- His tragic death, from falling through a glass shower door and bleeding out, resulted in California's enacting a state law requiring all glass shower doors to be made with safety glass, so his accident could not be repeated.
- Karen Burroughs Hansberry published a short biography of McGraw in her book 'Bad Boys: The Actors of Film Noir'.
- Appeared with Jim Backus in four films: Ma and Pa Kettle Go to Town (1950), His Kind of Woman (1951), The Horizontal Lieutenant (1962) and It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963).
- Appeared in four films that have been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant: The Killers (1946), Spartacus (1960), The Birds (1963), and In Cold Blood (1967).
- In September 1955 he surfaced in the Humphrey Bogart role as Rick in the television version of Casablanca (1955) for ABC. It lasted only one season. However, for some reason, Rick's last name here was Jason. NBC revived the series again in (Casablanca (1983)), this time with David Soul of Starsky and Hutch (1975) fame and with the lead character's name reverting to that of the original film--Rick Blaine.
- McGraw's jaw was accidentally broken during filming of Spartacus. At the start of the gladiator rebellion, it appeared Kirk Douglas accidentally shoved McGraw's head into the side of a soup cauldron. But in fact, McGraw slipped moments later breaking his jaw on the cauldron.
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content
