McCrea, Joel (1905–1991)

US film actor. He played in several major 1930s and 1940s productions, such as Dead End (1937) and Sullivan's Travels (1941). In later decades he was associated almost exclusively with the Western genre, notably Ride the High Country (1962).

McCrea's career stretched from 1928 to 1976. He began as an extra, rapidly graduated to romantic leads, and by the time of Union Pacific (1939), he was starring in major films. Alfred Hitchcock, who cast him in Foreign Correspondent (1940), described him as too ‘easy-going’, yet this aspect of his acting was both deceptive and the key to his skill, and contributed significantly to his success in the comedies of Preston Sturges, such as The Palm Beach Story (1944), which were the high point of his career.