George Raft Trivia

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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.

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.

Banned from entering Britain in 1966 because of his alleged Mafia connections.

Bugsy Siegel actually lived at Raft`s home in Hollywood for a time while trying to make inroads for organized crime within the movie colony.

He turned down High Sierra (1941), The Maltese Falcon (1941), Casablanca (1942) and Double Indemnity (1944).