| Gloria Grahame | |
| Birth Name: | Gloria Penelope Hallward[1] |
| Birth Date: | November 28, 1923 |
| Birth Place: | Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Death Place: | New York City, U.S. |
| Resting Place: | Oakwood Memorial Park Cemetery |
| Known For: | Oklahoma! It's a Wonderful Life The Bad and the Beautiful Crossfire |
| Occupation: | Actress |
| Years Active: | 1944–1981 |
| Awards: | Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress (1952) |
| Party: | Democratic |
| Spouse: | |
| Children: | 4 |
Gloria Grahame (born Gloria Penelope Hallward; November 28, 1923 – October 5, 1981) was an American actress. She began her acting career in theater, and in 1944 made her first film for MGM. Many biographies indicate she was born Gloria Grahame Hallward, but she adopted the surname Grahame, her mother's acting name, as her professional name.[2]
Despite a featured role in It's a Wonderful Life (1946), MGM did not believe she had the potential for major success and sold her contract to RKO. Often cast in film noir projects, Grahame was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Crossfire (1947), and later won the award for her work in The Bad and the Beautiful (1952). After starring opposite Humphrey Bogart in In a Lonely Place (1950), she achieved her highest profile with Sudden Fear (1952), The Big Heat (1953), Human Desire (1954), and Oklahoma! (1955), but her film career began to wane soon afterwards. She returned to work on the stage, but continued to appear in films and television productions, usually in supporting roles.
In 1974, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. It went into remission less than a year later and Grahame returned to work. In 1980, the cancer returned, but Grahame refused to accept the diagnosis or seek treatment. Choosing instead to continue working, she traveled to the United Kingdom to appear in a play. Her health, however, declined rapidly. At her family's insistence, she returned to New York City, dying the same day, October 5, 1981, at St. Vincent's Hospital at the age of 57.
Gloria Penelope Hallward was born in Los Angeles, the younger child of Michael and Jean Hallward.[3] She was raised a Methodist.[4] Her English father, Reginald Michael Bloxam Hallward (later known as Michael Hallward) was an architect and author; her Scottish mother, Jean McDougall, who used the stage name Jean Grahame, was a stage actress and acting teacher.[5] The couple had an elder daughter, Joy Hallward, an actress who married John Mitchum (younger brother of actor Robert Mitchum). During Gloria's childhood and adolescence, her mother taught her acting. Grahame attended Hollywood High School before dropping out to pursue acting.[2] She was raised a Methodist.[6]
An early stage appearance was in the long-running farce Good Night, Ladies at Chicago's Blackstone Theatre, starring Buddy Ebsen, which opened on April 12, 1942.[7]
Grahame made her Broadway debut on December 6, 1943, at the Royale Theatre as Florrie in Nunnally Johnson's The World's Full of Girls, which was adapted from Thomas Bell's 1943 novel Till I Come Back to You.[8] She was signed to a contract with MGM Studios under her professional name after Louis B. Mayer saw her performance. Another Broadway role was in April-May 1944's Highland Fling.[9] She made her film debut in Blonde Fever (1944) and then achieved one of her most widely praised roles as the vixenish Violet Bick, saved from disgrace by George Bailey in It's a Wonderful Life (1946). MGM felt unable to develop her potential as a star, and her contract was sold to RKO Studios in 1947.
Grahame was often featured in film noir pictures as a tarnished beauty with an irresistible sexual allure. During this time, she made films for several Hollywood studios. She received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress for Crossfire (1947).[10]
Grahame starred with Humphrey Bogart in the film In a Lonely Place (1950) for Columbia Pictures, a performance for which she gained praise. Though today it is considered among her finest performances, it was not a box-office hit, and Howard Hughes, owner of RKO, admitted that he never saw it. When she asked to be lent out for roles in Born Yesterday (also 1950) and A Place in the Sun (1951), Hughes refused and instead made her perform a supporting role in Macao (1952).
Despite appearing for only a little over nine minutes on screen, she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in MGM's The Bad and the Beautiful (also 1952);[11] [12] she long held the record for the shortest performance on screen to win an acting Oscar until Beatrice Straight won for Network (1976) with a five-minute performance.
