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.
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 theatre-actor. Only between 1914 and 1918, his career came to a stop because of the conscription into the Austrian army.
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.
Alexander Granach was married in second marriage with the actress Lotte Lieven-Stiefel.
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 theatre where he could make his first acting experiences.
The critics of in this time blamed him for his over-doing 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 (1926)" (1925):
"Fantastic in the conception, unfortunately too strong orchestrated in the carrying out. Each gesture a Meyerbeer orchestra.".
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.