RAY MILLAND His Amazing LIFE STORY

THE ACTOR’S MOST ACCLAIMED ROLE BROUGHT HIM AN OSCAR BUT ALSO THREATENED TO RUIN HIS CAREER

Ray Milland arrived at his home to find a book on his doorstep. “Read it. Study it. You’re going to play it,” said the accompanying note from a Paramount Studios boss. The book was The Lost Weekend by Charles Jackson, an unflinching story about an alcoholic writer on a five-day binge. “It was the first real job of acting — the first assignment to play someone other than myself — I’d ever been offered,” said Ray, who admitted, “I wasn’t at all sure I was ready for it.”

After arriving in Hollywood in 1930, Ray, who was born Reginald Truscott-Jones and raised on the west coast of Wales, played many secondary roles in both British and American films. Starring in The Lost Weekend would change his life and the trajectory of his career — for better and for worse!