Grahame's other memorable roles included the scheming Irene Neves in Sudden Fear (also 1952); mob moll Debby Marsh in Fritz Lang's The Big Heat (1953) in which, in a horrifying off-screen scene, she is scarred by hot coffee thrown in her face by Lee Marvin's character; and the femme fatale Vicki Buckley in Fritz Lang's Human Desire (1954). Grahame appeared as wealthy seductress Harriet Lang in Stanley Kramer's Not as a Stranger (1955) starring Olivia de Havilland, Robert Mitchum, and Frank Sinatra. Grahame also did her own stunts as Angel the Elephant Girl in Cecil B. DeMille's The Greatest Show on Earth, which won the Oscar for best film of 1952.[13]
Grahame's career began to wane after her performance in the musical film Oklahoma! (1955). She, 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, she was rumored to have been difficult on the set of Oklahoma!, upstaging some of the cast and alienating her co-stars.[14]
Grahame also guest-starred in television series, including the science-fiction series The Outer Limits. In the 1964 episode of that series titled "The Guests", Grahame plays a forgotten film star living in the past. She also appears in an episode of The Fugitive ("The Homecoming", 1964) and an episode of Burke's Law ("Who Killed The Rabbit's Husband", 1965). Grahame can be seen also in a 1970 episode of Mannix titled “Duet for Three” (season four, episode 13) and in small roles in the miniseries Rich Man, Poor Man and Seventh Avenue.
The play The Time of Your Life was revived on March 17, 1972, at the Huntington Hartford Theater in Los Angeles with Grahame, Henry Fonda, Richard Dreyfuss, Lewis J. Stadlen, Ron Thompson, Jane Alexander, Richard X. Slattery, and Pepper Martin among the cast, and Edwin Sherin directing.[15]
Over time, Grahame became increasingly concerned with her physical appearance; she particularly felt her upper lip was too thin and had ridges that were too deep. She began stuffing cotton or tissues under it, which she felt gave her a sexier look. Several co-stars discovered this during kissing scenes. In the mid-1940s, Grahame began undergoing small cosmetic procedures on her lips and face. According to her niece, Vicky Mitchum, Grahame's obsession with vanity led her to undergo more cosmetic procedures that rendered her upper lip immobile because of nerve damage. Mitchum said, "Over the years, she [Grahame] carved herself up, trying to make herself into an image of beauty she felt should exist but didn't. Others saw her as a beautiful person, but she never did, and crazy things spread from that."[16]
Grahame was a Democrat who supported Adlai Stevenson's campaign in the 1952 presidential election.[17]
Grahame was married four times and had four children.
Her first marriage was to actor Stanley Clements in August 1945. They divorced in June 1948.[18]
The day after her divorce from Clements was final, Grahame married director Nicholas Ray. They had a son in November 1948. After several separations and reconciliations, Grahame and Ray divorced in 1952.
According to Glenn Ford's son Peter, Grahame had an affair with Ford during the filming of Human Desire in 1954.[19]
Grahame's third marriage was to writer and TV producer Cy Howard. They married in August 1954 and had a daughter in 1956.[20] [21] Grahame filed for divorce from Howard in May 1957, citing mental cruelty.[20] Their divorce was final as of November 1957.[21]
Grahame's fourth and final marriage was to actor Anthony "Tony" Ray (b. 1937), the son of her second husband Nicholas Ray and his first wife Jean Evans, and Grahame's former stepson. According to Nicholas Ray, he allegedly caught Grahame and a 13-year-old Tony in bed together, which effectively ended their marriage in 1950.[22] However, Grahame's former partner and biographer, Peter Turner, disputed this, saying the story of Tony being underage when Grahame began a sexual relationship with him is "fiction".[23] Grahame and Anthony Ray began dating in 1958 and married in Tijuana, Mexico, in May 1960. The couple had two children: boys born in 1963 and 1965).
News of the 1960 marriage to Tony was kept private until 1962, when it was written about in the tabloids. The ensuing scandal damaged Grahame's reputation and affected her career. After learning of her marriage to Anthony Ray, Grahame's third husband, Cy Howard, attempted to gain sole custody of the couple's daughter. Howard claimed Grahame was an unfit mother, and the two fought over custody of their daughter for years. The stress of the scandal, her waning career, and her custody battle with Howard took its toll on Grahame and she had a nervous breakdown. She later underwent electroconvulsive therapy in 1964.
Despite the scandal, Grahame's marriage to Anthony Ray was the only one of four to last beyond four years, ending a few days short of their 14th anniversary in May 1974.
