Fredric March

During his lifetime, Fredric March was widely acclaimed as the finest actor of his generation. A symbol of the romancing, swashbuckling, glamorous Hollywood of the golden days of the thirties and forties, March was perhaps the only actor to maintain equally successful careers on both the screen and the legitimate stage.
Tall, classically handsome and possessing a mellifluous speaking voice, March settled in Hollywood with the coming of sound, and remained in top roles for over 20 years. In later years, he moved gracefully from leading man to character star. March’s career brought him two Academy Awards as well as a number of nominations, two Tony Awards, numerous citations and degrees; and a variety of plaques and awards that were a testament to his eminence in the acting field.
Equally adept in comedy and drama, in costume-romance and modern dress, at mental anguish or screwball antics, March as an artist displayed a thousand faces. He was one of those rare performers who went from juvenile leads to the crustiest of old characters. Yet today, Fredric March is one of the most forgotten of all the Hollywood giants. Perhaps this is because, unlike his contemporaries Tracy, Gable and Cooper, March never sought to project his own personality on-screen. Instead, he endeavored to create a new characterization for each role, to become the individual he was portraying- so that an audience never knew where the person “Fredric March” ended, and the characters “Mr Hyde“, “Norman Maine” or “Mark Twain” began.
FREDRIC MARCH was born Ernest Frederick McIntyre Bickel on 31st August 1897, in Racine, Wisconsin. He was the youngest child of John Frederick Bickel and the former Cora Brown Marcher, who were married on January 23, 1886. Fred’s siblings were Harold Leroy (born April 11 1887), Jack M. (b. February 21, 1892) and Rosina Elizabeth (b. April 2 1889). His father was president and treasurer of Racine Hardware Manufacturing Company, which produced wagon hardware and office supplies.
Fred had a happy middle-class childhood, and was adept at performing from an early age, mimicking passers-by on the street, and giving recitations for his family. He attended the Winslow Grammar school, and was class president in his final year there. After the war ended Fred returned to the University where he was senior class president, a track star, manager of the football team, and active in dramatics and Union Vodvil.
Upon graduation, Freddie worked as a bank teller at the First National City Bank of New York in Racine and New York. A brush with death (necessitating an emergency appen..omy) caused young Bickel to rethink his priorities, and he decided to give up banking and become an actor. Fred graduated from the Racine High School (where he was also class president) in 1915, then went to the University of Wisconsin, where he remained for two years, majoring in finance and economics. He enjoyed at the University the same popularity he had known at Winslow Grammar and Racine High. When the United States entered World War I in 1917, young Bickel, then twenty, enlisted in the Army, went to Officers Candidate School, and was eventually commissioned a Lieutenant in the Artillery.
Fred Bickel appeared as an extra in silent pictures filmed in New York, and also worked as a photographic model. His first stage role was a non-speaking part as Victor Hugo in David Belasco’s “Debarau” (1920). More small parts followed in touring companies and stock, and on Broadway in “The Lawbreaker”. On the advice of friend John Cromwell, Frederick Bickel became Fredric March on New Year's Day, 1924. To announce the change, Fredric sent the following message to agents: “This is 1924, I won’t be Bickel any more. Fredric March is now my name, Wishing everyone the same, Happy New Year!”
In 1924 Fredric March married actress Ellis Baker- but the union was short lived, and they divorced in 1927. In 1926 Fred was contracted as a player in a Denver touring company, and it was on this tour that he met Florence Eldridge, an actress who had worked her way up from the chorus to become a Broadway star in such plays as “The Cat and The Canary” and “The Great Gatsby”. They were married on May 30, 1927. Fredric March’s last Broadway play until 1938, was “The Devil in the Cheese” which closed early in 1927.
In 1927-28 Freddie and Florence toured with the Theatre Guild. March’s breakthrough came in 1928 when he played the role of Tony Cavendish in “The Royal Family” in Los Angeles. This brought the young actor to the attention of film executives, who signed March to a Paramount Contract. Freddie’s early films did little to enhance his career. His first film was “The Dummy”, followed by “The Wild Party” (as Clara Bow’s dishy professor), “The Studio Murder Mystery” in which Florence Eldridge also played, “Paris Bound”, “Footlights and Fools“ and the well-received “The Marriage Playground”.
His film fortunes looked up when Freddie was cast in “Laughter” in 1930 and the film adaptation of the play which had brought him fame, now titled “The Royal Family of Broadway”. This film brought Fredric March his first Oscar nomination. For “Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde” (1931) Freddie turned in one of the best performances in cinema history in the difficult dual roles, and won his first Academy Award.
He was now one of Hollywood’s hottest tickets, loaned out to M-G-M for the outstanding romance “Smilin Through” (1932), in Cecil B. DeMille’s “The Sign Of The Cross” (1932), “Design For Living” (1933), “The Eagle and The Hawk (1933), and as the Grim Reaper in “Death Takes A Holiday” (1934).
