Laird Cregar

February 1, 2018

Actor and freelance writer Mank (Women in Horror Films, 1940s) offers one of the first in-depth studies of Samuel Laird Cregar (1914-44), who, despite his girth, had an early, intense desire to be an actor. Relocating from Philadelphia to Los Angeles, Cregar scored a stage triumph playing Oscar Wilde, attracting Hollywood's attention. With roles ranging from frontier trappers to pirates, he yearned for more serious, even romantic parts. The recipient of constant and cruel jokes for weighing more than 300 pounds, he was once mocked at a party by his idol John Barrymore. Cregar was further handicapped by his not-so-secret homosexuality (although he also had unrequited infatuations with several actresses, notably Linda Darnell). He achieved a breakthrough playing a Jack the Ripper type character in The Lodger and psychopaths in I Wake Up Screaming and his last film, Hangover Square (1945). Tired of playing "the fat man you love to hate," Cregar went on an unsupervised crash-near-starvation diet, quickly dropping 100 pounds but also aggravating an abdominal condition, dying of a heart attack at age 31. VERDICT Despite some narrative detours and padding, this is a compelling, cautionary tale of an actor who held his own opposite luminaries such as Paul Muni and Tyrone Power, yearned for stability and acceptance, and achieved short-lived stardom at great cost.--Stephen Rees, formerly with Levittown Lib., PA

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