Alexander Granach was born in the region of Galizia, in what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire Granach was acting on Broadway with Frederic March in the play by John Hersey, "A Bell for Adano," when he had an attack of appendicitis and died several days later of an embolism, on March 13, 1945. Alexander Granach wrote an autobiographical novel, with the title Da geht ein Mensch, in German, which was published in 1945, just after his death. The book was published at the same time in an English version, as There Goes an Actor. It was recognized at the time as a remarkable work, and has been republished as: From the Shtetl to the Stage: the Odyssey of a Wandering Actor, by Transaction Publishers, 2010.
When he had finished his apprenticeship with a baker he came in contact with Russian-Jewish students and he sympathized with the revolutionary movement in Russia.
Alexander Granach was married in second marriage with the actress Lotte Lieven-Stiefel.
He appeared as a substitute for an ill falling colleague in the play "Hamlet" and attracted attention for the first time. In the following twenty years he became established as a great theater actor, only between 1914 and 1918 his career came to a stop because of the conscription into the Austrian army.
He came via Vienna to Berlin in 1906 where he earned his living as a baker for the time being. Besides he joined the Yiddish theater where he could make his first acting experiences.
The critics of in this time blamed him for his overdoing gestures in his performances. Very nice is the description of a critic for the Film-Kurier in 1923 on the occasion of the movie "Qualen der Nacht" (1925): "Fantastic in the conception, unfortunately too strong orchestrated in the carrying out. Each gesture a Meyerbeer orchestra.".
Together with his first wife Martha Guttmann he had a son Gerhard who was born in 1915. Gerhard emigrated in 1936 to Haifa (then Palestine) and lived until his death on January 6, 2011 as Gad Granach in Jerusalem.
Since 1934 he lived with the Swiss actress Lotte Lieven-Stiefel together. He wanted to see her recognized as his legitimate wife, although they were not married.
