Trivia of George Raft

Trivia of George Raft (26 September 1901 - 24 November 1980)

*Growing up in Hell’s Kitchen in the 1900s and 1910s, put Raft in the epicenter of lawlessness at the height of America’s mob era. One of Raft’s lifelong friends was the infamous American gangster Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel whose rap sheet was longer (and bloodier) than Raft’s soon-to-be extensive filmography.

*Raft’s parents who worked in merry go round had taught him how to dance. He entered and won a Charleston dance competition.The result competition led him to started working in New York City nightclubs, often in the same venues as did Rudolph Valentino before Valentino became a film actor.Raft went on tour as a dancer and helped popularize the tango in Paris, Vienna, Rome, London and New York. He had a great success as a dancer in London in 1926, and the Duke of Windsor was "an ardent fan and supporter." Fred Astaire, in his autobiography Steps in Time (1959), wrote that Raft was a lightning-fast dancer and did "the fastest Charleston I ever saw."

*Raft's screen debut was in Queen of the Night Clubs (1929).Although Raft's scenes were cut, review said "...a nite club scene introduces George Raft, the hot stepper, as the m. c. and band leader, being brought down for one of his rip-snorting hoofing specialties."

*While filming Taxi (1931), to play his competitor in a ballroom dance contest, James Cagney recommended George Raft.Raft had a colorful unbilled dancing role as Cagney's competitor in a dance contest, who wins only to be knocked down by Cagney.

*Raft is remembered for his gangster roles in Quick Millions (1931) with Spencer Tracy, Scarface (1932) with Paul Muni, Each Dawn I Die (1939) with James Cagney, Billy Wilder's comedy Some Like It Hot (1959) with Marilyn Monroe and Jack Lemmon, and as a dancer in Bolero (1934) with Carole Lombard and a truck driver in They Drive by Night (1940) with Ida Lupino and Humphrey Bogart.

*Raft said he never regarded himself as an actor. "I wanted to be me," he said.He played himself in ten films: Broadway (1942), Stage Door Canteen (1943), Nous irons à Paris (1950), The Ladies Man (1961), The Patsy (1964), Casino Royale (1967), Silent Treatment (1968), The Great Sex War (1969), Deadhead Miles (1972) and Sextette (1977).

*During the late-1950s, Raft was employed as a celebrity greeter at the Mafia-owned Hotel Capri casino in Havana, a job that played off his image as a movie mobster and tough guy. According to James Cagney's autobiography Cagney By Cagney, a Mafia plan to murder Cagney by dropping a several hundred pound klieg light on top of him was stopped at the insistence of George Raft. Cagney at that time was President of the Screen Actors Guild and was determined not to let the mob infiltrate the industry. Raft used his 'many' mob connections to cancel the hit.He banned from entering Britain in 1966 because of his alleged Mafia connections.