Trivia

Although he had agreed to appear in German-approved French films, Gravey was an underminer of the invaders as a member of the French Secret Army and the Foreign Legion. At the end of the war, Gravey was considered a war hero.

Before World War I, he received an education in Britain and could speak both French and English fluently, something which became useful in his movie roles.

In 1936, he married the French actress Jane Renouardt, who was 15 years his senior. They remained together until his death on 2 November 1970 of a heart-attack. Jane died on 3 February 1972. They had no children.

Among his last English language performances were How to Steal a Million (1966), Guns for San Sebastian (1968) and The Madwoman of Chaillot (1969), in which he played the police inspector.

Gravey started performing at the early age of five under his father's direction.

He was also known as Fernand Gravet in the United States.

In 1937, after several more French and British movies, Gravey went to Hollywood, where the spelling of his last name was altered to Gravet, and he became the focus of a rather extensive Hollywood publicity campaign (instructing moviegoers to pronounce his name properly: "Rhymes with Gravy"). Unfortunately for Gravey, he was offered only standard parts, the type of Gallic-lover roles that Louis Jourdan played in the 1950s and 1960s.

During the First Worldwar, Gravey served in the British Merchant Marine Corp.

In 1933, he made Bitter Sweet, his first English language movie, which became more famous in its 1940 incarnation with Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy.

He was the son of actors Georges Mertens and Fernande Depernay, who appeared in silent films produced by pioneer Belge Cinéma Film (a subsidiary of Pathé).

While Gravey's mother Fernande Depernay had been Alfred Machin's favorite actress in the films he directed at the Belge Cinéma Film, Gravey's father Georges Mertens was not only actor but also director of the Théatre des Galeries in Brussels.

Despite his American success Gravey longed for France and went back in 1939, shortly before the German Occupation. Shortly after his return he acted in the French film noir Le dernier tournant (Pierre Chenal 1939), the first filmic adaptation of James M. Cain's The Postman Always Rings Twice.

During the First World War young Mertens stayed in Britain, where he started to get interested in the stage, became sportive and a passionate horse rider, and perfected his English; the latter would become an important asset in his international career and shaped his imago as gentleman of the screen.

His last screen performance Gravey did in the crime story L'Explosion (Marc Simenon 1971), which was released after Gravey's death .

He started to act already at the age of five, under the direction of his father.