Jeff Chandler (born Ira Grossel; December 15, 1918 – June 17, 1961) was an American actor. He was best known for his portrayal of Cochise in Broken Arrow (1950), for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He was one of Universal Pictures' more popular male stars of the 1950s. His other credits include Sword in the Desert (1948), Deported (1950), Female on the Beach (1955), and Away All Boats (1956). He also performed as a radio actor and as a singer.
Chandler was born Ira Grossel in Brooklyn, New York City, the only child of Jewish parents Anna (née Herman) and Phillip Grossel. He was raised by his mother after his parents separated when he was a child.
He attended Erasmus Hall High School, where he acted in school plays; his schoolmates included Susan Hayward. Chandler's father was connected with the restaurant business and got his son a job as a restaurant cashier. Chandler said he always wanted to act, but courses for commercial art were cheaper, so he studied art for a year and worked as a layout artist for a mail-order catalogue at $18 a week.
Eventually, he saved up enough money to take a drama course at the Feagin School of Dramatic Art in New York. He worked briefly in radio, then got a job in a stock company on Long Island as an actor and stage manager. He worked for two years in stock companies, including a performance of The Trojan Horse opposite famous singers and actors Gordon MacRae and his wife Sheila MacRae, who became his good friends.
Chandler formed his own company, the Shady Lane Playhouse, in Illinois in the summer of 1941. The company toured the Midwest with some success, presenting such plays as The Bad Man, Seventh Heaven, The New Minister, and Pigs. When America entered World War II, Chandler enlisted in the army. He served for four years, mostly in the Aleutians, finishing with the rank of lieutenant.
After being discharged from the army, Chandler moved to Los Angeles in December 1945 with $3,000 he had saved. Shortly after his arrival, he was involved in a serious car accident on the way to a screen test, which resulted in a large scar on his forehead.
Chandler initially struggled to find work in Hollywood, and had spent all his savings when he got his first job as a radio actor in May 1946. He went on to appear in episodes of anthology drama series such as Escape and Academy Award Theater, and became well known for playing the lead in Michael Shayne. Chandler was the first actor to portray Chad Remington in Frontier Town.
Chandler had appeared on air in Rogue's Gallery with Dick Powell, who was impressed by the actor, and put pressure on Columbia to give Chandler his first film role, a small part as a gangster in Johnny O'Clock (1947). He tested for Columbia's The Loves of Carmen but did not get the part. He went on to play small roles as gangsters in Roses are Red and The Invisible Wall, and a policeman in Mr Belvedere Goes to College. Chandler received more attention playing Eve Arden's love interest on radio in Our Miss Brooks, which debuted in July 1948 and became a massive hit.
His performance in Our Miss Brooks brought him to the attention of executives at Universal, who were looking for someone to play an Israeli leader in Sword in the Desert (1949). He was cast in February 1949. Chandler impressed studio executives so much with his work that shortly into filming, Universal signed him to a seven-year contract. His first film under the arrangement was a supporting role in Abandoned (1949).
Writer-director Delmer Daves was looking for an actor to play Cochise in Broken Arrow (1950) at 20th Century Fox. The part was proving tricky to cast; in Chandler's words, "Fox was looking for a guy big enough physically to play the role and unfamiliar enough to moviegoers to lend authenticity." Chandler's performance as a similar resistance leader-type in Sword of the Desert brought him to the studio's attention, and he was borrowed from Universal for the role in May 1949. As part of the arrangement, Chandler signed a deal with Fox to make a film a year with them for six years. He also had to be written out of his radio shows Michael Shayne and Our Miss Brooks for several weeks.
Broken Arrow turned out to be a considerable hit, earning Chandler an Oscar nomination and establishing him as a star. He was the first actor nominated for an Academy Award for portraying an American Indian.
Even before Broken Arrow was released, Chandler was upped to leading-man status back at Universal. He was meant to make Death on a Sidestreet and The Lady Count but neither ended up being made. Instead, he took over a role originally meant for Dana Andrews, a Lucky Luciano-style gangster in Deported, for producer Robert Buckner, who cast him in Sword in the Desert. "I don't know why I got it," Chandler joked at the time, "maybe it's because I'm saving them money." The movie was shot on location in Italy, although Chandler's radio commitments meant some of it had to be filmed in Hollywood.
He went back to Fox for his second film for them, as an embittered Union cavalryman in Two Flags West for director Robert Wise. Chandler replaced Lee J. Cobb, and it was one of his least-typical roles, a character part rather than a leading man. Once again, location work required him to regularly commute back and forth to Hollywood throughout the shoot.
Returning to Universal, Chandler played an adventurer in Smuggler's Island, a role he liked because he said it was close to his real personality. Hollywood tended to cast him, though, in different nationalities. According to one profile, "he has unusual face, with taut, bony features, which seem to fit neatly into any sort of role".
He was reunited with Fox and Delmer Daves to play a Polynesian chief in Bird of Paradise (1951), which Chandler admitted was a variation of his performance as Cochise. It was the last film he made outside Universal for a number of years.
Back at Universal, he played a boxer in Iron Man (1951), a remake of an old Lew Ayres movie. He was announced for another film with Buckner, The Wild Bunch, which was not made; instead, he played an Arab chief in Flame of Araby (1951), opposite Maureen O'Hara.
Around this time, Chandler expressed his dissatisfaction with acting in film as opposed to radio:
[Radio actors] have to make their roles come alive, and they only have their voices with which to do it, but in pictures, the technique is quite different. The actor is only a small part of the performance. He lends his intelligence and personality to the role, but the greatest part of the performance belongs to the producer, who puts him in a certain type of part; the director, who tells him how to play it; and the cutter, who edits what's done. That's why I find being a movie actor not particularly gratifying. I want to eventually branch off into writing and directing.