[THE_EPISTLE] [SC_NEWS] Sally Gray

[schwartzboiko at ADELPHIA.NET]

--
Several years ago I got them from Amazon on videotape but they were produced through Turner Classics so check both places.

marty schwartz
schwartzboiko at adelphia.net

---- Mark Hawes <mark at SEWAHGROUP.COM> wrote: 
> Are these films available anywhere? It would be fun to see something  
> more in period than the 60's series. I'm in the US.
> 
> Thanks, Mark
> 
> On Sep 29, 2006, at 6:57 PM, Walters, Delmo wrote:
> 
> > Sad news. She outlived all of the RKO Saints.
> >
> > Delmo Walters Jr.
> >
> >
> > On 9/29/06 4:06 AM, "Ian Dickerson" <ian.dickerson at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> >
> >> Sad to report the actress who played Penny Parker in “The Saint in  
> >> London” and Mary Langdon in “The Saint’s Vacation” has passed  
> >> away. Here’s an obit from today’s Telegraph, with thanks to Paul  
> >> Simpson for bringing it to my attention:
> >>
> >>
> >>      Sally Gray
> >>   The Dowager Lady Oranmore and Browne — the actress Sally Gray –  
> >> who has died aged 87, bewitched filmgoers with her good looks and  
> >> husky voice during the 1930s and 1940s before retiring to marry  
> >> into the peerage. Her first outstanding film was Dangerous  
> >> Moonlight (1941), in which she played a heartbroken wife who has  
> >> to nurse her husband, a Polish airman with amnesia. It was a  
> >> sensitive and emotional role, which led her to suffer a complete  
> >> breakdown that may also have been connected with the death of her  
> >> close friend, the comedian Stanley Lupino. Sally Gray undertook  
> >> some musical comedy on the West End stage later in the war, then  
> >> returned to the screen in 1946 with a new grace, combining a  
> >> statuesque figure with a well-bred manner like Valerie Hobson (who  
> >> was also to retire after marrying well). She seemed more stunning  
> >> than ever as the nurse in Green for Danger, a whodunnit starring  
> >> Alistair Sim which combined high tension with fine dialogue. She  
> >> played the lead in Carnival (1946), the story of a ballet dancer  
> >> who marries a Cornish farmer, though she was upstaged by Jean  
> >> Kent, prompting critics to suggest that their roles should have  
> >> been reversed. Sally Gray fared much better in They Made me a  
> >> Fugitive (1947), and was greatly admired in The Mark of Cain (also  
> >> 1947) as an attractive young French girl who instigates rivalry  
> >> between two brothers when she becomes the bride of the younger  
> >> one. Critics considered that she gave even more striking  
> >> performances in Alberto Cavalcanti's They Made Me a Fugitive, in  
> >> which she played a gangster's moll (1947), and Edward Dmytryk's  
> >> Obsession (1949), in which she was an unfaithful wife whose  
> >> husband (Robert Newton) plots revenge against her latest lover.  
> >> There was one final film, Escape Route (1952), a mediocre gangster  
> >> yarn in which she played a member of British Intelligence opposite  
> >> George Raft, whom she disliked intensely. After turning down a  
> >> lucrative Hollywood contract, in December 1951 Sally Gray became  
> >> the third wife of the 4th Lord Oranmore and Browne; their marriage  
> >> was secret, and became public only when they attended the  
> >> Coronation in 1953. One of a widowed ballet dancer's five  
> >> children, she was born Constance Vera Stevens at Holloway, north  
> >> London, on Valentine's Day 1919. After going to the Fay Compton  
> >> Studio of Dramatic Art, she started to do cabaret in order to earn  
> >> money for further lessons. She was a picaninny in All God's  
> >> Chillun at the Gate in London, and performed in the chorus of Bow  
> >> Belles at the Hippodrome and of Gay Divorce at the Palace.  
> >> Noticing her enthusiasm and determination, Fred Astaire, the star  
> >> of the latter, set aside an hour in the evenings to coach her.  
> >> With the aid of Stanley Lupino, she made her film debut in School  
> >> for Scandal (1930), a poor version of the 18th-century comedy in  
> >> which she was billed as Constance Stevens. This was followed by  
> >> the equally unmemorable Love Race, Love Lies, Lucky Days and  
> >> Checkmate. By now she had taken the name Sally Gray, but was left  
> >> with the feeling of going down the route of every pretty ingénue –  
> >> "from the chorus to the casting couch, a string of comedies, a  
> >> musical or two and oblivion," she later recalled. But her growing  
> >> popularity with the public earned her the part of a scatterbrained  
> >> socialite in The Saint in London (1938), which starred George  
> >> Sanders as the hero of Leslie Charteris's novels. She then took  
> >> the lead in A Window in London (1939), about a murder on a train,  
> >> and appeared in Lambeth Walk (1940), about a cockney who inherits  
> >> a dukedom. This was followed by her second encounter with "The  
> >> Saint" (played this time by Hugh Sinclair) in The Saint's Vacation  
> >> (1941). But while magazine interviewers were recording how  
> >> contented she was, Sally Gray was having difficulties in the  
> >> studios. Directors scolded her for bad time-keeping and for  
> >> fluffing lines. One of Dangerous Moonlight's stars, Cecil Parker,  
> >> was overheard saying: "If Sally's dialogue were written on cue  
> >> cards the size of Big Ben she'd still get it wrong." After she  
> >> married Oranmore and Browne, the couple settled at Castle Mac  
> >> Garrett, Co Mayo. Although she had never before been to Ireland,  
> >> she happily left her career behind and developed a passion for  
> >> gardening. But the estate no longer had the financial support  
> >> which had been provided by the second Lady Oranmore and Browne,  
> >> the former Oonagh Guinness, and the rural economy in Ireland was  
> >> declining sharply. Lord Oranmore and Browne ended up rearing pigs  
> >> in the drawing room in the hope that animals raised in such  
> >> surroundings would command a higher price. On finally leaving in  
> >> the early 1960s, they settled in a flat in Eaton Place, London,  
> >> where the former actress enjoyed meeting old friends, such as her  
> >> dresser; but she declined to talk about her career. However, she  
> >> persisted in saying "Good morning", whatever the time of day,  
> >> because it was a theatrical tradition. When Lord Oranmore and  
> >> Browne died, aged 100, in 2002, days after he and his wife had  
> >> attended at a party in the Ritz, he had been the longest serving  
> >> peer in the Lords (where he had never spoken) until ejected by  
> >> Tony Blair's reforms. Lady Oranmore and Browne, who died on  
> >> September 24, continued to enjoy lunching at Simpson's and  
> >> Wilton's. She remained unflappably good-humoured even when she  
> >> became stuck in her bath.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > This message and its attachments may contain legally privileged
> > and/or confidential information. If you are not the intended
> > recipient (or responsible for delivery of the message to the
> > intended recipient), you are hereby notified that you have received
> > this transmission in error; any review, dissemination, distribution
> > or copying of this transmission is strictly prohibited. If you have
> > received this communication in error, please notify us immediately
> > by reply or by telephone (call us at 212-930-8000) and immediately
> > delete this message and all its attachments. Any content of this
> > message and its attachments that does not relate to the official
> > business of NYP Holdings, Inc. must be taken not to have been sent
> > or endorsed by any of them. No warranty is made that the e-mail or
> > attachment(s) are f r e e from computer v i r u s or other defect.
> 
> 
> 
> Mark Hawes
> ---------------------------------------
> The Sewah Group
> FileMaker Pro Consultants
> 972-893-3333