Fay Wray (1907-2004)

Fay Wray had a acting career which lasted almost 6 decades. She attained stardom and became known as the 'scream queen' for her roles in horror movies and she won lasting pop-culture fame for her appearance in the paw of the mighty gorilla, 'King Kong'.

She was born Vina Fay Wray in Alberta, Canada, in September, 1907. Her family were Mormons and they moved to the United States for work, first to Salt Lake City, Arizona and then to Los Angeles, where Fay got her first movie experience as an extra.

She started out in Westerns at Universal Studios during the silent era. In 1926 she was one of 13 young starlets the Western Association of Motion Picture Advertisers selected as most likely to succeed in the movies. In 1927 she signed a contract with Paramount Pictures where director Erich von Stroheim elevated her from bit player to star in 'The Wedding March' in 1928, and she became a busy early talkies leading lady in the likes of 'Dirigible' in 1931, 'Three Rogues' in 1931 and 'Stowaway' in 1932, often as the girl fought over by two brawling male comrades.

Blessed with a piercing scream, Wray found herself playing in a succession of horror films:lovely in two-strip technicolor in 'Doctor Z' in 1932 and 'Mystery of the Wax Museum' in 1933, shrilly imperilled in 'The Vampire Bat' in 1933, and as the 'prize' sought by mad Leslie Banks in 'The Most Dangerous Game' in 1932.

This was followed by Wray's most memorable film, 'King Kong' in 1933. She was asked by director Merian C. Cooper to play the role of Ann Darrow, the blonde captive of King Kong in the film and although she was a brunette in almost all her movies she wore a blonde wig over her naturally dark hair for the role. Wray was paid $10,000 dollars to play Ann Darrow. The film was a box-office success, and is believed to have saved RKO from bankruptcy.

After 'King Kong' she had surprisingly few memorable roles, venturing to Britain for the interesting 'The Clairvoyant' in 1934 and the amusing 'Bulldog Jack' in 1935.

From the late 1930's onward she only occasionally showed up in the cinema, although she worked steadily as a guest star in television shows, such as 'Alfred Hitchcock Presents' form 1958-9, into the 1960's before ending her career as an actress with her final role in the made-for TV movie 'Gideon's Trumpet' in 1980.

Fay married three times to John Monk Saunders and Robert Riskin both of whom were writers, and to the neurosurgeon Dr. Sanford Rothenberg.

Wray became friends with director Peter Jackson during his remake of 'King Kong' in 2005 but she died, of natural causes, on September 15, 2004, before the movie was released. Two days after her death, the lights on New York's Empire State Building-the scene of the climax in King Kong-were dimmed for 15 minutes in her honor.