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Gloria Grahame (November 28, 1923 - October 5, 1981) was an Oscar-winning American film actress.
Early life
Grahame was born Gloria Hallward in Los Angeles, California. Her mother, Jean McDougal, who used the stage name Jean Grahame, was a stage actress and acting teacher who taught Gloria acting during her childhood and adolescence. She was signed to a contact with MGM Studios after Louis B. Mayer saw her performing on Broadway.
Career
Changing her name to Gloria Grahame, she made her film debut in Blonde Fever (1944) and scored her most widely praised role as the neurotic small town girl Violet, who is saved from a disgraceful and disheartening future by George Bailey in It's A Wonderful Life (1946). MGM was not able to develop her potential as a star and her contract was sold to RKO Studios in 1947.
She received an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress nomination for Crossfire (1947), and won the same award for The Bad and the Beautiful (1952). She is perhaps best remembered, however, for her role as the mob moll in The Big Heat (1953). In what was considered a horrifying scene at the time, she is disfigured by boiling coffee thrown in her face by Lee Marvin's character.
Grahame was often regarded as a difficult actress, and her career began to wane after her quixotic, but successful casting in the musical movie Oklahoma! (1955), although she continued to play supporting roles for the rest of her life in the US, and also in the UK, where she resided for many years.
Grahame has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contribution to Motion Pictures, at 6522 Hollywood Boulevard.
Death
In 1981, Grahame collapsed during a rehearsal for a British stage play, and returned to New York City where she died soon after from breast cancer at the age of 57. She is interred in Oakwood Memorial Park Cemetery in Chatsworth, California.
She was survived by her children from various marriages, and a sister.
Filmography
- Blonde Fever (1944)
- Without Love (1945)
- It's a Wonderful Life (1946)
- It Happened in Brooklyn (1947)
- Crossfire (1947)
- Song of the Thin Man (1947)
- Merton of the Movies (1947)
- A Woman's Secret (1949)
- Roughshod (1949)
- In a Lonely Place (1950)
- The Greatest Show on Earth (1952)
- Macao (1952)
- Sudden Fear (1952)
- The Bad and the Beautiful (1952)
- The Glass Wall (1953)
- Man on a Tightrope (1953)
- The Big Heat (1953)
- Prisoners of the Casbah (1953)
- Human Desire (1954)
- Naked Alibi (1954)
- The Good Die Young (1954)
- The Cobweb (1955)
- Not as a Stranger (1955)
- Oklahoma! (1955)
- The Man Who Never Was (1956)
- Ride Out for Revenge (1957)
- Odds Against Tomorrow (1959)
- Ride Beyond Vengeance (1966)
- Blood and Lace (1971)
- The Todd Killings (1971)
- Chandler (1971)
- The Loners (1972)
- Tarot (film) (1973)
- Mama's Dirty Girls (1974)
- Mansion of the Doomed (1976)
- A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square (1979)
- Head Over Heels (1979)
- Melvin and Howard (1980)
- The Nesting (1982)