From 1979 to 1981, Grahame had a relationship with British actor Peter Turner. Turner authored a book about his time with Grahame called Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool, which was later turned into a movie of the same name.
In March 1974, Grahame was diagnosed with breast cancer. She underwent radiation treatment, changed her diet, stopped smoking and drinking alcohol, and sought homeopathic remedies. In less than a year, the cancer went into remission but returned in 1980. In autumn 1981, while performing at The Dukes in Lancaster, England, Grahame fell ill.[24]
She told her former lover, actor Peter Turner, and asked him not to contact doctors or her family (which he did anyway). According to Turner's memoir, Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool, Turner's local family physician told Grahame she had a cancerous tumor "the size of a football" in her abdomen. Breast cancer is not mentioned in the book.[25] Turner informed Grahame's children of her illness; they brought her back to the US against her wishes and those of her doctor and Turner. She was immediately admitted to St. Vincent's Hospital in Manhattan on October 5, 1981, where she died a few hours later of stomach cancer and peritonitis at age 57.
Grahame's remains were interred at Oakwood Memorial Park Cemetery in Chatsworth, Los Angeles.[26]
On February 8, 1960, for her contributions to the motion-picture industry, Grahame had a star placed on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6522 Hollywood Boulevard.[27] [28]
On November 16, 2017, the motion picture Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool (2017), based on Peter Turner's account of the final years of Grahame's life, was released in the United Kingdom. The film was released in the United States on December 29, 2017. In the film, Grahame was portrayed by Annette Bening.[25]
Grahame had kept an apartment at the Manhattan Plaza residential complex, and its community room, where her portrait hangs, is dedicated to her.[29]
| Year | Title | Role | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1944 | Blonde Fever | Sally Murfin | Alternative title: Autumn Fever | |
| 1945 | Without Love | Flower girl | ||
| 1946 | It's a Wonderful Life | Violet Bick | ||
| 1947 | It Happened in Brooklyn | Nurse | ||
| Crossfire | Ginny Tremaine | Nominated – Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress | ||
| Song of the Thin Man | Fran Ledue Page | |||
| Merton of the Movies | Beulah Baxter | |||
| 1949 | A Woman's Secret | Susan Caldwell aka Estrellita | ||
| Roughshod | Mary Wells | |||
| 1950 | In a Lonely Place | Laurel Gray | ||
| 1952 | The Greatest Show on Earth | Angel | ||
| Macao | Margie | |||
| Sudden Fear | Irene Neves | |||
| The Bad and the Beautiful | Rosemary Bartlow | Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress Nominated – Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture | ||
| 1953 | The Glass Wall | Maggie Summers | ||
| Man on a Tightrope | Zama Cernik | |||
| The Big Heat | Debby Marsh | |||
| Prisoners of the Casbah | Princess Nadja aka Yasmin | |||
| 1954 | The Good Die Young | Denise Blaine | ||
| Human Desire | Vicki Buckley | |||
| Naked Alibi | Marianna | |||
| 1955 | The Cobweb | Karen McIver | ||
| Not as a Stranger | Harriet Lang | |||
| Oklahoma! | Ado Annie Carnes | |||
| 1956 | The Man Who Never Was | Lucy Sherwood | ||
| 1957 | Ride Out for Revenge | Amy Porter | ||
| 1959 | Odds Against Tomorrow | Helen | ||
| 1966 | Ride Beyond Vengeance | Bonnie Shelley | ||
| 1971 | Blood and Lace | Mrs. Deere | ||
| The Todd Killings | Mrs. Roy | |||
| Black Noon | Bethia | |||
| Chandler | Selma | Alternative title: Open Shadow | ||
| 1972 | The Loners | Annabelle | ||
| 1973 | The Magician | Natalie | Alternative title: Tarot | |
| 1974 | Mama's Dirty Girls | Mama Love | ||
| 1976 | Mansion of the Doomed | Katherine | Alternative title: The Terror of Dr. Chaney | |
| 1979 | A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square | Ma Fox | ||
| Chilly Scenes of Winter | Clara | Alternative title: Head Over Heels | ||
| 1980 | Melvin and Howard | Mrs. Sisk | ||
| 1981 | The Nesting | Florinda Costello | Alternative titles: Phobia and Massacre Mansion |