Femme Fetale of The Day - Gloria Grahame Gloria Grahame was born Gloria Grahame Hallward in Los Angeles, California on November 28, 1923 to Reginald Michael Bloxam Hallward, her father, was an architect and author and her mother, Jeanne McDougall, who used the stage name Jean Grahame, was a British stage actress and acting coach. Grahame debut in film was in the title role of Blonde Fever (1944), which featured Grahame as a gold-digging waitress on the make for lottery winner Philip Dorn. Though unquestionably forgettable, her turn as Sally Murfin, whose curvaceous figure and blithe cluelessness blinded men from her predatory nature, would establish the tone for the majority of her screen roles. MGM was unable to develop Grahame as a potential star and sold her contract to RKO Studios in 1947, a fortuitous move for her, she was cast as Violet in the classic Christmas movie, Frank Capras Its a Wonderful Life (1946), a supporting role, but she enjoyed good reviews. Grahame established her screen presence with her charming role as hapless good time girl Violet Bick, whom James Stewarts George Bailey saved from a disgraceful fate, It’s a Wonderful Life. Despite its success, Grahames stay in the MGM stable was short-lived. By 1947, her contract was sold to RKO, where she landed a small but noteworthy part in the noir B-thriller Crossfire (1947), starring Robert Mitchum and Robert Ryan. Her performance, as an embittered dance hall girl who witnessed a murder, impressed audiences and earned her an Academy Award nomination. She lost the Oscar to Celeste Holm, but her status as one of the sultriest stars of film noir was now established. In 1948, she was cast as a neurotic singer allegedly shot by her Svengali-like coaches in director Nicholas Rays A Womans Secret (1948). Grahame starred with Humphrey Bogart in the film In a Lonely Place (1950), a performance for which she gained praise. Though today it is considered among her finest performances. It wasnt a box-office hit and Howard Hughes, owner of RKO Studios, admitted that he never saw it. When she asked to be loaned out for roles in Born Yesterday and A Place in the Sun, Hughes refused and instead made her do a supporting role in Macao. Despite only appearing for a little over nine minutes on screen, she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in MGMs The Bad and the Beautiful (1952), a record at the time for the shortest performance on screen to win an acting Oscar, which she held for 27 years before Beatrice Straight broke it in 1977. Other memorable roles included the scheming Irene Nieves in the noir Sudden Fear (1952), the femme fatale Vicki Buckley in Human Desire (1953), and mob moll Debby Marsh in Fritz Langs noir The Big Heat (1953) in which, in a horrifying off-screen scene, she is scarred by hot coffee thrown in her face by Lee Marvins character. Graham appeared as wealthy seductress Harriet Lang in Stanley Kramers Not As a Stranger (1955) starring Olivia de Havilland, Robert Mitchum, and Frank Sinatra. Grahames career began to wane after her performance in the hit musical film Oklahoma! (1955). The film was more than a departure for Grahame than a complete left-field choice, as she had no singing voice to speak of, which required her key number, I Can’t Say No, to be sung one note at a time and then reconstructed by the music editors. Grahame, whom audiences were used to seeing as a film noir siren, was viewed by some critics to be miscast as an ignorant country lass in a wholesome musical, and the paralysis of her upper lip from plastic surgery altered her speech and appearance. Additionally, Grahame was rumored to have been difficult on the set of Oklahoma!, upstaging some of the cast and alienating her co-stars, which furthered her fall from grace in Hollywood. She began a slow return to the theater, and returned to films occasionally to play supporting roles, mostly in minor releases. Grahame worked steadily in television throughout the 1960s before disappearing for a period at the end of the decade, during which she was rumored to have suffered a breakdown and spent time in an institution. She resurfaced in the early 1970s in a string of TV movies and low-budget features, including the grisly Blood and Lace (1971) and Mamas Dirty Girls (1974). After divorcing Anthony Ray in 1974, she rebounded, after a fashion, with a trio of turns as unstable older women in Chilly Scenes of Winter (1979), A Nightingale Sang in Berkley Square (1979) and Melvin and Howard (1980), with the latter merely a glorified cameo. In her final years, she performed the classics in regional theater before learning that she had stomach cancer in 1980. Grahame refused to stop working, but suffered a collapse during rehearsal of a play in London. While undergoing a routine operation to drain fluids from an inoperable tumor in her stomach, her surgeon accidentally perforated her bowl. Peritonitis set in, and she was flown home to New York by her romantic companion, actor Peter Turner. After several agonizing days, Grahame died on Oct. 5, 1981 at the age of 57. Lou Caruana, 11/12/2014 Supplemented with material from TCM.
Posted on: Wed, 12 Nov 2014 20:05:58 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015