KAY FRANCIS IS 120!

Today is Kay Francis’ 120th birthday–or would have been had she not died in 1968 at the age of 63. When I was a kid in the early 1970s, the Marx Brothers revival was in full swing and theaters around L.A. often did all-day showings of the Paramount Marx output (in other words–the good ones). It was customary, in those rowdy film-buff crowds, for people to jeer at the non-Marx scenes involving the lovers. And this struck me (and still does) as well deserved. But whenever Kay Francis was on screen in ‘The Cocoanuts’ (1929–her second movie) the audience shut-up and watched respectfully. She had a dignity matched with an unstoppable allure that transcended silly material–you were under her spell from the moment she appeared on screen. I’ve posted two Kay clips–above is from ‘A Notorious Affair’ (1930) with Basil Rathbone and below is a wonderfully stylized musical sequence from ‘Mandalay’ (1934). Click here to read her Wikipedia entry and find out how she went from being Warner Brothers most popular star of the mid -1930s to ‘box office poison’. You’ll also read about the accident that seems to have led to the end of her career. And her multiple failed marriages, relationships with gay men, pill problems–all great stuff. To close, I’ll quote from her 1938 diary entry which sheds a curious light on this mysterious woman.
“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.” She died alone, from Cancer, leaving no survivors and a million dollars to a New Jersey organization called ‘The Seeing Eye’ that trained guide dogs for the blind.

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