Silent Players: A Biographical and Autobiographical Study of 100 Silent Film Actors and Actresses

Gilda Gray

GILDA GRAY 'That was a very interesting picture," said Percy Marmont, discussing Aloma ofthe South Seas. "The snag was it had the shimmy dancer Gilda Gray. She was the star of the picture in the same way that they would make a star of Rex, the king of wild horses, or Rin Tin Tin. She was a dancer. and she was well known all over America, so they starred her in pictures, and in support they gave her Warner Baxter, William Powell, me, and another old film star. Harry Morey. We all supported Gilda Gray." Percy Marmont's comment is a little unkind. but true. Gilda Gray had only one claim to fame. She shook her chemise. or. as she first explained it in a Polish accent, her "shimee." As a result, she became the most famous exponent and originator of the shimmy. a dance that symbolized the jazz age as much as the Charleston. the flapper. Clara Bow. or Texas Guinan. She was not particularly beautiful. but Gilda Gray was known not for her face but for her legs and her figure. "A ripple here. a quiver there. a shudder or two-and then I shake all the way up from my feet with everything." said Gray. While most men watched and lusted. Carl Van Vechten described her as "the girl with the most beautiful soul." and Heywood Broun called her "a sophisticated hoyden." Gilda Gray was also a woman with a tragic past. Born in Krakow. Poland . on October 24. 1897. she was adopted by Wandy and Maximilian Michalska and raised in Milwaukee. At the age of twelve. she was forced to marry one John Gorelki. and a year later. a son. Michael. was born. There would be two further marriages and divorces. The shimmy was introduced in 1919. and that same year Sophie Tucker gave her the name of Gilda Gray. There is a record of her shimmy in the 1931 Paramount short. He Was Her Man. which is more illustrative of the technical virtuosity of its director-writer. Dudley Murphy. than the brilliance of its star. Ziegfeld starred her in his 1922 Follies. and she made a triumphant tour of Europe. As early as 1923. Gray was featured as a nightclub dancer in the feature Lawful Larceny. a vehicle for the untalented Hope Hampton, but it was Aloma of the South Seas in 1926 that brought Gray to the screen as a star. Under the direction of Maurice Tourneur, she plays a dancer on Paradise Island, livingwith her lover, Warner Baxter, and loved, in turn, by the villainous William Powell and the decent Percy Marmont. The last recalled, "It was a South Sea Islands story and the South Sea from California is about a seven day's sail. So, we went across America and took ship for the West Indies, because Maurice Tourneur knew the South Seas, but he hadn't been to the West Indies and he wanted to see them. We went to Puerto Rico and made it there. Tourneur was a very good 164 Gilda Gray director, a wonderful compositioner. Every setup of the camera was a picture. He didn't bother his actors. He got actors who knew their job. and he left them to it. Of course. the picture...Well. I don't know. I thought it was rather peculiar." Peculiar or not. the film did well and led to Gray's casting in two further silent features, both of which emphasized her talents as a dancer rather than an actress. In Cabaret. released in March 1927. she is a nightclub dancer loved by detective Tom Moore. In The Devil Dancer. released in November 1927, she is Takla. the title character. loved by another decent Englishman. Clive Brook. Gilda Gray seems to have a penchant for English leading men, so much so that in 1928 she came to the United Kingdom to star as the mistress of nightclub ownerJameson Thomas in EA. Dupont's production of Piccadilly. (Chinese-American Anna May Wong is also featured as a dancer in a production . released in 1929. that garnered considerable critical praise at the time but today seems overburdened with technical pretension.) In 1936. Gilda Gray played herself in The Great Ziegfeld but was cut from the film prior to its premiere: she had the substantial role of Belle, a tavern entertainer in the Jeanette MacDonald-Nelson Eddy adaptation of RoseMarie . from...