Fredrik March was one of the most brilliant and versatile actors, personifying the golden age of Hollywood, who managed to make a long and almost flawless career in film. His real name is Ernest Frederick MacIntyre Bickle. He was born on August 31, 1897 in Racine, Wisconsin. After graduating from high school in 1915, he entered the University of Wisconsin Economics, but two years later, when the United States entered World War I, he was drafted into the army and served as an artillery lieutenant
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Fredrik March was one of the most brilliant and versatile actors, personifying the golden age of Hollywood, who managed to make a long and almost flawless career in film. His real name is Ernest Frederick MacIntyre Bickle. He was born on August 31, 1897 in Racine, Wisconsin. After graduating from high school in 1915, he entered the University of Wisconsin Economics, but two years later, when the United States entered World War I, he was drafted into the army and served as an artillery lieutenant after training in officer school. Returning to Wisconsin after the war, he graduated from university and since 1920 worked as a cashier at the First National City Bank, first in his native Racine, then in New York.
However, Fredrik did not remain a bank employee for long - after a severe operation to remove appendicitis, he decided to leave his job and become a professional actor. In the early twenties, Bickle as an extra began to star in silent and early sound films and it was then, on the advice of a friend, he changed his name to a more sonorous March.
After divorcing his first wife Ellis Baker (their marriage lasted three years), in 1927 he married actress Florence Eldridge, whom he met while touring the Theatre Guild troupe. With Eldridge March lived until the end of his life and was repeatedly engaged with her in the same plays and films.
In 1926, he first received a leading role on Broadway, and two years later he achieved great success in the role of Tony Cavendish in the play “Royal family”. The performance attracted the attention of representatives of the Paramount Pictures film company to March, and soon the young actor signed a contract. A screen version of this performance, titled The Broadway Royal Family (1930, George Cukor) earned him his first Oscar nomination. The coveted award went to him in 1932, after he starred in the film "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" (1931, dir. Ruben Mamulian), in which he played both title roles. With this film began the ascent of Frederick March to fame - for two decades he was among the highest paid Hollywood actors.
An endless string of films with his participation followed, each of which was enthusiastically perceived by the audience: the historical epic The Sign of the Godfather (1932, dir.) Cecil B. DeMille, the famous drama Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934, Sidney Franklin), the film adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's novel Anna Karenina (1935, directed by Clarence Brown) and many others. Especially popular were the romantic drama “A Star Is Born” released in 1937, where March played in a pair with Janet Gaynor, and the eccentric comedy “Nothing Holy” with Carol Lombard, which was directed by William Wellman. March’s popularity was such that when his contract with Paramount Pictures expired in the mid-thirties, he did not renew it and did not seek to bind himself to long-term obligations with film studios. In 1947, he was awarded the second Oscar for his role as returning sergeant Al Stevenson in William Wyler’s classic The Best Days of Our Lives (1946). The master of reincarnation, March, unlike other stars, never sought to project his individuality on the screen and rejected the principle of selecting actors by type, professed by film studios, feeling equally free in all genres. He was best at psychological roles: going through a midlife crisis Willie Loman in the film "The Death of a Salesman" (1951, dir.). Laszlo Benedek, based on Arthur Miller's play, is nominated for an Oscar and the Venice Film Festival Award for Best Actor, major politician and fiery religious fundamentalist Matthew Brady in Stanley Kramer's famous court drama Reap the Storm (1960, directed by Stanley Kramer) and finally Harry Hope in the adaptation of Eugene O'Neill's play The Ice Seller (1973, dir.) John Frankenheimer became his last and one of the best roles in cinema. The actor died on April 14, 1975 in Los Angeles, two years after the release of this film. In addition to film awards, Fredrik March was twice awarded the Tony Theatre Award: in 1946 for the play Many Years Ago by Ruth Gordon and in 1956 for The Long Journey into the Night by Eugene O'Neill.