Oscar Profile #372: Gloria Grahame

Born November 28, 1923 in Los Angeles, California to Reginald Hallward, an architect and author, and Jean Grahame, a British stage actress and acting teacher, Gloria Grahame (Hallward) began acting in theatre while still in high school. Signed to an MGM contract she made her film debut in 1944’s Blonde Fever, followed by a small role in 1945’s Without Love, after which MGM sold her contract to RKO because they didn’t believe she had the potential to become a star.

A small part in 1946’s It’s a Wonderful Life endeared her to the public and another small role in 1947’s Crossfire earned her an Oscar nomination. Married to actor Stanley Clements in 1945, they divorced in 1948, upon which she married director Nicholas Ray in June 1948. Their son Timothy was born in November of that year.

Grahame received strong notices for 1949’s A Woman’s Secret directed by Ray and even stronger notices for 1950’s In a Lonely Place, also directed by Ray. They divorced in 1952 when Ray found her in bed with his 13-year-old son, Anthony, whose mother was Ray’s former wife, actress Joan Evans.

Grahame had a string of successes beginning with 1952’s The Greatest Show on Earth, Sudden Fear and The Bad and the Beautiful for which she won an Oscar for her nine-minute appearance. She had larger roles in 1953’s The Big Heat and 1954’s Human Desire, the year she married writer-producer Cy Howard. The two had a daughter, Marianna Paulette, in 1956 and divorced in 1957. Her last role of significance having been in 1955’s Oklahoma!.

Grahame’s fourth and final marriage was to Anthony Ray, with whom she reconnected in 1958. They married in 1960 and had two children, Anthony, Jr., born in 1963, and James, Born in 1965. When the marriage was made public in 1964, Howard sued for custody of their daughter, causing Grahame to have a nervous breakdown. Despite the scandal, she remained married to the younger Ray until 1974, the twelve-year marriage, being her longest.

Grahame continued to work on the stage, making occasional appearance in films and television productions, mostly in supporting roles. In 1974, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. It went into remission less than a year later and she returned to work. In 1980, the cancer returned but Grahame refused to accept the diagnosis or seek treatment. Choosing instead to continue working, travelling to England to appear in a play where she had an affair with 28-year-old actor Peter Turner. Her health, however, declined rapidly and she developed peritonitis after undergoing a procedure to remove fluid from her abdomen in September 1981. She returned to New York City, accompanied by her children, Timothy and Marianna Paulette, against the wishes of Peter Turner and his family in early October.

Gloria Grahame died on October 5, 1981 in St. Vincent’s Hospital in New York, a few hours after her return. Turner’s memoir of their time together, entitled Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool was turned into a film in 2017 starring Annette Bening and Jamie Bell. She was 57.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE (1946), directed by Frank Capra

Although 1947’s Crossfire would be the first film for which Grahame received an Oscar nomination, it’s the previous year’s It’s a Wonderful Life and her other 1947 film, Song of the Thin Man, which are the films that most viewers are familiar with from the early years of Grahame’s career. Married to actor Stanley Clements (Going My Way) at the time, the two would divorce the following year, but die just 11 days apart, Grahame on October 5, 1981 and Clements on October 16, 1981, she of cancer and he of emphysema.

IN A LONELY PLACE (1950), directed by Nicholas Ray

Grahame’s second husband, Nicholas Ray, directed her in two of her best roles during their short marriage. First came 1949’s A Woman’s Secret in which she plays a scatterbrained girl with a bullet near her heart at the start of the film. Then came this film noir masterpiece in which she plays the lovely neighbor of suspected murderer Humphrey Bogart in one of his most iconic roles. It was one of her few “normal girl” roles. The following year would find her in The Greatest Show on Earth, Sudden Fear and The Bad and the Beautiful for which she would win an Oscar for a nine-minute appearance.

THE BIG HEAT (1953), directed by Fritz Lang

Grahame had two more iconic roles from the same director, in this case the legendary Fritz Lang, who cast her opposite Glenn Ford in both The Big Heat and Human Desire. The infamous scene in which Lee Marvin scalds her with hot coffee is the highlight of The Big Heat in which Ford plays a former cop seeking vengeance on his wife’s killers. Human Desire aka The Human Beast is a remake of Jean Renoir’s La Bete Humaine in which Ford plays a Korean war veteran and Grahame the wife of beastly Broderick Crawford.

MELVIN AND HOWARD (1980), directed by Jonathan Demme

Grahame’s sixteenth billed character, Mrs. Sisk, in this classic comedy about Melvin Dummar, the claimant to Howard Hughes’ fortune, was typical of her late career film roles in which she didn’t have very much to do, but 16th was still a steep decline from her fifth billing in the previous year’s Chilly Scenes of Winter as John Heard’s eccentric mother. Ironically both Heard and Melvin and Howard director would die in 2017, the year in which Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool, Peter Turner’s memoir of their 1980-81 romance, was released.

FILM STARS DON’T DIE IN LIVERPOOL (2017), directed by Paul McGuigan

Annette Bening doesn’t look or sound anything like Gloria Grahame, but she is nevertheless receiving critical kudos for her portrayal of the actress who died of cancer thirty-six years ago. Jamie Bell is also receiving strong notices for his portrayal of Peter Turner, the 28-year-old late, last love in the 56-year-old actress’s life. Julie Walters, who was Bell’s ballet teacher in Billy Elliott plays his mother here. Bening is, at 59, two years older than Grahame was at her death at the end of the film, and Bell, at 31, is three years older than Turner was at the time of their romance.