Gloria Grahame

Gloria Grahame

A very close friend of Jeff Donnell. They met on the set of Roughshod (1949), and appeared together the next year in In a Lonely Place (1950).

Buried at Oakwood Memorial Park, 22601 Lassen, Chatsworth, California. Pioneer Section Lot 242, Space 8.

Campaigned for the Judy Holliday role in Born Yesterday (1950) and Shelley Winters role in A Place in the Sun (1951).

Gloria spent her last days in the Liverpool (UK) home of her friend Peter Turner, then was flown back to New York by her children just hours before her death.

Gloria was descended from royalty. Her father's family descended from King Edward III through John of Gaunt; her mother's, from the Scottish Kings of the Hebrides.



Gloria was not born in 1925 as usually stated, but in 1923.

Gloria's children: Timothy Ray, born 12 November 1948; Marianna Paulette Howard, born 1 October 1956; Anthony Ray Jr., born 30 April 1963; James Ray, born 21 September 1965.

Gloria's grandfather Reginald Francis Hallward gave Oscar Wilde the idea for 'The Picture of Dorian Gray.'

Her film output totalled 39 feature films, 4 TV-movies and 2 miniseries.

Her unusual 1960 marriage to former stepson Anthony Ray made a great Hollywood scandal and led to a bitter child custody battle with former husbands.

In Italy, a great deal of her films were dubbed by Rina Morelli, but occasionally she was also dubbed by Renata Marini, most notably in The Bad and the Beautiful (1952); Lidia Simoneschi; Andreina Pagnani, in Fritz Lang's Human Desire (1954) and Wanda Tettoni in Crossfire (1947).

In real life, she was nearsighted and often wore glasses.

Mother, Jean MacDougall, stage actress as Jean Grahame (Gloria's grandmother's maiden name) and later acting coach. Father, Michael Hallward, decorator, architect and author.

Profiled in "Killer Tomatoes: Fifteen Tough Film Dames" bu Ray Hagen and Laura Wagner (McFarland, 2004).

Reportedly did not get on with Humphrey Bogart during the filming of In a Lonely Place (1950) as Bogart had campaigned for the part of Laurel Gray to be given to his wife Lauren Bacall, which was instead given to Grahame.

Tone-deaf, she sang without dubbing in only one film, Oklahoma! (1955), where her songs were edited together from recordings made almost literally note by note.

Unhappy with the tilt of her upper lip, she often stuffed cotton along her gumline to straighten it out. The effect was cosmetically less than flattering and made it difficult for her to speak. A leading man, after kissing her, ended up with a mouth full of cotton.

Younger sister of Joy Hallward.


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