The George Raft Story (1961)

A fictionalized movie biography of former top Hollywood film star George Raft.

Director: Joseph M. Newman
Cast: Ray Danton, Jayne Mansfield, Julie London, Barrie Chase, Barbara Nichols, Frank Gorshin, Margo Moore, Brad Dexter, Neville Brand, Robert Strauss, Herschel Bernardi, Joe De Santis, Jack Lambert, Argentina Brunetti, Robert H. Harris, Jack Albertson, Tony Reese, Pepper Davis, Cecile Rogers, Betty Curtis, Murvyn Vye, David Ahdar, Fred Aldrich, Leon Alton, Tol Avery, Walter Bacon, Richard Bermudez, John Bleifer, Chet Brandenburg, Wally Brown




George Raft, a product of New York City's Hell's Kitchen, breaks into show business as an exhibition dancer at the Dreamland Casino. He soon becomes friendly with bootleggers and gangsters and makes his living performing in syndicate-controlled night clubs. But he gets into trouble with the mob when he protects Ruth Harris, a cigarette girl, from the unwanted attentions of a racketeer. He then decides to go to Hollywood and try his luck at motion pictures. In 1932, he gets his big break by playing the role of a bodyguard in the film Scarface. As his theatrical star rises, he continues his association with well-known gangsters such as Al Capone and Benny "Bugsy" Siegel. But eventually his career fades, and he is forced to curb his big spending and give up his lavish California home. He then participates in a hotel-casino venture in Cuba. Soon after his arrival, however, the Castro revolution breaks out, and he is forced to flee. Returning to Hollywood, he makes his film comeback by once more playing a gangster–in 1959's Some Like It Hot.

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