Katherine Edwina Gibbs, born January 13, 1905 in Oklahoma City. Never heard of her right? Kay Francis. Doesn’t mean anything either, right? Both are one of the same and you still say, so?
Kay Francis was a reigning film queen from the late 1920's into the late 1940's. She co-starred with the most beloved stars of the times, i.e., Carole Lombard, Rosalind Russell, Deanna Durbin, Claude Rains, William Powell, Ginger Rogers, Bette Davis, George Brent, Jack Benny, The Marx Brothers and so many others. For some time she was the highest paid actress on the Warner Brothers lot, a queen among queens - Bette Davis, Joan Crawford and Olivia de Havilland.
She didn’t start out in life to become a movie star. Her mother had a modicum of success as an actress and singer on the stage. Although not born in a trunk, Kay spent most of her younger days backstage in her mother’s dressing rooms.
For the fall term in 1920 she began attending the Cathedral School of St. Mary in Garden City, Long Island, where she made her made her acting debut in a school production of "Let’s Not and Say We Did." Kay, as Katie Gibbs, wrote the songs and being the tallest in the class, played the male lead.
She showed an early artistic talent as a fashion designer and for a brief period considered becoming a fashion designer.
The following summer she developed a serious crush on a boy named "Reg." Although her diaries never revealed his last name, she became "engaged" to her young heart throb although both still in their teens. She always claimed that he was the true love of her life, and always regretted that she didn’t elope with him. Instead, she took a job with Juliana Cutting, the famous New York party-planner. Juliana taught Kay how to host a party. During her employment with Juliana she admits to having "lost my virginity" to James Dwight Francis.
For a while she tried modeling and several other temporary jobs. Upon finding herself pregnant with Dwight’s baby, she obtained a quick, but illegal abortion, one of eight she would submit to within a few years. Within months she aborted the second of Dwight’s babies. She simply had trouble staying out of bed with Dwight so, in mid-October they decided to get married. Dwight’s parents consented to the nuptials although they thought them too young for such a serious undertaking.
Two weeks before the nuptials at St. Thomas Episcopal Church, Kay had her third abortion in a six months period. Within five months she began an affair with Paul Abbott which ended her marriage with Dwight. Even then she had her eye on another man. A January 1925 entry in her diary indicates, "I really admire William Gaston’s smile."
Living the life of a madcap heiress she sailed on the S. S. Minnetonka, arriving at the Paris Vendome Hotel on March 8, 1925 where, according to her own diary, she began a soiree of "wild nights filled with sex and alcohol." Between her arrival on the Continent she divorced Dwight, moved on to London, became pregnant, had a fourth abortion in less than a year and married William Gaston in what we now know as a "modern marriage," the newlyweds deciding not to live together and have the freedom to sleep with other people. Little wonder that they called them "the roaring twenties."
On February 19, 1926 she made her first screen test for a role in D. W. Griffith’s "The Sorrows of Satan." When nothing came of her test she signed with the Stuart Walker repertoire company, where she was cast in numerous roles. Caught in the raid of a bootleg joint, Kay was arrested with other members of the company and fined $15 for illegal drinking of alcohol which had been prohibited by the Volstead Act.
In July 1927 she had her fifth abortion while dating Allan A. Ryan, scion to a $100 million dollar fortune. Although she never considered marriage she continued to see him for the rest of the year. In January she aborted Allan’s baby. It was her seventh abortion in two years.
She walked away from Allan and his millions after telling him, "What a bitch I am."
It is amazing that she stayed sober enough to attempt a career in acting, alternating between whiskey and gin and having random sexual partners, some of whom were one night pickups. However, she somehow managed to be interviewed twice by Fox Studios and tested for and cast as the female lead in Paramount’s "Gentlemen of the Press." Released in early 1929, it was Paramount’s first talkie. The critics were taken by a surprise that an unknown should star in a box office smash hit. Her future in films was assured as Hollywood looked to Broadway for actors with stage voices.
Paramount decided to bring her to the west coast where she was given star treatment on arrival. In her diary she wrote that, while in Chicago between trains, "Slept with Katty only because she wanted me to - Damn!!" It was just one of the numerous lesbian affairs she interspersed between her many male liaisons. Hollywood gossips soon spread the news that Kay Francis was an open lesbian who just happened to also enjoy sex with men.
