Julie", as John Garfield was known to friends and family all his life, was described as an outgoing child with endless energy, a great mop of thick hair and an engaging grin. Just like a movie with the "Dead End" kids, Garfield was a member of a street gang.

This potentially bleak future took a turn for the better when he came under the wing of Angelo Patri at Public School. Patri was able to channel the boy's high spirits into performing on a stage, and a whole new world suddenly opened for young John Garfield. Previously a very poor student, his scholastic record improved solely because it was a requirement for being able to take part in plays. Garfield was later to say of Patri, " For reaching into the garbage pan and pulling me out, I owe him everything." Patri was later instrumental in Julie's receiving a scholarship where John learned the fundamentals of theatre work.

By 1930, at age 17, John had landed a few walk-on parts in the theatre where he was able to observe and learn from actors. He also succumbed to a sense of adventure and went hitchhiking and riding freight trains across the country. For months he lived the life of a tramp, staying in roadside camps, picking fruit or working as a waiter at truckstops to earn some change.

Back in New York, he worked as an apprentice with the Civic Repertory Theatre, attending acting classes and receiving more bit parts on the stage.

1932 was a turning point. Julie, or, Jules Garfield, as he was now calling himself, joined up with the new Theatre Group. There he would form friendships that would remain influential throughout his life. Writer Clifford Odets, Stella and Luther Adler, Morris Carnovsky, Elia Kazan -- all important names in the theatre and in Hollywood for years to come.

Garfield also met the vivacious young actress who would become his wife, Roberta (known as Robbie) Seidman. The newlyweds took a flat in Greenwich Village and over the next few years Garfield would gain bigger and bigger parts on the stage.

Garfield's staunch devotion to the Theatre Group received a serious blow when the plum part of Joe Bonaparte in Clifford Odets' new play "Golden Boy" - a part Odets wrote specifically with Garfield in mind - was given to Luther Adler. Disllusioned, Garfield decided to take a chance on an offer that had come from Warner Bros Studio in Hollywood. Fully expecting Garfield to stay only temporarily in California - his heart and soul belonged to the New York stage - Robbie stayed behind while her husband made the trip to Hollywood in a rickety old automobile.

The year was 1938. Garfield's arrival in Hollywood was without fanfare. He took a room in a boarding house, got a tour of the Warner Studio and met his new boss, Jack Warner - who promptly gave him a new first name - John.
He was told of certain films he might be in but what materialized was a supporting role in a film in which Warners hoped to promote a new leading man, Jeffrey Lynn, entitled "Four Daughters." Co-starring Priscilla Lane, her sisters Rosemary and Lola, and Gale Page in the title roles, it told the story of a small-town family nicely ensconced in then-typical wholesomeness. Into this sweetness-and-light comes Mickey Borden, out-of-work musician (Garfield) - brash, sarcastic, brooding, and....dangerous.

To audiences he was like a dash of cold water in the face, and his naturalness and sheer presence made all around him suddenly seem two-dimensional. The role of Mickey literally made Garfield an overnight star.

Success was heady, and Garfield eventually accepted Warners' offer of a seven-year contract. Robbie soon joined him and the two took up residence in Hollywood. In the fall, their daughter Katherine was born, and Garfield was on top of the world.

Warner Bros Studio in the '30s and '40s was a factory - and Garfield became part of the well-oiled machinery, turning out 4 and 5 films per year. Not unlike Cagney and Edward G. Robinson, his initial role had made such an impact on audiences that he was continuously cast in replicas of Mickey Borden roles. And, also like Cagney and Robinson, Garfield would fight this typecasting.

Although there was written in his contract a stipulation that Garfield could accept stage roles, he only took advantage of it occasionally - he had come to realize the enormous power of the film media and became totally committed to it.

Garfield was a staunch liberal, idolized FD Roosevelt, and during World War II did more than almost any big star of the time to further America's cause. Turned down for military service because of heart problems, Garfield became a travelling entertainer, a war bond salesman, and joined with Bette Davis to form the Hollywood Canteen - a combination restaurant/showplace where servicemen on leave in Los Angeles could, at no cost, have meals served to them by the likes of Joan Crawford and Lana Turner, dance with Ann Sheridan or Joan Leslie, and watch Benny Goodman or Tommy Dorsey perform live.

In 1945 a tragedy occured that was to bring John much closer to his home and family.
Daughter Katherine suffered from severe allergies and was struck with an attack and had difficulty breathing. Her condition worsened when she returned home, and before she could be rushed to the hospital, she died. She was just 6 years old.
Garfield was totally devastated and never fully recovered from the loss - a gloom that had never been apparent before would at times overshadow his naturally sunny disposition.

When Garfield's contract at Warner Bros expired in 1946 he opted to go it alone, forming his own production company, Enterprise, saying, "I've saved every penny I made and now I'm going to do the pictures I want to do."
The first project he chose turned out to be one of his very best films - "Body and Soul." Garfield's performance acheived his second Academy Award nomination for Best Actor and his fledgling independent company was off to a promising start.

But clouds were forming over Hollywood in the late 1940s - a paranoia in Washington DC would spread, becoming the scourge called the House UnAmerican Activities Committee. A veritable witch-hunt would ensue over the coming years, plucking victims from the actors, actresses, writers and directors in the movie industry and stomping on their careers, their very lives.

One of the HUAC's most destructive ploys was to bring to the stand so-called "friendly" witnesses - in other words, anyone who would point the finger at a colleague. No matter that a charge of being a Communist could not be substantiated - once singled out a person was as good as finished in the movie business. That Garfield would come under the microscope was inevitable, given the extremity of the HUAC's criteria.

His association with the Theatre Group a decade earlier was enough - any such unique group was viewed as a hotbed of liberals who had dared to be different, and therefore were 'suspicious.'
Garfield was never officially charged with Communist sympathies - it was his refusal to name names that would bring disaster upon him. Perhaps going back to his boyhood street-gang days, he stubbornly refused to 'rat on a pal' - and it would be his downfall. Operating under the thought that if you weren't for them you were against them, the HUAC succeeded in making John Garfield too hot to handle.

Opportunities for work dropped off, doors were slammed in his face, former 'friends' avoided him. Such was the power of the Blacklist that any contact with one under suspicion was certain vocational death.

Hemmed in on all sides by vague accusations he knew not how to fight, Garfield spent his last days futilely going over past letters, old tax forms, anything that could disprove that he had ever been any harm to the country he loved. His fierce loyalty to his friends and his beliefs never wavered, but he succumbed to a great anger, born of confusion and fear. He became estranged from his family, disappeared for days on end, began drinking heavily and would go without sleep for long periods of time.

On May 21, 1952 he was found dead in the apartment of a former showgirl, the victim of a heart attack at age 39.
Garfield's funeral in New York was mobbed by 10,000 distraught fans, a sight not seen since the death of silent screen idol Rudolph Valentino over twenty years earlier. Garfield was buried at Westchester Hills Cemetery, Hastings-on-Hudson, New York.

Garfield's son David would become an actor and film editor. He died of heart failure in 1995.
Daughter Julie Garfield is an actress and acting teacher.
Robbie Seidman Garfield Cohn (she remarried in 1954) returned to live in New York. She was later a victim of Alzheimer's and Parkinsons, and died on January 20, 2004.

John Garfield..Films