Raymond Hart Massey

 Raymond Hart Massey (August 30, 1896 – July 29, 1983)

For his lead role in Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1940), Massey was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor. He was also well known for playing Dr. Gillespie in the NBC television series Dr. Kildare (1961–1966). Massey scored a great triumph on Broadway in Robert E. Sherwood's play Abe Lincoln in Illinois despite American reservations about Lincoln being portrayed by a Canadian, and he repeated his role in the 1940 film version (for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor). Massey again portrayed Lincoln in The Day Lincoln Was Shot on Ford Star Jubilee (1956), and, in a wordless appearance, in How the West Was Won (1962), as well as in two TV adaptations of Abe Lincoln in Illinois broadcast in 1950 and 1951. He once complained jokingly that he was "the only actor ever typecast as a president." Massey portrayed the character of Jonathan Brewster in the film version of Arsenic and Old Lace. The character had been created by Boris Karloff for the stage version and the character was written to resemble Karloff (a running gag in the play and the film). Even though the film was released in 1944, it was shot in 1941, at which time Karloff was still contracted to the Broadway play, and could not be released for the filming. His memorable film roles after that included the husband of Joan Crawford during her Oscar-nominated role in Possessed (1947) and the doomed publishing tycoon Gail Wynand in The Fountainhead (1949), opposite Patricia Neal and Gary Cooper. In 1955, he starred in East of Eden as Adam Trask, father of Cal, played by James Dean, and Aron, played by Richard Davalos.

Massey died of pneumonia in Los Angeles, California on July 29, 1983, a month before he would have turned 87. He is buried in New Haven, Connecticut's Beaverdale Memorial Park.