George Raft Net Worth

George Raft's Quotes

• [on his acting] I'm afraid to look, because I'm probably awful.
• I must have gone through $10 million during my career. Part of the loot went for gambling, part for horses and part for women. The rest I spent foolishly.
• [on acting] You see, I found it tough work. What I would do would be to think over the scene in my mind and try to become whoever I was playing. I would try to feel like the person in that particular scene. Sometimes my words would be different from the script.
• [In a 1936 interview, discussing former jobs before getting into the acting profession] My one ambition then was to drive a horse. So I got a job driving a delivery wagon for a large grocery company. I drove up and down Ninth avenue like I was daffy. I raced all the other delivery wagons. I gave all the boys rides. Deliveries were always late, customers complained, and I was fired.
• [April, 1944] Here I am, back in a musical comedy picture. And that's not all. A fan called me from Chicago the other day and told me I was her pin-up boy. How d'ya like that? I'm a boy, now.

Interesting Facts about George Raft

1. Interred at Forest Lawn (Hollywood Hills), Los Angeles, California, USA, in the Court of Remembrance.
2. He turned down High Sierra (1941), which gave Humphrey Bogart his big break, The Maltese Falcon (1941), and Double Indemnity (1944).
3. Not much is known about his marriage to Mulrooney except that she was some years his senior. Although separated early, they were never divorced, and he continued to support her faithfully until her death in 1970.
4. Was a close friend of notorious gangster Benjamin Bugsy Siegel since their childhood in New York. Siegel actually lived at Raft's home in Hollywood for a time while trying to make inroads for organized crime within the movie colony.
5. Second actor to portray the title role for CBS Radio's "The Adventures of Rocky Jordan" (1951-1953).
6. Banned from entering Britain in 1966 because of his alleged Mafia connections.
7. Appeared with Mae West in both her first (Night After Night (1932)) and last (Sextette (1977)) films. He died two days after West's death.
8. According to James Cagney's autobiography Cagney By Cagney, (Published by Doubleday and Company Inc 1976), a Mafia plan to murder Cagney by dropping a several hundred pound klieg light on top of him was stopped at the insistence of George Raft. Cagney at that time was President of the Screen Actors Guild and was determined not to let the mob infiltrate the industry. Raft used his 'many' mob connections to cancel the hit.
9. Is portrayed by Ray Danton in Spin of a Coin (1961), Nicholas Mayer in Mae West (1982) and by Joe Mantegna in Bugsy (1991).
10. July 1939: Signed a long-term contract with Warner Bros. Studios.
11. As a teenager, he was a bat-boy for the New York Highlanders (Yankees), tried out for semi-pro baseball, boxed at the Polo Athletic Club and hustled pool.
12. Featured in "Bad Boys: The Actors of Film Noir" by Karen Burroughs Hannsberry (McFarland, 2003).
13. A lifelong baseball fan, by 1955 he had attended the World Series for the past 25 years.
14. His parents Conrad and Eva Ranft had ten children, nine of them boys, with George the eldest.
15. According to both the 1900 and 1910 Censuses for New York City, Raft only had one sibling named Eva "Katie" Ranft, born on April 18, 1896 in Manhattan.
16. George's father, Conrad Ranft, was born in Massachusetts, to German parents, Catherine Weil and Christopher Ranft. George's mother, Eva (Glockner), was born in Germany.
17. Theft of $3150 worth of jewelry and clothing from Beverly Hills home at 1218 Coldwater Canyon Road reported May 10, 1939.
18. The "Hell's Kitchen" set built for George in 'Invisible Stripes' was an exact replica of Raft's own New York birthplace.
19. His father was reported to having two thriving businesses: During the winter, the elder Raft was superintendent of the John Wanamaker department store. In the summer he owned and managed a merry-go-round at a small amusement park at Hasting-on-the-Hudson, New York. That merry-go-round was a family affair, began by George's grandfather. This was at Coney Island, Brooklyn.
20. Mother, Eva, died of asthma at her 610 West 174th Street home in 1937, after a long illness, at the age of 62. Mr. Raft was at her bedside.