Friday, January 17, 2025

Kay Francis - what happened to stars in the 1930s.

 Most people haven't heard of or seen Kay Francis, which is too bad. She was legendary. Here is a blurb from Wikipedia.

Kay Francis (born Katharine Edwina Gibbs; January 13, 1905 – August 26, 1968) was an American stage and film actress.[1] After a brief period on Broadway in the late 1920s, she moved to film and achieved her greatest success between 1930 and 1936, when she was the number one female star and highest-paid actress at Warner Bros. studio.[2] She adopted her mother's maiden name (Francis) as her professional surname.

My reading of Michael Curtiz biography (truly an amazing book) mentions her many times. She and Curtis had an excellent record at Warner Brothers. The book talked about 2 of her films, and how Curtiz changed them and introduced new shots. I watched them. I was impressed by the direction. And, it turns out, I loved Kay Francis.

A precode Comedy

A precode drama / tragedy

She was called box-office poison and dumped in 1936. It was Carol Lombard, who had been in a few of her films, that demanded Kay get a role in a show with Carol and Gary Grant. She was very good, and had a comeback until the war.

In WWII, she immediately joined and entertained the troops. In 1944, she collapsed on stage and was rushed back to her hotel room after passing out from "exhaustion and medication." Then came the horrible accident when trying to wake her up and then letting her sleep it off, the helpers left her legs against the radiator, where they were horribly burned. She ended up in an oxygen tent for her 3 degree burns and essentially stopped working afterwards.

She died from cancer in 1968. Without a family, she left a million plus dollars to a nonprofit that trains site-seeing dogs.

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I’m in Steamboat Springs - most posting begins on Sunday

 However, I had to post this. Everything is kind of poopy now (see no curse words). So I take humor were I can.