Born 1905 in South Pasadena, California, American actor Joel McCrea appeared in over one hundred films, starring in over eighty, among them Alfred Hitchcock’s espionage thriller Foreign Correspondent (1940), Preston Sturges’ comedy classics Sullivan’s Travels (1941), and The Palm Beach Story (1942), the romance film Bird of Paradise (1932), the adventure classic The Most Dangerous Game (1932), Gregory La Cava’s bawdy comedy Bed of Roses (1933), George Stevens’ six-time Academy Award nominated romantic comedy The More the Merrier (1943), William Wyler’s These Three, Come and Get It (both 1936) and Dead End (1937), Howard Hawks’ Barbary Coast (1935), and a number of western films, including Wichita (1955) as Wyatt Earp and Sam Peckinpah’s Ride the High Country (1962), opposite Randolph Scott.
McCrea had his career spanned a wide variety of genres over almost five decades, including comedy, drama, romance, thrillers, adventures, and Westerns, for which he became best known. He starred in a total of three Best Picture Oscar nominees: Dead End (1937), Foreign Correspondent (1940), and The More the Merrier (1943).
With the exception of the British thriller Rough Shoot (1953) and film noir Hollywood Story (1951), McCrea appeared in Western films exclusively from 1946 until his retirement in 1976. For his contribution to the motion picture industry, he has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6901 Hollywood Blvd. and another star at 6241 Hollywood Blvd. for his contribution to radio.
McCrea died in 1990 in Woodland Hills, California from pneumonia, at the age of 84. Take a look at these vintage photos to see portraits of a young and handsome Joel McCrea in the 1940s and 1950s.
A fair number of these are from the '30s, even the early 30s.
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