Gloria Grahame
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| Gloria Grahame | |||||||
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 from the trailer for The Greatest Show on Earth (1952) |
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| Born | Gloria Hallward November 28, 1923 Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
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| Died | October 5, 1981 (aged 57) New York City, New York, U.S. |
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| Years active | 1944 – 1981 | ||||||
| Spouse(s) | Stanley Clements (1945-1948) Nicholas Ray (1948-1952) 1 child Cy Howard (1954-1957) 1 child Anthony Ray (1960-1974) 2 children |
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Gloria Grahame (November 28, 1923 – October 5, 1981) was an Academy Award-winning American film actress.
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[edit] Biography
[edit] Early life
Grahame was born Gloria Hallward in Los Angeles, California. Her father, Reginald Michael Bloxam Hallward, was an architect and author descended from King Edward III.[1] Her mother, Jeannie McDougall, who used the stage name Jean Grahame, was a British stage actress and acting teacher who taught Gloria acting during her childhood and adolescence. She was signed to a contract with MGM Studios after Louis B. Mayer saw her performing on Broadway.
[edit] Career
Changing her name to Gloria Grahame, she made her film debut in Blonde Fever (1944) and scored one of her most widely praised roles as the promiscuous Violet, who is saved from disgrace by George Bailey in It's a Wonderful Life (1946). MGM was not able to develop her potential as a star and her contract was sold to RKO Studios in 1947.
Grahame was often featured in film noir pictures as a tarnished beauty with an irresistible sexual allure. During this time, she made films for several Hollywood studios. She received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress for Crossfire (1947).
Grahame starred with Humphrey Bogart in the 1950 film In a Lonely Place, a performance which garnered her considerable praise. Though today it is considered among her finest performances, at the time it didn't help her career; it wasn't a box-office hit and Howard Hughes, owner of RKO Studios, admitted that he never saw her first starring role. When she asked to be loaned out for meaty roles in Born Yesterday and A Place in the Sun Hughes refused and made her do a supporting role in Macao (film). She won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in The Bad and the Beautiful (1952).
Other memorable roles included the scheming Irene Nieves in Sudden Fear (1952), the femme fatale Vicki Buckley in Human Desire (1953), and mob moll Debby Marsh in The Big Heat (1953). In a horrifying, especially for its time, scene, she is scarred by hot coffee thrown in her face by Lee Marvin's character.
Grahame was often regarded as a difficult actress to work with,[citation needed] and her career began to wane after her quixotic, but successful casting in the musical movie Oklahoma! (1955). Grahame was seen as difficult to cast with the demise of film noir, not evil, but too naughty to be an innocent. She began a slow return to the theater, but returned to films occasionally to play supporting roles, mostly in minor releases.
Grahame has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contribution to Motion Pictures, at 6522 Hollywood Boulevard.
[edit] Personal life
Grahame had a string of stormy romances and failed marriages during her time in Hollywood. These difficulties began to affect her career after marital and child custody problems began to influence Grahame on the set of Oklahoma!. In 1960, even Hollywood was scandalized after her marriage to Tony Ray, Grahame's former stepson and son of her ex-husband Nicholas Ray (In A Lonely Place, Rebel Without a Cause) whom she had divorced eight years previously. Gloria ended up having children by both father and son. Finding film roles difficult to obtain in Hollywood, she returned to the theater and continued to work as a stage actress.
[edit] Death
In 1981, Grahame collapsed during a rehearsal for a British stage play, and returned to New York City, where she died soon after from breast cancer at the age of 57. She is interred in Oakwood Memorial Park Cemetery in Chatsworth, California. An account of her last days is given in the book Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool by Peter Turner.
She was survived by her children from various marriages, and a sister.
[edit] Filmography
| Year | Film | Role | Other notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1944 | Blonde Fever | Sally Murfin | |
| 1945 | Without Love | Flower girl | |
| 1946 | It's a Wonderful Life | Violet Bick | |
| 1947 | It Happened in Brooklyn | Nurse | |
| Crossfire | Ginny Tremaine | Nominated - Best Actress in a Supporting Role | |
| Song of the Thin Man | Fran Ledue Page | ||
| Merton of the Movies | Beulah Baxter | ||
| 1949 | A Woman's Secret | Susan Caldwell aka Estrellita | |
| Roughshod | Mary Wells | ||
| 1950 | In a Lonely Place | Laurel Gray | |
| 1952 | The Greatest Show on Earth | Angel | |
| Macao | Margie | ||
| Sudden Fear | Irene Neves | ||
| The Bad and the Beautiful | Rosemary Bartlow | Academy Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role Nominated - Golden Globe |
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| 1953 | The Glass Wall | Maggie Summers | |
| Man on a Tightrope | Zama Cernik | ||
| The Big Heat | Debby Marsh | ||
| Prisoners of the Casbah | Princess Nadja aka Yasmin | ||
| 1954 | Human Desire | Vicki Buckley | |
| Naked Alibi | Marianna | ||
| The Good Die Young | Denise Blaine | ||
| 1955 | The Cobweb | Karen McIver | |
| Not as a Stranger | Harriet Lang | ||
| Oklahoma! | Ado Annie Carnes | ||
| 1956 | The Man Who Never Was | Lucy Sherwood | |
| 1957 | Ride Out for Revenge | Amy Porter | |
| 1959 | Odds Against Tomorrow | Helen | |
| 1966 | Ride Beyond Vengeance | Bonnie Shelley | |
| 1971 | Blood and Lace | Mrs. Deere | |
| The Todd Killings | Mrs. Roy | ||
| Chandler | Selma | ||
| 1972 | The Loners | Annabelle | |
| 1973 | Tarot (film) | Angela | |
| 1974 | Mama's Dirty Girls | Mama Love | |
| 1976 | Mansion of the Doomed | Katherine | |
| 1979 | A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square | Ma Fox | |
| Head Over Heels | Clara | ||
| 1980 | Melvin and Howard | Mrs. Sisk | |
| 1982 | The Nesting | Florinda Costello |
| Awards | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Kim Hunter for A Streetcar Named Desire |
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress 1952 for The Bad and the Beautiful |
Succeeded by Donna Reed for From Here to Eternity |
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- Gloria Grahame at the Internet Movie Database
- Gloria Grahame at the TCM Movie Database
- Gloria Grahame at Find A Grave
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