William Powell and Kay in One Way Passage
During the early thirties Kay’s film career kicked into first gear. She worked in several pictures at the same time. Los Angeles Herald film critic, W. E. Oliver said that her performance in "A Notorious Affair," was "Hollywood’s most disturbing portrayal since Hell’s Angels," which further established her secure position in the film universe.
On January 17, 1931 she walked down the aisle on Catalina Island with Kenneth MacKenna. A few days later she abandoned Paramount’s $750 a week contract for the more lucrative $2,000 offer from Warner Brothers which established her as a major star, although Paramount didn’t release her until a year later. During the interim the studio, in revenge, cast her in several films of dubious quality.
Her early films at Warner’s gave her top stars as leading men. When her husband is fired at Fox a fight ensues between the two. Enraged, Ken gave her a black eye.
In mid-July 1932 "Trouble In Paradise," in which she co-starred with the fiery Miriam Hopkins was released. Although Hopkins got top billing, Kay received $4,000 a week, the highest paid actor in the picture.
Kay Francis, Herbert Marshall, Miriam Hopkins in publicity pose
for
Trouble in Paradise
On November 9th she signed a new, more lucrative contract with Warner Brothers, following which she went home and got drunk.
In early 1933 she attended the opening of "Design for Living" on Broadway. While there she gets word that paramount had stolen Miriam Hopkins from Warner Brothers and signed her to a contract with better financial clauses than her own. Kay became so incensed she said she regretted leaving Paramount. "How dare them pay her more than me," she complained.
Despite her immense popularity with the public, the studio became concerned that her drinking binges would interfere with her ability to act. Jack Warner threatened to invoke the morals clause in her contract but box office receipts always have meant more to the movie moguls than the conduct of their actors. So no action was ever taken against her.
In March of 1934 Ruth Chatterton, the long time ruling icon in the Warner’s stable of female stars, was released from her contract allowing Kay to become the Queen of the Warner Brothers lot.
Her longtime battle with depression overtook her in May when she severed the artery in her right hand and lost almost two quarts of blood before being discovered by her maid who quickly summoned the rescue squad. During her recovery she sailed with friends on a private yacht where she went on a sexual binge in Europe, resulting in yet another pregnancy and abortion.
Upon her return to New York fans and the press besieged her wanting to know if there was any truth to the rumors that Maurice Chevalier would be her next ex. She denied that any such marriage was planned or even considered. Back in Hollywood she developed serious complications from her latest abortion and damn near died. Doctors warned that another one would probably kill her. One wag quipped, "Kay has abortions like most people take aspirin for a headache."
However, in November she was on the set at Warner Brothers with Warren William and George Brent filming "Living on Velvet." The following month during an interview with the Hearst columnist, Harrison Carroll she named her favorite male movie stars: Jackie Cooper, John Barrymore, Lionel Barrymore, Richard Barthelmess, James Cagney, Ronald Colman, Gary Cooper, Clark Gable, William Powell and Maurice Chevalier. How many of them she had taken to bed was a matter of speculation since she made a practice of seducing her leading men.
She did admit to having a one night stand with George Brent. An entry in her diary said, "He told me afterwards that I had helped him tremendously and that he appreciated that."
In January 1935 a pregnancy ended in miscarriage. Truly, if Kay had gone term with all her pregnancies she would have won mother of the decade in Hollywood.
The following month she celebrated her divorce from Ken by throwing a party at the Vendome restaurant to which she invited 300 guests, including James Cagney, Fredric March and Samuel Goldwyn.
The ink was barely dry on the divorce papers when she took up with director Delmer Daves, announcing to all her friends that she was "madly in love." In between her bedroom traversing she managed to star in some major films at Warner Brothers and became even more popular with the film loving Americans during the height of the great depression.
She wrote in her January 1936 diary that she had everything in the world. Warner Brothers had offered her a new contract, more lucrative than the last, which meant she would be the highest paid female on the Warner lot. "Beginning the New Year with my lover. May he be in the same bed with me next year."
Long before Mr. Blackwell began his list of best and worst dressed actresses, Kay announced in April her list of best dressed actresses, all of whom happened to be personal friends; Constance Bennett, Claudette Colbert, Marlene Dietrich, Carole Lombard and Myrna Loy.
In June she underwent her eighth known abortion, about which she wrote, "Jesus, it’s awful. Why do I always get caught and have so little fun?" In June "The White Angel" was released which undeniably was the worst film she’d ever made. The studio gave her time off from her next film as a way of placating her hurt feelings and, to her, tarnished reputation.
