Leading Men

Mostly starring in comedies and musicals, Don Ameche maintained that his best performance was in Heaven Can Wait (1943).

Dana Andrews habitually played either a detective or a war hero. He appeared on screen for the first time in The Westerner (1940).

The silver screen’s most famous “tough guy”, Humphrey Bogart was especially “proud” of his work in the 1941 film The Maltese Falcon. “The only thing you owe the public is a good performance,” he remarked.

Praised as the best gangster there ever was, James Cagney was born in New York, the son of an Irish bartender. Mr. Cagney said that in acting, one should “always mean everything you say.” In later life he would write his autobiography, Cagney by Cagney.

Affectionately known by fans as “Coop”, Gary Cooper was, claims one film critic, “a universal idealization of the American male.” One producer called him “the greatest film star there has ever been.”

“He has a camera face and a camera presence,” said one critic of Bing Crosby. Mr. Crosby, whose real name was Harry Lillis Crosby, was a pleasant man who could effortlessly break into song.

Errol Flynn was a flawed individual, and always apprehensive of any competition from other actors around him. Still, fellow actor Ronald Reagan recalled, “He was one of the few in our profession who could truly take the romantic roles in the costume epics and look the part believably.”

“Other stars come and go, but Henry Fonda goes on forever,” notes magazine correspondent David Shipman. Mr. Fonda was often placed in “dull” roles, but he gave us classics such as The Grapes of Wrath (1940), The Lady Eve (1941), and Fort Apache (1948).

He was not very interested in his career; nevertheless, William Clark Gable was given the title “King of Hollywood.” His voice was something of a bark, and he had a “no-nonsense masculine image” which was enforced even further after his return from the Army.

Cary Grant (Archibald Leach) was one of the most iconic leading men of the 1940s. “He has a lovely sense of timing,” Katherine Hepburn said of him, “an amusing face and a lovely voice.” Both his name and personality had great magnetism.

Van Heflin is one of the lesser-known leading men; he played both villains and heroes. With his performance in Sante Fe Trail (1940) he could not be upstaged even by Errol Flynn. Johnny Eager (1941) was an advance for Mr. Heflin, with his notable performance as a drunk.

Often finding himself in musicals and light comedies, Charles Van Dell Johnson—America knew him simply as Van Johnson—would say, “I am the luckiest guy in the world. All my dreams came true. I was in a wonderful business, and I met great people all over the world.”

It was This Gun for Hire (1942) that turned Alan Ladd into a somebody, breaking the Hollywood rule that leading men needed to be of great stature, rather than only five-foot-six.

Fred MacMurray was a very amiable actor. Besides being famous for Double Indemnity (1944), he was also a saxophonist.

The Lost Weekend (1945) won Ray Milland an Oscar. Mr. Milland, who was Welsh, was formerly known as Reginald Truscott-Jones.

Laurence Olivier was born in Surrey, England. He did much stage and film work in England, but made a few films in the U.S., including Pride and Prejudice (1940), after which he served in England’s Fleet Air Arm during World War II.

John Payne, of Roanoke, Virginia, was a suave leading man of the B pictures. He is remembered today for his part as lawyer Fred Gailey in The Miracle on 34th Street (1947). If it hadn’t been for his skillfully handling of the famous on-screen court case, Santa Claus might not have existed today.

Canadian-born Walter Pidgeon was often a sophisticated pipe-smoker in his films. “Favorite pictures?” he asked. “Any of the ones with Greer Garson.” Together, he and Miss Garson made classics out of Mrs. Miniver (1942) and Madame Curie (1943).

A modest leading man who was born in Cincinnati, Tyrone Power is not as well-remembered today as he should be. He was often placed in swash-buckling films, though he reportedly said, “I’m sick of all these knights-in-shining-armor parts. I want to do something worthwhile, like plays and films that have something to say.”

Ronald Reagan knew great popularity during the forties, especially in the B pictures. “From my standpoint,” he said of his film Knute Rockne, All American (1940), “it was the part which every actor comes to at some time or other in life that marks the transition into stardom.”

“You have moved millions of people and shaped their lives,” Lionel Barrymore told James Stewart. After Mr. Stewart returned from his service in the Army Air Force during World War II, he made one of his most famous pictures, It’s a Wonderful Life (1946). “If they write ‘He gave people a lot of pleasure’ on my epitaph I shall be very pleased,” he said.

“I’ve never been terribly ambitious—simply wanted to do a good job at what I did.” Robert Taylor claimed that Waterloo Bridge (1940) was his favorite of his films. Though we might not remember his films as classics, they are pleasant and satisfactory Hollywood fare. He said, “It’s been my goal to work as much as possible, and be as unknown as possible.”

Spencer Tracy insisted on top billing. “When someone sees me, he knows it’s Tracy,” he proclaimed. “I’m not trying to become someone else.” Actress Joan Crawford said of Mr. Tracy that he “walks through a scene just as he walks through life.”

John Wayne, remembers his son, Ethan, had a “willingness to stand for his principles both on and off the screen.” The Duke said, “I want to play a real man in all my films.”

A bank teller before jumping into show business, Robert Young, with his recognizably wide grin, held his age well, and was able to play a leading man for a great length of time.

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Hollywood had a few qualifications for the classic leading man: to be, more often than not, dark-haired; to speak well; to be a gentleman at all times, and to be tall. (Although for this last, Alan Ladd proved an iconic exception.) The most popular leading men of the day were Errol Flynn, Robert Taylor, Stewart Granger, Humphrey Bogart, and Franchot Tone. Some actors of the forties had been acting since the early thirties (Clark Gable and Ray Milland); others were new faces (Dana Andrews and Van Heflin).

The American public could prove very touchy about the manner in which their favorite actors were portrayed. For example, studios were timid about casting Cary Grant as a supposed murderer in the film Suspicion (1941), fearing what the move would do to his image. On the other end of the spectrum, audiences expected nothing less than toughness and fast talk from Humphrey Bogart and James Cagney. A problem for any actor was that he could be permanently typecast; leaving his accustomed sphere to try a different type of role could result in a loss of popularity. But others fought for more sophisticated roles and excelled (Tyrone Power, James Stewart, Spencer Tracy).

Whatever his name, forte, or genre, the leading man of the forties built a revered image of masculinity and provided a presence of solidness and courage. It would be quite impossible to call this gallery a complete list of famous leading men from the forties; rather, this is a selection of some of the most iconic.

Photograph Credits- AMECHE, CAGNEY, LADD, MACMURRAY, PAYNE: vintag.es; ANDREWS, FLYNN, GABLE, HEFLIN, JOHNSON, OLIVIER, PIDGEON, POWER, TAYLOR: Jack’s Movie Mania; BOGART, COOPER, FONDA, MILLAND, YOUNG: oldtimeradiodownloads.com; CROSBY: thevintagenews.com; GRANT: reddit; REAGAN: clickamericana.com; STEWART: pickpik; TRACY: Wikipedia; WAYNE: R.W.” Doc” Boyle/Old West Daily Reader