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

Fay Wray

FAyWRAY fay Wray has the good fortune or, more accurately, the misfortune to be associated with only one film. Thanks to her role as leading lady to an ape in Ring Rong (1933), she is assured of a permanent place in film history. At the same time, the role and the film do a disservice to a performer who may not have been a great actress, but who had many prominent parts to her career. She screamed as well as she does in Ring Rong in Michael Curtiz's The Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933). The makers of Ring Rong, Meriam C. Cooper and Ernest Schoedsack. are equally well served by their leading lady in The Four Feathers (1929), and fay Wray can boast work for many other major directors, including Josef von Sternberg (Thunderbolt, 1929), frank Capra (Dirigible, 1931), Raoul Walsh (The Bowery, 1933) and, most importantly. Erich von Stroheim (The Wedding March. 1928). filmmakers selected fay Wray because she was competent. compliant and. above all. intelligent. She understood the prominence of Ring Rong in her career but was happier talking of other films: "I don't think 1did anything as enduring. for the rest. I did a few interesting things and a lot of not so interesting things. Ring Rong has a kind of mythical character. which 1respect, and its endurance has been remarkable. Iguess it's because 1really love the people that made it that I have a feeling for it." fay Wray was married to two prominent screenwriters. John Monk Saunders and Robert Riskin. In 1930 Saunders wrote a series of Liberty magazine short stories that. the following year. became the novel Single Lady. introducing the character of Nikki. an American girl living in Paris shortly after World War One. whose insouciance hides an intelligent and emotional psyche. Saunders put a lot of fay Wray into the character. and his wife starred in the 1931 musical comedy, Nikki. which had a brief run on Broadway. and in which her leading man was a pre-Hollywood Cary Grant. Helen Chandler does well as Nikki in the 1931 screen adaptation of the noveL The Last Flight. I first contacted fay Wray after writing an essay on Saunders for the Dictionary of Literary Biography. Pieces in that compedium are not exactly noted for their emotional appeaL but after reading my comments on her first husband , fay Wray burst into tears. announcing. "You have expressed a sensitivity and an understanding about his work that is outstanding." I had admired fay Wray's work in silent films and also her later. more mature roles. including such innocuous pieces as Tammy and the Bachelor (1957) and Summer Love (1958). as well as the made-for-television drama Gideon sTrumpet (1980), in which she is Henry fonda's dowdy landlady. "The thing that was different about the role was 1tried to make myself look as 426 fay Wray awful and plain as I could. Unfortunately I succeeded. Some of my friends thought I was an idiot to do that. In fact, 1got a good deal of pleasure out of wearing no makeup and looking dreadful." The actress lived in a sterile, but expensive, apartment block in the Century City development. She was sensibly dressed, with a sensible hairstyle, and a very sensible attitude toward her career. The ingenue image of the fay Wray of silent films was gone, replaced with a maturity that was strong and forceful when necessary. She explained that she almost never did any interviews , but "I have this very good feeling about you." The feeling apparently continued, because we met at social events many other times through the years, and she was always enthusiasticly charming. fay Wray (her real name) was born in Alberta, Canada, on September 15, 1907. After the separation of her parents, fay's mother. determined to escape the cold, moved to Los Angeles and enrolled her daughter at Hollywood High School: "It was very simple to know people who were involved in the industry. Through friends Igot an extra role one day and the very next time a 'bit' to do at the Century Comedies. As a result of these two times I got a leading lady role in Gasoline Love [1923]. 1was walking in front of the studio and the owners were comingout. 1guess they remembered having seen me on those other two occasions. They asked if 1would like to do...