Veteran stage and film star in both England and the US, long associated with his performance as "Abe Lincoln in Illinois" (1940), written for Massey by playwright Robert Sherwood. Lanky and not conventionally handsome, with a long, saturnine face and full lips, Massey brought an intense, commanding presence to features and often played discomforting authority figures. Notable examples of this type of role include his nasty Chauvelin in "The Scarlet Pimpernel" (1935), his principled John Brown in "Santa Fe Trail" (1940), his stern prosecutor in the Heaven-set sequences of the imaginative
Lieutenant with Canadian Field Artillery in France; after year at the front returned to Canada suffering from shell shock; served as artillery instructor alongside fellow-officer and future actor Walter Pidgeon
1917
Artillery and trench warfare instructor at school in Toronto, Yale and Princeton
To Siberia with Canadian Expeditionary Force; in charge of entertainment while stationed at Vladivostok