The Marches adopted two children: Penelope in 1932, and Anthony (named after Fredric's character Tony Cavendish in “The Royal Family”) in 1934. Fredric kept his figure trim by swimming, playing tennis, and horse-riding. His chief hobby was photography. He was also a vice-president of the newly formed Screen Actors Guild. Freddie felt restricted by his Paramount contract and decided not to renew when it expired in late 1934. He signed for a two-picture deal with Darryl F. Zanuck’s Twentieth Century Pictures and also worked for other studios. His films of the period include “Les Miserables” (one of his greatest performances, as Jean Valjean), “The Affairs Of Cellini”, “The Barretts Of Wimpole Street”, two films for Samuel Goldwyn’s company: “We Live Again” and “The Dark Angel”, “Anna Karenina” with Greta Garbo at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and as the title character in the epic “Anthony Adverse”.
Fredric March was one of the highest-paid persons in the United States in 1937, chiefly due to his magnificent performances in two classic films: “Nothing Sacred” with Carole Lombard, and as fading screen idol Norman Maine in “A Star Is Born”. Freddie was again nominated for an Oscar for this latter role, but due to the interfering activities of M-G-M head honcho Louis B. Mayer, March was denied the prize he so richly deserved.
Communist accusations haunted the Marches for many years, beginning in 1937-38. Fredric March appeared before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1938 and denied being a Communist. In 1940 he was again accused of Communist leanings by John L. Leech, and in 1948 Freddie and Florence won a libel action against the magazine “Counter-Attack” which had printed similar allegations. In 1940 he was back in Hollywood, to appear in “Susan And God” with Joan Crawford, “So Ends Our Night” and one of his best films, “One Foot In Heaven”, which was nominated for the Best Picture Oscar. Inexplicably, Fredric March’s performance, to which the film’s success was due, was not even nominated. He also appeared on Broadway in “Hope For A Harvest”. In 1942 March had on his record two successful film comedies, “Bedtime Story” and “I Married A Witch”, and one hit play- Thornton Wilder’s “The Skin Of Our Teeth” which won the Pulitzer Prize for drama.
Fredric March’s contribution to the war effort included touring with the USO, entertaining the troops on five continents, volunteering at the Stage Door Canteen, and fundraising activities. In 1944 he acted in two films, “Tomorrow The World” and “The Adventures of Mark Twain” and had one of his biggest stage hits as Major Joppolo in “A Bell For Adano”.
“The Best Years Of Our Lives” (1946) was the biggest money-maker of the 40s, and brought Fredric March his second Oscar as returning veteran Al Stephenson, in addition to winning eight other Oscars. In 1946 tied with Jose Ferrer for the first-ever Best Actor Tony Award for his role in “Years Ago”, becoming the only actor ever to win the highest honors of stage and screen in a single year.
Fredric and Florence March then appeared in three films together- “An Act of Murder”, “Another Part of the Forest” and “Christopher Columbus”, which was filmed in England. On stage, they appeared in “Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep” (1950), Arthur Miller’s “An Enemy of the People” (1951) and Lillian Hellman’s “The Autumn Garden” in 1951. Although Freddie had turned down the opportunity to play Willy Loman on stage (which he later claimed as his greatest professional regret), Fredric March received his fifth and final Oscar nomination for “Death of A Salesman” (1951). The Communist blacklist had affected Fredric March’s career and during the 50s he appeared less and less on screen, but his roles were generally important and in superior films. 1956 brought Freddie’s greatest stage success in Eugene O’Neill’s “Long Days Journey Into Night”, for which he won his second Tony Award for Best Actor. His films of this period included “Middle of the Night” with Kim Novak, and his only on-screen pairing with Spencer Tracy, in “Inherit The Wind”. His last Broadway play was “Gideon” in 1961, for which he was again nominated for a Tony Award., and in which he was cast, (appropriately enough) as God. He made few films in the 60s, but he was well-established by this time as America’s most respected actor.
In the 1960s the State Department honored Freddie and Florence by sending them on performance tours abroad. As far back as 1959 he was accorded the honor of reading Lincoln’s Gettysburg address to a joint session of Congress on the 150th anniversary of Lincoln’s birth. President and Mrs Kennedy in 1962 called on him to do a dramatic reading at a White House dinner and “at home” for past Nobel prize winners. He was also awarded many honorary degrees during these years.
On screen he played the President of the United States in 1964’s “Seven Days in May”, appeared in his only western “Hombre” in 1967, and “...tick...tick...tick...“ in 1970. His final role was one of his greatest- Harry Hope in the film version of Eugene O’Neill’s “The Iceman Cometh”. Ill-health dogged his later years, but Freddie and Florence spent the years travelling, visiting daughter Penny, who lived with her family in Italy. He was present at the University of Wisconsin for the dedication of the Fredric March Theater in 1971. He passed away, with Florence by his side, at 10:30am on April 14 1975, aged 77.