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George Raft was born and grew up in a poor family in Hell's Kitchen, at the time, one of the roughest, meanest areas of New York City. In his youth he showed a great interest in, and aptitude for, dancing. That, combined with his dark good looks and sharp dressing, made him a local favorite at such spots as the El Fey Club. Raft was originally a Taxi-Dancer who earned about seventy-five dollars (American) a week dancing with the ladies at a public restaurant-dance palace called the 'El Fey Club' in New York. Raft would work with, then unknown Rudolph Valentino and Joan Sawyer at the El Fey. As a teenager, he was a bat-boy for the New York Highlanders (Yankees), tried out for semi-pro baseball, boxed at the Polo Athletic Club and hustled pool. A lifelong baseball fan, by 1955 he had attended the World Series for the past 25 years.

In 1928, Raft went to Hollywood to try his luck at acting. His first big role was as the coin-tossing henchman in Scarface (1932). His career was marked by numerous tough-guy roles, often a gangster or convict. The believability with which he played these, together with his lifelong associations with such real-life gangsters as Owney Madden and Bugsy Siegel, added to persistent rumors that he was also a gangster. The slightly shady reputation may have helped his popularity early on, but it made him somewhat undesirable to movie executives later in his career. He somewhat parodied his gangster reputation in Billy Wilder's Some Like It Hot (1959).

Raft was a close friend of notorious gangster Benjamin Bugsy Siegel since their childhood in New York. Siegel actually lived at Raft's home in Hollywood for a time while trying to make inroads for organized crime within the movie colony. According to James Cagney's autobiography Cagney By Cagney, (Published by Doubleday and Company Inc 1976), a Mafia plan to murder Cagney by dropping a several hundred pound klieg light on top of him was stopped at the insistence of George Raft. Cagney at that time was President of the Screen Actors Guild and was determined not to let the mob infiltrate the industry. Raft used his 'many' mob connections to cancel the hit.

During the 1950s he worked as a greeter at the Capri Casino in Havana, Cuba, where he was part owner along with Meyer Lansky and Santo Trafficante. In 1953, Raft also starred as Lt. George Kirby in a syndicated television series police drama entitled I'm the Law which ran for one season.

He satirized his gangster image with a well-received performance in Some Like it Hot (1959), but this did not lead to a comeback, and he spent the remainder of the decade making films in Europe. He played a small role as a casino owner in Ocean's Eleven (1960) opposite the Rat Pack. A romantic figure in Hollywood, Raft had love affairs with Betty Grable and Mae West. He stated publicly that he wanted to marry Norma Shearer, with whom he had a long romance. His final film appearances were in Sextette (1978), reunited with Mae West in a cameo, and The Man with Bogart's Face (1980). Raft appeared with Mae West in both her first (Night After Night (1932)) and last (Sextette (1978)) films. He died two days after West's death.

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NOTORIOUS QUOTE: "I must have gone through $10 million during my career. Part of the loot went for gambling, part for horses and part for women. The rest I spent foolishly."

George Raft September 26, 1895 – November 24, 1980