Biographie

A licensed pilot, he tried to enlist in the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II, but was rejected due to an "impaired left hand". Instead, he worked as a civilian flight instructor for the Army and also toured with the USO in the South Pacific.

When working on I Wanted Wings (1941), with Brian Donlevy and William Holden, he went up with a pilot to test a plane for filming. While up in the air, Ray decided to do a parachute jump (being an avid amateur parachutist) but, just before he could disembark, the plane began to sputter and the pilot said not to jump as they were running low on gas and he needed to land. Once on the ground and in the hangar, Ray began to tell his story of how he had wanted to do a jump. As he was talking, the color ran out of the costume man's face. When asked why, he told Ray that the parachute he had worn up in the plane was "just a prop". There had been no parachute.

Had a terrible accident during the filming of Hotel Imperial (1939), when, taking his horse over a jump, the saddle-girth broke and he landed head-first on a pile of bricks. His most serious injuries were a concussion that left him unconscious for 24 hours, a three-inch gash in his skull that took nine stitches to close, and numerous fractures and lacerations on his left hand.

As of 2020, he is one of four actors who have won Best Actor at the Oscars and at the Cannes Film Festival for the same performance. The others are Jon Voight in Le retour (1978), William Hurt in Le Baiser de la Femme Araignée (1985)and Jean Dujardin in L'artiste (2011).

When accepting the Best Actor Oscar for The Lost Weekend (1945) from Ingrid Bergman, gave one of the shorter speeches in Oscar history: "Thank you. Thank you very much indeed. I'm greatly honored." (Presentation can be found on YouTube).

The greatest drawback in making pictures is the fact that film makers have to eat.

[on Louella Parsons] She never forgot a thing and, by the same token, never forgave anyone who crossed her. But she was never vicious.

[on Hedda Hopper] She was venomous, vicious, a pathological liar, and quite stupid.

The Celtic mind in its lonely moments is a tumbling sea of love and compassion and romanticism and neurotic hates.

[when asked why he had appeared in so many bad films late in his career] For the money, old chap, for the money!