15 September: Fay Wray

Fay Wray

Fay Wray was born on 15 September 1907. She lived long enough to meet Naomi Watts who played Ann in King Kong (2005). But she died (at the age of 96) before they started shooting.

I’m not a huge fan of King Kong. To me, it’s a lot like Citizen Kane: important and ground-breaking, but not something I want to experience anymore. So I don’t even associate Fay Wray with it. I think of Doctor X and The Most Dangerous Game. But she starred in a lot of films. She started working during the silent era. But her career took off in the early days of sound film when they still made films fast.

Through the very early 1930s, Wray was under contract with Paramount. Two films (one silent, one sound) that she starred in with Gary Cooper are lost, which is hard to believe. She was rarely the lead actor in films of this era. In fact, she was often not even the top female actor. But she always had meaty roles.

I know her for her post-Paramount period. But it isn’t clear to me how she managed to avoid the studio system. She was working for different studios. For example:

This was the period where she made her most memorable films. Of course, she gets two homages in 1975’s The Rocky Horror Picture Show with the songs “Midnight Double Feature Picture Show” and “Don’t Dream It.”

Fay Wray has a notable (but not starring) role in Mystery of the Wax Museum. And since it is one of my favorite films — combining His Girl Friday with House of Wax — I figured we would watch it today. Note that it is one of the few films to use two-color Technicolor so it looks weird to us today.

Other 15 September Anniversaries

Filmmakers

  • Agatha Christie (1890-1976): You need details?!
  • Tom Conway (1904-1967): Actor known for Cat People, I Walked With a Zombie, and The She-Creature.
  • Tommy Lee Jones (1946-): Actor known for Men in Black and No County for Old Men (where he is the main Old Man).
  • Oliver Stone (1946-): Titanic filmmaker of delights like Seizure and The Hand.
  • Ed Solomon (1960-): Screenwriter of Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure and Men in Black.
  • Steven R Monroe (1964-): Modest-budget director of many films including It Waits and the 2010 I Spit on Your Grave and its sequel.
  • Jonathan Liebesman (1976-): Director of films like Darkness Falls and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning.
  • Tom Hardy (1977-): The new Mad Max!

Films

  • No Place Like Homicide! (1961): In order to get his inheritence, a man must spend the night in the ancestral home where all his relatives start being murdered.
  • Lost in Space (1965-1968): The original TV series about a cowardly doctor and a family that tags along.
  • Planet of the Vampires (1965): Mario Bava horror-sci-fi, which is exactly what you think.
  • The Ghost Galleon (1974): Knights Templar zombies attack.
  • Hackers (1995): The coolest high school hackers are so cool!
  • The Black Dahlia (2006): Noir about two cops on the Elizabeth Short murder case.
  • The House of Usher (2006): Low-budget modern take on the Poe short story.
  • Silo Killer 2: The Wrath of Kyle (2009): Bounty hunter Kyle is out for revenge against the Silo Killer.
  • The Xlitherman (2009): A guy gets dumped and goes crazy — what everyone fears about Incels.
  • Call Girl of Cthulhu (2014): A prostitute is chosen to be the mother Cthulhu’s child.
  • It Came From the Desert (2017): Giant ants!
  • The Basement (2018): A serial killer kidnaps victims and tortures them.

Fay Wray publicity photo via Wikimedia. It is in the public domain.

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