A lifelong baseball fan, by 1955 he had attended the World Series for the past 25 years.
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.
According to both the 1900 and 1910 Censuses for New York City, Raft only had one sibling named Eva "Katie" Ranft, born on April 18, 1896 in Manhattan.
According to the 1900 and 1910 Censuses for New York City, Raft's parents, Conrad Ranft and Eva Glockner were both born in Germany.
According to The Lewiston Daily Sun newspaper June 1936, George was 5 feet, 10 inches tall, weighed 155 pounds, had an olive complexion, black hair and brown eyes.
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.
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.
As previously reported, he turned down the roles of Roy "Mad Dog" Earle in "High Sierra (1941)", Sam Spade in "The Maltese Falcon (1941)", and Rick Blaine in "Casablanca (1942)." All three of these parts were picked up by Humphrey Bogart, and each one was essential in making Bogart a superstar.
Banned from entering Britain in 1966 because of his alleged Mafia connections.
Featured in "Bad Boys: The Actors of Film Noir" by Karen Burroughs Hannsberry (McFarland, 2003).
He turned down High Sierra (1941), The Maltese Falcon (1941), Casablanca (1942) and Double Indemnity (1944).
His father was reported to having two thriving businesses: During the winter, the elder Raft was superintendent of the John Wanamaker department store. In the summer he owned and managed a merry-go-round at a small amusement park at Hasting-on-the-Hudson, New York. That merry-go-round was a family affair, began by George's grandfather. This was at Coney Island, Brooklyn.
His parents Conrad and Eva Ranft had ten children, nine of them boys, with George the eldest.
Interred at Forest Lawn (Hollywood Hills), Los Angeles, California, USA, in the Court of Remembrance.
Is portrayed by by Ray Danton in The George Raft Story (1961), Nicholas Mayer in Mae West (1982) (TV) and by Joe Mantegna in Bugsy (1991).
July 1939: Signed a long-term contract with Warner Bros. Studios.
Mother, Eva, died of asthma at her 610 West 174th Street home in 1937, after a long illness, at the age of 62. Mr. Raft was at her bedside.
Not much is known about his marriage to Mulrooney except that she was some years his senior. Although separated early, they were never divorced, and he continued to support her faithfully until her death in 1970.
Second actor to portray the title role for CBS Radio's "The Adventures of Rocky Jordan" (1951-1953).
The "Hell's Kitchen" set built for George in 'Invisible Stripes' was an exact replica of Raft's own New York birthplace.