Fredric March (born Ernest Frederick McIntyre Bickel; August 31, 1897
â€" April 14, 1975) was an American actor, regarded as "one of
Hollywood's most celebrated, versatile stars of the 1930s and 1940s".
He won the Academy Award for Best Actor for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
(1931) and The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), as well as the Tony
Award for Best Actor in a Play for Years Ago (1947) and Long Day's
Journey into Night (1956).March is one of only two actors, the other
being Helen Hayes, to have won both the Academy Award and the Tony
Award twice.March was born in Racine, Wisconsin, the son of Cora Brown
Marcher (1863â€"1936), a schoolteacher from England, and John F.
Bickel (1859â€"1941), a devout Presbyterian Church elder who worked in
the wholesale hardware business. March attended the Winslow Elementary
School (established in 1855), Racine High School, and the University
of Wisconsinâ€"Madison, where he was a member of Alpha Delta Phi. He
was also a member of an "interfraternity society composed of leading
students" formed at the college in 1919 named the Ku Klux Klan that
"appears to have had no connection with the national Klan
organization", but whose "choice of a name signals an
identificationâ€"or at the very least, no meaningful discomfortâ€"with
the widely known violent actions of the Reconstruction-era Klan...".He
began a career as a banker, but an emergency appendectomy caused him
to re-evaluate his life, and in 1920, he began working as an "extra"
in movies made in New York City, using a shortened form of his
mother's maiden name. He appeared on Broadway in 1926, and by the end
of the decade, he signed a film contract with Paramount Pictures.
â€" April 14, 1975) was an American actor, regarded as "one of
Hollywood's most celebrated, versatile stars of the 1930s and 1940s".
He won the Academy Award for Best Actor for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
(1931) and The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), as well as the Tony
Award for Best Actor in a Play for Years Ago (1947) and Long Day's
Journey into Night (1956).March is one of only two actors, the other
being Helen Hayes, to have won both the Academy Award and the Tony
Award twice.March was born in Racine, Wisconsin, the son of Cora Brown
Marcher (1863â€"1936), a schoolteacher from England, and John F.
Bickel (1859â€"1941), a devout Presbyterian Church elder who worked in
the wholesale hardware business. March attended the Winslow Elementary
School (established in 1855), Racine High School, and the University
of Wisconsinâ€"Madison, where he was a member of Alpha Delta Phi. He
was also a member of an "interfraternity society composed of leading
students" formed at the college in 1919 named the Ku Klux Klan that
"appears to have had no connection with the national Klan
organization", but whose "choice of a name signals an
identificationâ€"or at the very least, no meaningful discomfortâ€"with
the widely known violent actions of the Reconstruction-era Klan...".He
began a career as a banker, but an emergency appendectomy caused him
to re-evaluate his life, and in 1920, he began working as an "extra"
in movies made in New York City, using a shortened form of his
mother's maiden name. He appeared on Broadway in 1926, and by the end
of the decade, he signed a film contract with Paramount Pictures.
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