00:04Hi there, I'm Ben Mankiewicz. Welcome to TCM, where we've got a double feature of big studio
00:09films released in the 1950s. Specifically, these are grand technicolor romantic adventures from
00:15MGM, both starring Stuart Granger. In each of the films, Granger, who somehow neither sweats
00:22nor has a single hair out of place in the sweltering jungle, is paired with a top leading
00:28lady. We begin tonight with Granger searching for emeralds in the wilds of South America, but
00:34ultimately, he will find something even more dazzling. Grace Kelly. From 1954, Green Fire.
00:41Stuart Granger was born in London in 1913. For obvious reasons, when he became an actor,
00:47he changed his name. His real name was James Stewart. James LaBloche Stewart. Middle name
00:55didn't do much good either. As Stuart Granger, he became a popular star in British movies during
01:01the 1940s. Still, he was unknown in the States when he made his Hollywood debut, a smashing debut,
01:07with King Solomon's Mines in 1950, which we'll have in a couple of hours. Granger's co-star in Green
01:13Fire, Grace Kelly, was 24 at the time, widely considered one of the most beautiful women in
01:18the world. Moreover, she was at the pinnacle of her success in Hollywood. Five, five Grace Kelly
01:25movies came to theaters in 1954 alone. One of them earned her the Best Actress Oscar. More about that
01:32after the film. As the Green Fire cast and crew, led by Andrew Martin, were getting ready to shoot
01:39on location in the hot, steamy jungles of Columbia, the question many were pondering,
01:44would there be an equally steamy Stuart Granger, Grace Kelly romance? Granger wrote in his memoir,
01:51Sparks Fly Upward, that even though he was married to actress Gene Simmons, the temptation of Grace
01:57Kelly was too much to resist. And Granger being Granger, he gave Kelly some hints, maybe a lingering
02:04glance or two. But according to Grace Kelly's biographer, Granger did not impress her one bit.
02:10She confided to a friend that she had never met anyone quite so conceited, and she lived in
02:16Hollywood. For his part, Stuart Granger might have been playing the role of the big-time star with
02:22the wandering eye. In 1981, Granger told the Los Angeles Times,
02:27I hated being called a movie star. It never seemed to be a very worthwhile thing to be.
02:33Here are Stuart Granger and Grace Kelly together in 1954, also with Paul Douglas,
02:41John Erickson, and Mervyn Vi in Green Fire.
