March, Fredric

March, Fredric (1897-1975), American actor of stage and cinema, who won Academy Awards as best actor for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) and The Best Years of Our Lives (1946). He was born Frederick Ernest McIntyre Bickel in Racine, Wisconsin. He made his stage debut in 1920 and his first film, The Dummy, in 1929. For his dual role in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, he won an Academy Award. Other early successes were his roles in The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934), Anna Karenina (1935), and A Star is Born (1937). In 1942 March appeared on Broadway in The Skin of Our Teeth with his wife, Florence Eldridge. He won his second Academy Award for The Best Years of Our Lives, in which he portrayed a World War II veteran readjusting to private life. March and Eldridge appeared on the stage in Long Day's Journey into Night (1956) by Eugene O'Neill. Other films include Death of a Salesman (1951), Inherit the Wind (1960), Hombre (1966), and The Iceman Cometh (1973).