GEORGE MACREADY

George Macready (1899-73) claimed to be a descendant of the 19th-century Shakespearean actor William Macready. With a distinctive scar on his right cheek (from an auto accident), he was often cast as an aristocratic villain, often in noir films. His first career was as an art collector. After establishing a profitable Los Angeles art gallery with his friend and fellow actor Vincent Price during the ‘40s, McCready turned to acting and appeared in many films in his long career, including A KISS BEFORE DYING (1956), VERA CRUZ (1954), THE BIG CLOCK (1948), and perhaps most famously, as the sexually ambivalent casino owner Ballin Mundson in GILDA (1946). One of his best and most memorable roles was the fanatical World War I French general in Stanley Kubrick's classic, PATHS OF GLORY (1957), in which he callously ordered his artillery to fire on his own troops when they failed to take an impossible objective. Later in his career, Macready appeared in many television programs.