Famous woman’s director, George Cukor, told her she would be ideal for Scarlett O’Hara in "Gone With the Wind." Neither Kay nor Norma Shearer, also considered for the role of Scarlett, were even in the final two or three considered before the plum went to Vivien Leigh, the English actress.
Whenever she became depressed, Kay went to the usual antidote - she sailed on the Normandie for Europe. She spent New Year’s Eve at a ski competition, got drunk and fought with Delmer.
Rumors ran rampant that the gorgeous brunette with the husky voice, that beckoned lusty males to the bedroom, was slipping due to the mediocre roles Warner Brothers assigned to her. Not withstanding her superstar status, she complained to Maude Cheatham of Motion Picture magazine that, "My life has been singularly uneventful."
Despite her public popularity, the year became a disaster in Kay’s personal life. She and Del were breaking up. An entry in her diary indicated, "I am sick of his superiority." She sued Warner Brothers to obtain a release from her contract, a fatal error during the era when studios owned their actors..
When the studio decided to buy the rights to "Dark Victory" as a vehicle for Kay, at the last minute they gave the highly rated film to Bette Davis, her long time nemesis. Despite the career disappointments, she soon had another bedroom partner, Erik Barnekow. She’d met him at a party and invited him to spend Christmas at her house. "We baptised the library floor," she wrote.
In May 1938 Time Magazine published an article, entitled "Dear Cats," in which Kay, along with Joan Crawford, Katharine Hepburn and Greta Garbo, were listed as "Box Office Poison." It went on to say that "Kay Francis, still receiving many thousands a week, is now making ‘B’ pictures." Among them was "King of the Underworld," originally scheduled for Ann Dvorak. Bette Davis turned down "Curtain Call", (released as "Comet Over Broadway". Miriam Hopkins came next but got sick. Kay inherited what she called "One of the most ridiculous movies of my career."
Her next film, the last at Warner Brothers, "Women in the Wind," began shooting in September. During the production she gave an interview to Photoplay in which she is credited with the most famous quote in her career, "I can’t wait to be forgotten."
Bosley R. Crowther, the long time film critic of the New York Times, in his review of "King of the Underworld," stood up for Kay. "Considering the plot and everything, it is our settled conviction that meaner advantage was never taken of a lady," referring to Warner Brothers’ revenge in retaliation for her lawsuit. Kay responded, "New York has always treated me with more respect than Hollywood."
In March 1938 on Lux Radio Theatre, Kay and William Powell recreated their earlier film roles in "One-Way Passage." It was their last appearance together. The two had previously co-starred in eight films.
After "In Name Only" was released in September 1939, Louella Parsons reported, "One of the most gallant women in Hollywood is Kay Francis," whose current romance with Baron Erik Barnekow, she stated, was on the rocks.
In December she again appeared on Lux Radio Theater, this time with Carole Lombard and Cary Grant, recreating their film roles, "In Name Only," hoping to promote the film.
Kay in In Name Only
The following day the great swashbuckler, Douglas Fairbanks died. Kay devoted the next few weeks consoling his widow, Lady Ashley, who later become one of Clark Gable’s numerous wives.
She attended the New York preview of "Gone With the Wind." She shared her Christmas Eve and Christmas tears with her mother and Miriam Hopkins with whom she got falling down drunk. She finally recovered from a monumental hangover that lasted until New Year’s Eve.
During the early forties she worked both in films and dramatic radio productions. In May of that year, she threw a party for Charles K. Feldman after which they returned to her place. She wrote of the event, "Slept with him and he may be the best of them all!! Christ, I am a slut!"
Back in Hollywood she and Jack Warner kissed and made up, and she went back to work on the Warner lot in "When the Daltons Road." Before long she began an affair with director, Rouben Mamoulian, followed by a hot sexual tryst with director Fritz Lang, during which time Kay starred in several films, back to back, including "Little Men," and "Play Girl."
Kay, Nigel Davenport and unidentified actor in Play Girl
Throughout 1941 Kay worked like a trouper, not only in films, but at patriot functions, radio theatre and volunteer assignments. She seemed indefatigable. Hollywood sentinels declared that she seemed "hell bent for leather to prove to Warner Brothers that she was still a major star."
As co-star with Jack Benny in "Charley’s Aunt" she succeeded in an effort to prove her metal. The film became one the top grossing films of the year. It also became a trademark film for Benny in the lead role.
