George Macready (August 29, 1899 – July 2, 1973) was a distinguished American actor of stage and screen, a master at portraying sophisticated, cold-hearted, and often menacing villains, made all the more memorable by a distinctive scar on his right cheek.
A veteran of the Broadway stage and a descendant of a famed English actor, Macready was known for his cultured voice and aristocratic bearing, which he used to create some of cinema’s most iconic villains. His most famous role was that of the sinister and possessive casino owner Ballin Mundson, who wields a sword-cane and traps Rita Hayworth and Glenn Ford in a deadly love triangle in the classic film noir Gilda (1946).
George Macready’s other legendary role was as the merciless and ambitious General Paul Mireau in Stanley Kubrick’s anti-war masterpiece Paths of Glory (1957), where he goes head-to-head with Kirk Douglas. He also appeared in the classic Western Vera Cruz (1954), the Roman epic Julius Caesar (1953), and had a late-career role in the historical drama Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970), cementing his legacy as one of the great, polished villains of the Golden Age.
