Fredric March was a distinguished stage actor and one of Hollywoods most celebrated, versatile stars of the 1930s and 40s. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1932 for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and in 1947 for The Best Years of Our Lives. March is the only actor to have won both the Academy Award and the Tony Award twice.
March was born in Racine, Wisconsin, the son of Cora Brown Marcher , a schoolteacher, and John F. Bickel , a devout Presbyterian Church elder who worked in the wholesale hardware business. March attended the Winslow Elementary School , Racine High School, and the University of WisconsinMadison where he was a member of Alpha Delta Phi. He began a career as a banker, but an emergency appendectomy caused him to reevaluate his life, and in 1920 he began working as an extra in movies made in New York City, using a shortened form of his mothers maiden name. He appeared on Broadway in 1926, and by the end of the decade signed a film contract with Paramount Pictures. March served in the United States Army during World War I as an artillery lieutenant.
Source: Wikipedia