(1948), Humoresque (1946), Pride of the Marines (1945), He Ran All the Way (1951), and Destination Tokyo (1943).


Garfield’s acting was groundbreaking. He is considered the first “method” actor. A New York Times article from January 30, 2003, titled "Recalling John Garfield, Rugged Star KO’d by Fate” began, “Before James Dean and Marlon Brando, before Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, there was John Garfield.” It continued, “Garfield’s chip-on- the-shoulder style and his rugged looks often cast him as a social outsider on the screen: The persona affected actors from the 1950’s onward.”


David Heeley was the co-producer of “The John Garfield Story”, a documentary which aired on Turner Classic Movies in 2003 and was followed by a festival of 25 Garfield films over the course of February 2003. At the time of the documentary’s debut, Heeley said, “He’s a forgotten star. He never lived long enough to become an icon like Humphrey Bogart.”


Body and Soul: The Story of John Garfield, a 1975 biography by Larry Swindell addressed the stuttering of the young Julie Garfinkle, who would shed both his name and his stuttering to become movie star John Garfield.


Garfield’s early education in the New York City publics schools was very troubled and he was expelled several times and hung around with street gangs. When he was set on quitting school after the fifth grade, his family was successful in having him transfer to another Bronx school that had the reputation of being an innovative school in which troubled students might be turned around. In September 1926 Garfield was enrolled in P.S. 45, which was run by principal Dr. Angelo Patri. The Garfinkle family hoped that this school that had a good record of specializing in the rehabilitation of troubled students would work a miracle and get the young Julie on the right track.


Throughout his life, Garfield would praise Dr. Patri for turning his life around. The actor once said, “For a lost boy to be found, someone has to do


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