"We did 'Long Day's Journey...' for two years - that was enough! I've had the theater. It becomes a damn bore night after night.".
Marlon Brando praised March as his favorite actor in his youth.
A 500-seat theater was named after him on October 15, 1971, at the University of Wisconsin branch in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.
Adopted 2 Children with his wife, Florence Eldridge: Penelope ("Penny," born 1932) and Anthony (born 1934).
After he and his wife Florence Eldridge appeared in the heavily panned play, "Yr. Obedient Husband" in 1938, they ran an ad in New York newspapers; a cartoon borrowed from the New Yorker magazine, it showed a a trapeze artist missing his partner. The caption read: "Oops! Sorry!"
Although it was not used, he proposed the following epitaph for his tombstone: "This is just my lot.".
Because he considered 12 his lucky number, he shortened Frederick to Fredric, shortened his mother's maiden name from Marcher to March, and as of New Year's Day, 1924, Fredric March was born.
Beverly Hills mansion built for March in 1931 was the first home of Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston. It is now owned by Madonna.
Bogart and March played chess every day during breaks in the filming of the Desperate Hours.
Director John Frankenheimer calls Fredric March "the finest human being I've ever known, as well as the best actor I ever worked with," citing March's celebrated turns in The Iceman Cometh and Seven Days in May.
Early in March's career, director John Cromwell, persuaded him to change his last name. His first wife wanted him to use his middle name and her first name: McIntyre Ellis. But he could not abide a name like that, being too used to Fred. Finally, they settled on his idea, Fredric March.
Elected class president in his last year of grammar school, his senior year of high school and again in his senior year of college.
For a while after undergoing major surgery for prostate cancer in 1970 it seemed March's acting career was finished. However he was able to give one final great performance in The Iceman Cometh (1973).
For many years he maintained his primary residence in New Milford, Connecticut. After his death, the property was subsequently leased to playwright Lillian Hellman as well as to Henry Kissinger.
Graduated with honors from the University of Wisconsin with a degree in economics.
He and Basil Rathbone both appeared together in two television adaptations of "A Christmas Carol", shown in the 1950s. In the first, telecast in 1954 as part of the "Shower of Stars" (1954) series, March played Scrooge and Rathbone played Marley's Ghost. In the second, telecast in 1958 as part of the "Fredric March Presents Tales from Dickens" (1958) series, March was the narrator, and Rathbone played Scrooge.
He entered the banking business in New York in 1920, working at what was then known as First National City Bank (now Citibank) when a ruptured appendix nearly killed him. While he was recuperating, his landlady (a former actress) related anecdotes from her days in the theater and he was so enchanted that he decided to pursue his real dream and become an actor.
He is the first actor to win an Academy Award for a horror film (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931)). The next would not be until Anthony Hopkins in The Silence of the Lambs (1991).
He singled out The Best Years of Our Lives as his favorite movie role and Long Day's Journey into Night as his favorite stage play. He considered work in television "an awful experience".
His stage name was a shortened version of his mother's maiden name (Marcher).