on the 150th anniversary of Lincoln's birth.
In 1962, JFK called on him to do a dramatic reading at a White House dinner, and "at home" for 30 past Nobel Prize winners.
In 1965, both Marches' had been recruited by the State Department to tour 8 New Eastern countries presenting poetry and excerpts from plays in which they had appeared. They were to go abroad under the auspices of the State Department's division of cultural presentations. Given a choice of places to visit they selected Greece, Iran, Turkey, Italy, Egypt, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Syria. In setting up their tour, someone suggested that showings might be arranged along the way of some of March's film.
In 1975, Marjorie Main, Larry Parks and Richard Conte died within days of Fredric March.
It seems that nobody but Jesse L. Lasky wanted to make "The Adventures of Mark Twain". He fought for years to convince Warner Bros. to back a screen biography of the noted writer. Director Irving Rapper wasn't interested in making the film until he learned his friend, Fredric March, was first choice to star. March had been suggested by Twain's only living daughter, Clara Clemens Gabrilowitch, who informed Lasky that she would not help with the picture unless March played her father. But even with such a stirring endorsement, March had his doubts. He only accepted the role after the makeup department shot a test in which he played Twain at 65. When a picture of March in makeup was released to the papers Twain's daughter thought somebody had discovered another archival photo of her father.
March also appeared with his wife, Florence Eldridge, in Mary of Scotland (1936).
March and his second wife were both active supporters of the Democratic Party.
March kept in shape by swimming, playing tennis and horseback riding. His chief hobby was photography.
March was a moderate smoker, emptying a pack of cigarettes a day; allowed himself one cigar a day after dinner, and was a mild drinker. He was an avid letter writer, and he kept up a large correspondence. Whenever he was asked by a newspaper or magazine for an article, he did not allow any publicity man to ghost it for him, but wrote it himself.
March was of German, English and Scottish descent.
March's daughter, Penny, remembered her father during her growing up years as fun, charming and very kind, writing in 1990, "I remember very well how handsome he looked back in the days when people really dressed up in the evening, and he'd have on tails and an evening cape to go out and I got to pop up his beautiful top hat" (Letter, Penelope March Fantacci, 12 September 1990).
Proposed for possible blacklisting in 1949 by Californian branch of HUAC
Served in the First World War as an artillery lieutenant.
Shares the distinction with actors José Ferrer, Helen Hayes and Ingrid Bergman of being the first winners of acting Tony Awards when the annual event was established in 1947
The final Hyde make-up in "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" was so extreme that it almost permanently disfigured him. After filming was completed he was hospitalized for three weeks and as his co-star Rose Hobart said, "Fredric March was lucky he wasn't ruined for life".
When asked which he preferred making, movies or live theater, he remarked, "Pictures are physically tiring; the theater is mentally tiring. Pictures last, the theater is built on sand. But I am grateful for my theater experience".
While pursuing his acting career, March, not wanting to overlook any means of keeping a little cash in his pocket, did some modeling. He proceeded to leave an attractive photo of himself at the various agents with the following stats typed on the back: Bickel, Fred M., Main 9939 Home 12 Sidney Pl., 32 waist, 10 shoe, 23 yrs., 5-11", 158 lbs., will not pose in underwear. March immortalized shoes, shaving cream and cravats and posed for such famous artists as Charles Dana Gibson and Howard Chandler Christy and for Arrow shirt advertisements.
William Holden was quoted as saying that Spencer Tracy and Fredric March were his acting ideals.
Won two Tony Awards as Best Actor (Dramatic), the first in 1947 for his performance in Ruth Gordon's "Years Ago," an award shared with José Ferrer for "Cyrano de Bergerac," and the second, ten years later, in 1957, for his landmark performance in Eugene O'Neill's "Long Day's Journey Into Night." He was also nominated in the same category in 1962 for Paddy Chayefsky's "Gideon."