She devoted much of her summer to the Motion Picture Production Defense Committee’s activities, entertaining troops stationed throughout the many military bases in Southern California.
Although Jack Warner resisted, Walter Houston, the top male star at Warner’s, insisted that Kay co-star with him in "Always in My Heart." Although she was no longer under contract at the studio she demanded and got the salary she wanted. The movie became an instant hit with the American public, when released in March 1942.
Walter Houston and Kay in Always in My Heart
With the country now wholly involved in World War II, Kay devoted much of her energies and talents to supporting the troops.
She was devastated when one of her best friends, Carole Lombard, was killed in a plane crash near Las Vegas while returning from a war bond tour. She decided to take a hiatus from films and devote her time to the war effort in Carole’s memory, a promise soon forgotten when new pictures were offered.
Two years later she made a war film, "Four Girls in a Jeep" with Martha Raye, Carole Landis and Mitzi Mayfair recreating an earlier USO tour of Europe in and Africa the four girls had taken in 1942. Without a doubt and despite Martha Raye’s appeal as "Mother of the Troops," Kay was the indisputable star of the tour. The other girls resented her popularity with the troops who mobbed her at every stop for pictures and autographs. Kay Francis was a major star and nobody exhibited their appreciation of her status more than the military. One unit named her as the star they would most like to "cuddle up with on a rainy night."
During 1942 she managed a brief affair with overbearing director, Otto Preminger, followed by a series of one night stands. After each failed sexual adventure, she returns to Otto who seems to understand that no one man will ever satisfy the insatiable Kay Francis.
Throughout the war Kay’s USO tours were interspersed with film after film, none of which were of much substances except "Four Girls in a Jeep." She got to where she didn’t really care so long as the public continued to adore her, and adore her they did. In 1945 she toured the Carribean and South America for the USO.
In a fit of depression she wrote in her diary on March 16, 1946, "I have a new habit, a combination of pills and alcohol." During the years that followed, due to various addictions, her health declined. However, she continued to make less than major films and during the summer of 1946 appeared in the Leland Hayward stage production of "State of the Union." In September "State of the Union" ended its Broadway run and began a tour across the country. Kay spent the rest of the year on the road, often suffering horrendous pain while on stage.
In January 1948 she made the headlines, but not because of any film success. For days the front pages of New York dailies almost screamed the news that Kay’s lover had discovered her in her hotel room, semi-conscious, due to a near lethal cocktail of booze and pills, and that her body was covered with third-degree burns. With all good intentions Hap Graham, following her physician’s advice, had propped her up by the window where she could have access to fresh air. Due to her drugged condition she was totally unaware that her legs were against the hot air register. That, coupled with Hap accidentally spilling hot coffee on her neck, nearly caused her death from scalding.
Kay spent weeks undergoing skin surgeries. She never fully recovered from the pain and depression that now were a part of her every day life. Nevertheless, she went back to her old love, the stage, in a revival of "The Last of Mrs. Cheyney." After a short run the play closed in Princeton, New Jersey at the McCarter Theatre. She quickly began a tour in "Favorite Stranger."
Early in 1949 she went back to "The Last of Mrs. Cheyney." Two weeks later the show folded in Atlanta. She had personally interviewed her co-star, Joel Ashley, for the first run of "Mrs. Cheyney," and quickly took up a romance with him. It didn’t bother her that he was married with children and a notorious drunk, and fourteen years her junior. Even in her scarred condition, she tried to keep up the idea that young men still loved her. She continued the relationship during her next production. In April, following a performance in Pittsburgh, she and Joel invited three strangers back to their hotel room. The men beat Joel senseless, leaving him and his equally intoxicated companion to the elements. The following day Kay did not remember the night before.
Pulling herself together she continued to perform in theatrical productions at small theaters up and down the east coast.
Back in New York in February 1950, she helped William Powell celebrate his sixty-first birthday at the 21 Club. Then it was back on the road, as far west as Phoenix. Arizona in "Let Us Be Gay." Kay was anything but gay.
Her body tormented by pain and in an almost constant state of depression she refused to give up.
Although her days as a film star were over she still had a following on the stage. Wherever she toured her fans came out to adore her.
In August 1952 Bette Davis came to see Kay in "Theatre" at the Ogonquit Playhouse in Ogonquit, Maine. After the curtain the two Warner Brothers super stars spent the rest of the night at a local watering hole, reminiscing about their glory days when both were ruling queens at Warner Brothers.
