Thursday, August 19, 2004

Mark Steyn Remembers Fay Wray (1907-2004)

In The Spectator:


"Born in Alberta, raised in Arizona and Utah, and sent at the age of 14 to live with a male friend of her sister’s in Hollywood, Fay Wray had no reason to wind up a movie star other than her own determination: she was good-looking in the way the gal serving you hash in the greasy spoon back in Arizona might be. She was a smart, largely self-taught woman who loved writers. Between them, her husbands and lovers wrote the screenplays of Wings, The Dawn Patrol, It Happened One Night, Lost Horizon, You Can’t Take It With You, Golden Boy, The Big Knife and Rhapsody In Blue. After acting, Miss Wray turned to playwriting herself – her last work was premiered in New Hampshire a few years back – and also came up with a very beguiling memoir with a Kong-alluding title, On The Other Hand."