Fay Wray

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Fay Wray

Publicity photo for King Kong, ca. 1933
Birth name Vina Fay Wray
Born September 15, 1907
Cardston, Alberta, Canada
Died August 8, 2004
New York, New York, USA

Vina Fay Wray (September 15, 1907 – August 8, 2004) was a Canadian–American actress.

Contents

[edit] Early life

Wray was born on a ranch near Cardston, Alberta, Canada. Her family moved to the United States when she was three. Although Wray's autobiography discusses her Mormon parentage and makes it clear that she was culturally Mormon, she was apparently never baptized as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Wray's family lived in predominantly Mormon communities in Alberta, Arizona and Salt Lake City, Utah before settling in Los Angeles, California, where she got her first film work in Hal Roach comedy shorts and in low-budget westerns in the early 1920s.

[edit] Career

Wray gained media attention when she was selected as one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars in 1926, which landed her a contract at Paramount Pictures.

In 1928, director Erich von Stroheim cast Wray as the main female lead in his troubled production of The Wedding March, which sent Hollywood in a buzz for its high budget and production values. It was a financial failure, but it gave Wray her first lead role.

She is best remembered for her role as Ann Darrow, the blonde seductress of a gigantic, prehistoric gorilla in the classic horror/adventure film King Kong (1933). She wore a blonde wig over her naturally dark hair for the role. There have been claims the screams emanated from actress Julie Haydon, and dubbed to Wray, but that has been disputed.

[edit] Personal life

Wray was married three times.

She had three children (not four as is sometimes misreported):

  • Susan Saunders
  • Victoria Riskin
  • Robert Riskin Jr.

Her autobiography, On the Other Hand (ISBN 0-312-02265-4), was published in 1988.

For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Fay Wray has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6349 Hollywood Blvd. She received a posthumous star on Canada's Walk of Fame in Toronto on June 5, 2005.

A small park near Lee's Creek on Main Street in Cardston, Alberta, is named Fay Wray Park in her honor. The small sign at the edge of the park on Main Street has a silhouette of King Kong on it.

Wray died at her apartment in Manhattan, New York at the age of 96 of natural causes on August 8, 2004, and was interred at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Hollywood, California.

In May 2006, Wray became one of the first four entertainers to ever be honored by Canada Post by being featured on a postage stamp.

[edit] Trivia

  • Peter Jackson had approached her about doing a cameo in his 2005 remake of King Kong, but she died before she could do so. Originally, she was to walk up to Kong's body in the film's final scene, and deliver the famous line "It was beauty killed the beast." After her death, the line reverted to Carl Denham (Jack Black) who says it in the original film.
  • She is referred to in Peter Jackson's King Kong : Carl Denham needs to find an actress quickly, and suggests 'Fay' as a possibility. However, he is told that she is doing a picture with RKO. The original film was produced by RKO. To which Denham replies "Cooper, huh? I might have known." referring to the director Merian C. Cooper.
  • She is the granddaughter of Mormon pioneer Daniel Webster Jones.
  • Referred to in the opening and closing sequences of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and is portrayed as the role model of Tim Curry's character Frank N Furter (Whatever happened to Fay Wray?)
  • After her death, the Empire State Building went into complete darkness for 15 minutes in her memory.

[edit] Filmography

  • Gasoline Love (1923) (short subject)
  • Thundering Landlords (1925) (short subject)
  • No Father to Guide Him (1925) (short subject)
  • The Coast Patrol (1925)
  • Sure-Mike (1925) (short subject)
  • What Price Goofy (1925) (short subject)
  • Isn't Life Terrible? (1925) (short subject)
  • Chasing the Chaser (1925) (short subject)
  • Madame Sans Jane (1925) (short subject)
  • Unfriendly Enemies (1925) (short subject)
  • Your Own Back Yard (1925) (short subject)
  • Moonlight and Noses (1925) (short subject)
  • Should Sailors Marry? (1925) (short subject)
  • WAMPAS Baby Stars of 1926 (1926) (short subject)
  • One Wild Time (1926) (short subject)
  • Don Key (A Son of a Burro) (1926) (short subject)
  • The Man in the Saddle (1926)
  • Don't Shoot (1926) (short subject)
  • The Wild Horse Stampede (1926)
  • The Saddle Tramp (1926) (short subject)
  • The Show Cowpuncher (1926) (short subject)
  • Lazy Lightning (1926)
  • Loco Luck (1927)
  • A One Man Game (1927)
  • Spurs and Saddles (1927)
  • A Trip Through the Paramount Studio (1927) (short subject)
  • The Honeymoon (1928) (unreleased)
  • The Legion of the Condemned (1928)
  • Street of Sin (1928)
  • The First Kiss (1928)
  • The Wedding March (1928)
  • Thunderbolt (1929)
  • The Four Feathers (1929)
  • Pointed Heels (1929)
  • Behind the Make-Up (1930)
  • Paramount on Parade (1930)
  • The Texan (1930)
  • The Border Legion (1930)
  • The Sea God (1930)
  • Captain Thunder (1930)
  • The Conquering Horde (1931)
  • Three Rogues (1931)
  • The Slippery Pearls (1931) (short subject)
  • Dirigible (1931)
  • The Finger Points (1931)
  • The Lawyer's Secret (1931)
  • The Unholy Garden (1931)
  • Hollywood on Parade (1932) (short subject)
  • Stowaway (1932)
  • Doctor X (1932)
  • The Most Dangerous Game (1932)
  • The Vampire Bat (1932)
  • Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933)
  • King Kong (1933)
  • Below the Sea (1933)
  • Ann Carver's Profession (1933)
  • The Woman I Stole (1933)
  • Shanghai Madness (1933)
  • The Big Brain (1933)
  • One Sunday Afternoon (1933)
  • The Bowery (1933)
  • Master of Men (1933)
  • The Clairvoyant (1934)
  • Madame Spy (1934)
  • The Countess of Monte Cristo (1934)
  • Once to Every Woman (1934)
  • Viva Villa! (1934)
  • The Affairs of Cellini (1934)
  • Black Moon (1934)
  • The Richest Girl in the World (1934)
  • Cheating Cheaters (1934)
  • Woman in the Dark (1934)
  • Come Out of the Pantry (1935)
  • Mills of the Gods (1935)
  • Bulldog Jack (1935)
  • White Lies (1935)
  • When Knight Were Bold (1936)
  • Roaming Lady (1936)
  • They Met in a Taxi (1936)
  • It Happened in Hollywood (1937)
  • Murder in Greenwich Village (1937)
  • The Jury's Secret (1938)
  • Smashing the Spy Ring (1939)
  • Navy Secrets (1939)
  • Wildcat Bus (1940)
  • Melody for Three (1941)
  • Adam Had Four Sons (1941)
  • Not a Ladies' Man (1942)
  • Treasure of the Golden Condor (1953)
  • Small Town Girl (1953)
  • Hell on Frisco Bay (1955)
  • The Cobweb (1955)
  • Queen Bee (1955)
  • Rock, Pretty Baby (1956)
  • Crime of Passion (1957)
  • Tammy and the Bachelor (1957)
  • Summer Love (1958)
  • Dragstrip Riot (1958)
  • Gideons Trumpet(1980)
  • Off the Menu: The Last Days of Chasen's (1997) (documentary)
  • Broadway: The Golden Age, by the Legends Who Were There (2003) (documentary)

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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