Who was Fay Wray and what King Kong happened to her?
Fay Wray was a beautiful Hollywood starlet who rose to fame as a teenager in the 1920s and peaked in her stardom as the helpless blonde beauty in the clutches of King Kong in the movie of that name. Modern movie fans would be more familiar perhaps with the remakes from 2005 that grossed $200 million + and 1976.
The name King Kong, which spawned a multitude of video games, has always been synonymous with power and dynamism, indeed the leading marketing agency in Australia uses the King Kong branding with great effect! But while the huge gorilla is of course legendary, many associate the film with Ann Durrow, played by Fay Wray, who was whisked away by King Kong and held in his hand as he scaled the heights of the Empire State Building in New York in the iconic 1933 classic.
Decades later she would amusingly title her autobiography “On The Other Hand” (1988). The movie was the undoubted highlight of her career that spanned six decades in which she became one of the first “scream queens” of horror flix.
She was born in Canada in 1907 and was still making public appearances shortly before her death in 2004. One of six children with a father from Hull in England, she spent most of her life in the US. She was paid $10,000 by studio RKO Radio Pictures for her role in King Kong ($200K+ today) and its success reportedly saved the company from bankruptcy.
In later years she appeared in 1950s and 60s roles in the Perry Mason series and was in several creepy episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, both stalwarts of US TV at the time.
But what is little known is that Fay Wray could have been even more famous for a modern-day role. James Cameron, the director of one of the highest-grossing movies of all time, Titanic (1997), approached Fay to play the part of Rose (Dawson Calvert) as an old woman.
In a late career blunder, she turned down the role for reasons not widely known. Her place was taken by Gloria Stuart (1910-2010) who was nominated for Best Supporting Actress at the Oscars.
Fay appeared at the 1998 Academy Awards where Billy Crystal introduced her as “The Beauty Who Charmed the Beast”.
She always had that King Kong connection.
