Fredric March

The Banker Who Didn't Want to Be a Star

Fredric March arrived in Hollywood with an escape plan. He wasn't after eternal fame, but a paycheck that would let him return to the New York stage as soon as possible. Before shooting his first film, he worked as a bank clerk in Wisconsin. His real name was Ernest Frederick McIntyre Bickel, and he shortened it out of sheer commercial necessity.

And the name change was only the beginning.

In 1931, he took on the challenge of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. That performance earned him his first Oscar, but what mattered most was how he endured hours of abrasive makeup that nearly ruined his skin. He won the award sharing it with Wallace Beery, a unique case in Academy history for decades to come.

But March was uncomfortable with the exclusive contracts of the major studios. He was one of the first actors to fight for financial and artistic independence. He preferred to choose his own scripts rather than submit to the grind of Paramount or MGM.

War and the Return to Realism

His acting style avoided the exaggerated gestures of silent cinema that many of his peers still clung to. In 1937, he starred in the first version of A Star Is Born. His performance as Norman Maine avoided cheap melodrama, focusing instead on the pathos of a man sinking into alcohol.

And the gamble paid off.

After World War II, his style shifted toward a much drier maturity. In 1946, he starred in The Best Years of Our Lives under William Wyler's direction. In the film, he played a sergeant who returns from the front and no longer recognizes his own life. He earned a record fee for the time and brought home his second Oscar.

But his success on screen didn't pull him away from the stage. He balanced film shoots in California with grueling stints on Broadway. There he premiered Eugene O'Neill plays that demanded a physical effort few film actors were willing to take on.

Physical Decline and Final Discipline

In 1960, he appeared in Inherit the Wind alongside Spencer Tracy. The acting duel between the two is one of the most intense moments of the decade. March played a religious fundamentalist based on William Jennings Bryan. For the role, he shaved his head and gained several pounds.

Discipline was his only religion.

In his final years, his health began to fail visibly. In 1973, he shot his last film, The Iceman Cometh, directed by John Frankenheimer. He worked through the entire shoot despite the pain of advanced prostate cancer, which barely let him stand between takes.

Fredric March died in Los Angeles on April 14, 1975. He was 77 years old, and his body was cremated at the Chapel of the Pines crematorium. His ashes were scattered under a tree on his farm in New Milford, Connecticut. The cost of his last production came to one million dollars at the time.