Fredric March

Born by the name Ernest Frederick McIntyre Bickel, Fredric March is one of the most celebrated and versatile Hollywood stars of the 1930s and 40s. He was born on August 31, 1897, in Wisconsin, United States. He is the son of Cora Brown Marcher, a school teacher and John Bickel, a businessman. March did his primary education in Winslow elementary school. March served in the U.S Army during World War I as an artillery lieutenant.

He began his career as a banker but in 1920 he began working as an extra man in films that were produced in New York Click to look into! >> Read More... . He appeared on Broadway in 1926, and soon he signed a contract with Paramount Pictures. In 1930, he received an Oscar nomination for his role of John Barrymore in The Royal Family of Broadway. In 1932, he won the Academy Award for Best Actor for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. In 1937, he did A Star is Born for which he received his third Oscar nomination. He has won two Best Actor Tony Awards: in 1947, for the play Years Ago, and in 1957 for Long Day’s Journey into the Night. He also starred in films such as ‘Gideon’ (1961), I Married a Witch (1942) and Another Part of the Forest (1948).

In 1946, he won his second Oscar for The Best Years of our Lives. In 1957, March was awarded The George Eastman Award for ‘distinguished contribution to the art of film’. March has also made several spoken recordings such as Oscar Wilde’s The Selfish Giant and The Sounds of History.

He married Ellis Baker in 1927, but the couple got divorced in 1927. He then married fellow actress Florence Eldridge, and they adopted two children. In 1970, he was treated for prostate cancer and he managed to give one last performance in The Iceman Cometh (1973). He died on April 14, 1975, and was buried at his estate in New Milford, Connecticut.