Dennis Allen, her co-star in "Theatre," became her last lover. They fought like cats and dogs, but somehow they managed to recover to forgive and fight again another day. On December 31, 1953 Kay and Dennis spent the evening at Kay’s apartment, watching television as Guy Lombardo and his orchestra played out the old year and the new one in. That night she made her final entry in the diary she had kept religiously for 32 years, detailing her evening at home with Dennis.
Although she had for years not enjoyed a normal mother/daughter relationship with her mother, just prior to the elder lady’s death, prior to her death at age 82, she penned a final goodbye to the daughter.
"My precious Babe, I want you to know what a wonderful daughter you have been but really darling I never thought I’d live on so long to be a burden to a very smiling child. I have loved you always more than anyone in this world – but you know that. I wish I could have left more as you have given so much but a great many things have unexpectedly had to be done and I have tried to keep the place in good condition for you to dispose of as you see fit. I have no debts and the only bills will be the monthly ones. I wish I could have been of more help to my one ewe lamb but just remember me a loving and devoted mother."
While cleaning her mother’s home, she discovered twenty-nine scrap books, filled with clippings of Kay she had been putting together from 1923 to the day she died.
After her mother’s death Dennis Allen abandoned Kay for a woman he met and married on Fire Island. She became distraught and often drank herself into oblivion, often being carried home by strangers. One night, as a friend and waiter were escorting her into her apartment building when a passer-by asked, "Is that Kay Francis?" The disheveled, ready to pass out, Kay responded in a slurred voice, "It used to be."
Kay never again appeared in public. She underwent a series of surgeries which included the removal of a lung and kidney. In 1964 she underwent a mastectomy for breast cancer that was too advanced to cure. Ross Hunter, the Hollywood producer who excelled in bringing great actresses of the past back to the screen, offered Kay the role of Lana Turner’s mother in the remake of "Madame X." She thanked him but was too ill to accept. The role went to another great actress of the past, Gladys George. It was Kay’s final film offer.
On August 27, 1968 Kay Francis died quietly in her New York apartment.
When her will was read, she provided for various friends, but at least $1,000,000 of her fortune was left to The Seeing Eye of Morristown, New Jersey, an organization that trained seeing eye dogs for the blind.
Although scarred from burns, and a broken down alcoholic who lived out her last days in a state of depression, her name was glamorous to the end.
Today’s young stars with all their affairs and sexual scandals couldn’t hold a candle to those of Hollywood’s glamor stars of the thirties and forties, and none with a more sensational sex life than Kay Francis. However, there was no paparazzi with a "gotcha camera" in the old days and stars were protected by the studios with the ferocity of a lioness with her cubs.
Kay Francis thrilled and excited millions of fans around the world for three decades. She was what you would call a "genuine Hollywood movie star," and her like will not soon be equaled.
KAY FRANCIS FILMOGRAPHY
1929:
Gentlemen of the Press
1930:
Street of Chance
Paramount on Parade
A Notorious Affair
For the Defense
Raffles
Passion Flower
1931:
Ladies’ Man
Transgression
Guilty Hands
24 Hours
Girls About Town
Kay Francis and Joel McCrea in a publicity pose
for Girls About Town
1932:
Strangers in Love
Man Wanted
Street of Women
Jewel Robbery
One-Way Passage
Trouble in Paradise
Cynara
1933:
The Keyhole
Storm at Daybreak
Mary Stevens, M. D.
I loved a Woman
The House on 56th Street
1934:
Mandalay
Dr. Monica
1935:
Living On Velvet
Stranded
The Goose and the Gander
I found Stella Parish
1936:
Give Me Your Heart
The White Angel
Kay in The White Angel
1937:
Stolen Holiday
Another Dawn
Confession
First Lady
1938:
Secrets of an Actress
My Bill
Comet Over Broadway
Women Are Like That
1939:
King of the Underworld
Women in the Wind
In Name Only
1940:
It’s a Date
Little Men
When the Daltons Rode
Randolph Scott and Kay in publicity pose
for When the Daltons Rode
1941:
Play Girl
The Man Who Lost Himself
The Feminine Touch
Charley’s Aunt
1942:
Always in My Heart
Between Us Girls
1944:
Four Jills in a Jeep
1945:
Divorce
Allotment Wives
Wife Wanted
