Fredric March will be making his debut at the Pickwick Theatre Classic Film Series on November 11, 2024, with a Veterans Day screening of The Best Years of Our Lives (1946). March won his second Oscar for his performance in this film. Excerpts from the following article originally appeared in the Winter 2004 Nostalgia Digest. Chuck Schaden’s Those Were the Days radio show dedicated an entire afternoon to Fredric March, which included his performances on Theatre Guild On the Air, Suspense, and Academy Award.
There’s a scene in The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) where the Al Stephenson character has returned to the banking business he knew before the war. A customer comes to him with the expectation of receiving a G.I. loan. This somewhat naive soldier wants to buy a farm but has no collateral. Stephenson, himself a veteran, has to explain to the young man what collateral is. The vet, unfortunately, has very little to put down. The problem weighs on Al’s conscience, but he reaches a decision. To his way of thinking, an ex-G.I. is a good risk. The loan will be processed, but Al will receive, in due course, a mild reprimand from his superior over the matter.
Fredric March portrayed Al Stephenson in this, his most honored film, for which he won an Academy Award. It’s a performance that continually amazes. His character in this scene is a regular Joe who, perhaps guilty over his own economic well-being in post-war America, just wanted to give a fellow G.I. a break. One never sensed any movie star egotism on the screen. Here was a down-to-earth, understanding human being. These qualities of decency and intelligence were exemplified by Fredric March throughout his long and diverse career on stage and on screen.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Like Ronald Colman or Ray Milland, Fredric March’s name is rarely if at all mentioned these days. His omission from the American Film Institute’s “50 Greatest Actors” was particularly egregious since March was once considered the finest actor of his generation. To add insult to injury, in 2018, the progressive agenda of the faculty and student body at the University of Wisconsin-Madison forced the campus to remove March’s name from a theatre previously named in his honor. The irony, of course, is that during his life, March was a great champion of liberal causes and the Civil Rights Movement. But historical fact doesn’t appear to be a priority at the university.
Unlike some of the more popular (and lesser talented) actors who were contemporaries of his, March was first and foremost an actor, not a personality. His handsome looks were classical; his voice, distinct and resonating. His acting style often had him underplaying a role, making the performance stand the test of time. With his dramatic roots firmly entrenched in the stage, he could adapt to any film genre and to any challenging role.
The Eagle and the Hawk
March appeared in screwball comedies such as Nothing Sacred (1937) with Carole Lombard. He turned up in literary classics, playing the convict Jean Valjean who is hounded by policeman Charles Laughton in Les Miserables (1935), as well as Count Vronsky opposite Greta Garbo in Anna Karenina (1935). He was adept in contemporary roles as well as historical dramas like The Sign of the Cross (1932) and The Buccaneer (1938)– both for Cecil B. DeMille. He worked with some of the greatest directors from Hollywood’s Golden Age: Lubitsch, Wyler, Cukor, Leisen, Mamoulian, Wellman, Hawks, and Ford. He played everything from Mark Twain to Christopher Columbus– and the President of the United States.
In his later years, he portrayed Willy Loman to great effect in Death of a Salesman (1951) and was the William Jennings Bryan-inspired character in Inherit the Wind (1960). Never an onscreen loner or rebel, March often played conservative, middle-class men, such as the husband whose family is held hostage by criminal Humphrey Bogart in The Desperate Hours (1955).
Perhaps because he was never associated with being an “anti-hero,” modern audiences might prefer to have his performances– and the ideals these films represented– remain in the movie vaults. However, pop culture predilections and passing tastes can never take away from the artistry March demonstrated in over 70 films and countless plays. The values of humanity, our collective dreams and hopes, are preserved in these performances.
Death Takes a Holiday
Fredric March made his grand entrance into the world on August 31, 1897. Born Frederick McIntyre Bickel, of English and German stock, he grew up in a relatively happy middle-class household in Racine, Wisconsin. In his childhood, he had a knack for dramatic readings and was a good student. In 1915 he attended the University of Wisconsin, where he majored in finance and economics. March’s college years were interrupted by the First World War. Duty called him away and he enlisted– attaining the rank of lieutenant in the Army.
