- NEW YORK (Reuters)
-- Fay Wray, the shrieking blond beauty who earned fame as the frightened
girl stalked by King Kong up the Empire State Building, died at age 96,
a spokesman said on Monday.
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- Spokesman Greg Mitchell of the Writers Guild of America
West in Los Angeles said Canadian-born Wray died on Sunday in New York.
Born Vina Fay Wray in Cardston, Alberta, on Sept. 15, 1907, she was one
of six children. Her family moved to the United States when she was 3.
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- Having appeared in about 100 films, she was best known
for her role in the movie "King Kong" in 1933 and she also starred
as a Mexican aristocrat in "Viva Villa!"
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- Wray was barely in her teens when she began her silver-screen
career as a extra. She went on to be regularly cast as a heroine in silent
movies and made her break-through in 1928's "The Wedding March."
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- In the early 1930's, she made a number of horror movies,
including Doctor X (1932) and The Vampire Bat (1933) and became known as
Hollywood's first "scream queen." After those movies, Wray was
told her next job would be working with a tall, dark leading man.
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- "(King Kong Director Merian C. Cooper) called me
into his office and showed me sketches of jungle scenes, and told me 'You're
going to have the tallest, darkest leading man in Hollywood.' Naturally,
I thought Clark Gable," Wray recalled.
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- "But then he showed me this sketch of a giant ape
up the side of the Empire State Building, he said, 'There's your leading
man."'
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- Wray's character won praise for its combination of sex
appeal, vulnerability and lung capacity as she was stalked by the beast
to the top of the famed New York skyscraper.
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- But her career fell into decline after Kong and she retired
from movies in 1942 after her second marriage.
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- In 1953, she made a comeback in character roles and made
movies until 1958 and worked in television into the 60s. But she was forever
known as the girl held in King Kong's palm.
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- "At the premiere of 'King Kong' I wasn't too impressed.
I thought there was too much screaming," Wray once said of her most
famous role. "I didn't realize then that King Kong and I were going
to be together for the rest of our lives, and longer."
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- In 1989, her autobiography "On the Other Hand"
was published to critical acclaim. Wray had a daughter, Susan, by her first
marriage to John Monk Saunders, and two children, Robert and Vicky, with
Robert Riskin.
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