VIRGINIA GREY
Actress longed for
major role that never came
Virginia Grey, who
has died aged 87, spent a career before the cameras hoping for a role that
would catapult her to international stardom; but she never showed the spark
which launched her contemporaries Ruth Hussey and Laraine Day, and had to
content herself with second lead ingenues.
In more than 100
films she had supporting roles to such stars as Joan Crawford, Betty Grable,
Susan Hayward, and even the Marx Brothers (in The Big Store, 1941). Off screen she attracted publicity by dating
Clark Gable; she gave him a dachshund. But although she waited patiently for
his divorce from Rhea Langham to come through, Gable married Carole Lombard
instead. Heartbroken, Virginia Grey vowed never to let herself become too close
to a man again and, although George Raft became a figure in her life she never
married. Pressed to talk about her affair with Gable in 2003, she replied
simply: "I adored him; I always will."
Virginia Grey was
born in Hollywood
on. March 22,1917 the daughter of Ray Grey, an original Keystone Cop who became
Universal Studio's comedy films director; among her babysitters was the actress
Gloria Swanson. After Ray's death in 1925, Virginia 's mother became a film cutter at
the studio.
When her mother
heard that the studio was planning to remake Uncle Tom's Cabin in 1927, she encouraged young Virginia to do a screen test, which won her
the role of Little Eva. Parts followed in Heart
to Heart, with Mary Astor (1927); Jazz
Mad, with Marian Nixon and George Lewis (1928); and The Michigan Kid (1928).
Daily Telegraph
