Kay francis last photo
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Biographical Information on Kay Francis…
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Who IS Kay Francis?
Kay Francis was born on January 13, 1905. She was raised by a single mother, Katherine Clinton, a largely unmemorable stage actress. Francis herself got into theater in the 1920s, moving to Hollywood at the end of the decade. After a few years of supporting roles at Paramount, she moved to Warner Bros. where she reigned as the studio’s Queen of the Lot (and highest-paid star) from 1932-1937, before being pushed out by management in favor of Bette Davis,
After a legal dispute with Warner Bros., she was demoted to B-pictures, insisted she wanted to be forgotten, and was unable to secure another studio contract after her legal battle with her previous employer. After finishing her movie career at the low-ranking Monogram Pictures, she banished her appearances to summer stock theater where her name still had power. When that came to an end in the mid 1950s she lived comfortably until her death from cancer on August 26, 1968.
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Kay Francis
American actress (1905–1968)
Kay Francis | |
|---|---|
Francis in 1935 | |
| Born | Katharine Edwina Gibbs (1905-01-13)January 13, 1905 Oklahoma City, |
| Died | August 26, 1968(1968-08-26) (aged 63) New York City, U.S. |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Years active | 1925–1951 |
| Spouses | James Dwight Francis (m. 1922; div. 1925)William Gaston (m. 1925; div. 1927)Kenneth MacKenna (m. 1931; div. 1934) |
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.[citation needed * varies, including 1905 and 1911 "My life? Well, I get up at a quarter to six in the morning if I'm going to wear an evening dress on camera. That sentence sounds a little ga-ga, doesn't it? But never mind, that's my life...As long as they pay me my salary, they can give me a broom and I'll sweep the stage. I don't give a damn. I want the money...When I die, I want to be cremated so that no sign of my existence is left on this earth. I can't wait to be forgotten." —From Kay Francis's private diaries, ca. 1938 Throughout the decade of the 1930s, Kay Francis was a top Hollywood star, her career a perfect example of the sort that once flourished in the studio system. A tall and sultry beauty, she wore clothes with style and grace, and her name became synonymous with glamour, fashion modern womanhood. She starred in stylish comedies such as Ernst Lubitsch's Trouble in Paradise (1932), and the Marx Brothers's The Cocoanuts (1929), but she is best remembered for her films in w
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The Reid Cinema Archives
1899*-1968; Actress, Movie Star
Brief Biography of Kay Francis
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