After the war, March returned to school where he became class president, managed the football team, and even starred on the track team. In 1919, he was in an ill-named fraternity– the Ku Klux Klan. However, this society of leading students had no affiliation to the hate group which, at that time, was a regional organization. There has never been any evidence to suggest a connection between the two. The university group took the name more likely for its alliterative qualities then popular at the time. (In 1922, the society changed the name altogether.) When he graduated, he took a banking job in New York, but the position didn’t have the lure or the promise he wanted out of life. March needed something that would appeal to his artistic sensibilities. It was during this time in his life when he was bitten by the Broadway bug.
After an appendicitis surgery, Freddie Bickel gave up banking altogether and began to tread the boards in touring companies and in stock. In 1924, on the advice of friend and future Hollywood director John Cromwell, he changed his name to Fredric March– a shortened version of his mother’s maiden name “Marcher.” (Evidently, Cromwell thought “Bickel” sounded too much like the inelegant “pickle.”)
With Myrna Loy in The Best Years of Our Lives.
After a brief and unsuccessful first marriage, March found his perfect leading lady and the woman he would spend the rest of his life with. The year was 1926. Her name, Florence Eldridge. After a season of summer stock together in Colorado, they married. Florence, too, was a talented star on the stage, and she would in time appear in many of her husband’s movies as well as co-star with him in several radio dramas. Fredric’s professional turning point followed in 1928 when he played the role of Tony Cavendish in “The Royal Family”– later turned into a film in 1930. This parody of the famous Barrymore family caught the eye of the motion picture industry since the play debuted in Los Angeles.
March was soon signed to a five-year contract by Paramount. Many of his early roles in this period were forgettable through no fault of his own. He simply needed better scripts, but he did not have long to wait. In 1931 he starred in the definitive version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, in which he played the tortured doctor torn between the bestial and spiritual qualities of man. To classic horror enthusiasts, no Best Actor Oscar shines more brightly than this one.
In the years that followed, March appeared in some misses, but most were hits, such as his role of Death in Mitchell Leisen’s beautiful and elegant Death Takes a Holiday (1934). When his contract expired at Paramount, March turned to freelance work at other studios like 20th Century Fox and MGM.
Off the set, March contributed significantly to the community at large. During the war years, he traveled with the USO and did a great deal of fundraising for the war effort. After a successful comeback to Broadway with Florence in the play “The American Way,” Fredric did radio work to support democracy over the airwaves. Until his death in 1975, March remained an unquestionable patriot, representing the best in America. Even into the 1960s, his country called upon him to perform dramatic readings for patriotic events.
During the decades after the Second World War, March won two Tony Awards– the second of which came in 1956 for what is considered his greatest triumph on the stage: Eugene O’Neill’s “Long Day’s Journey Into Night.” This, coupled with the fact that he won a couple of Oscars, does make one wonder how the name Fredric March could be so obscure.
A rare candid of March signing autographs.
Though his stage performances are lost to eternity, seen only by those who were in attendance, his movies live on thanks to film revivals and home entertainment alternatives such as dvd and Blu-ray. His film credits read like a registry of great performances. For those unfamiliar with Fredric March, one need only look for a title like 1937’s A Star Is Born, where he superbly played the washed-up, alcoholic actor Norman Maine. On the other side of the spectrum, there is the role of Reverend William Spence in the inspirational One Foot In Heaven (1941), certainly one of his finest films of the 1940s. It was fitting that he played a minister because at one time his parents had the expectation that he would become a clergyman.
When a viewer looks back on his career today and discovers these performances, the things that will stand out are March’s versatility and the earnestness with which he undertook every role. Perhaps one day in the not too distant future, he will again be recognized as one of America’s most gifted actors. And maybe one day theatre stages will again be named after him.
For more on Fredric March, please visit the Fredric March Film Society group on Facebook.
~MCH
March in his last great performance in The Iceman Cometh. (Photo courtesy of Lisa Ryan.)
