Dolores Gray

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Dolores Gray (born June 7, 1924 in Chicago , Illinois , † June 26, 2002 in New York City , New York ) was an American singer and stage and film actress.

Life

Dolores Gray grew up in Chicago. Her parents were Harry Gray and Barbara Marquerite Gray. They divorced when Dolores was two years old. Her father died five years later. In her childhood she got involved in an armed confrontation between rival gangsters and was shot in the process. The bullet hit her left lung. It was not removed in its life. After moving to Los Angeles with her mother , Gray began singing in Hollywood clubs at the age of 14 . During one of her appearances she was noticed by the band leader and entertainer Rudy Vallée , who hired her for his radio show in 1940.

Gray was married to the American businessman Andrew J. Crevolin since 1967. The marriage lasted nine years but was never divorced. A friendship continued between him and Gray until Crevolin's death in 1992.

Gray died of a heart attack in her Manhattan apartment in 2002 .

Career

In 1944 Gray made his debut on Broadway . She had a minor role in the musical Seven Lively Arts . After a few more engagements, Gray moved to London , where she played the role of Annie Oakley in the musical Annie Get Your Gun for two years instead of the originally intended Ethel Merman . She had her first appearance in this role on her 23rd birthday. The success of her engagement and her lifestyle quickly made her a West End celebrity .

At the beginning of the 1950s Gray returned to Broadway, where she played in numerous musicals in the decades that followed. For her role as Cornelia in the play Carnival in Flanders , which was only performed in 1953 and panned by the criticism, she won a Tony Award , her use in Destry Rides Again (1959) earned her another Tony nomination.

From 1955 to 1957 Gray starred in four feature films produced by MGM . Three of them were made from musicals. One exception was Vincente Minnelli comedy Why did I say yes? ; Gray played the musical actress Lori Shannon here and was seen in several dance and singing scenes.

Since the mid-1960s, Gray was repeatedly seen on television shows; she also recorded a number of records for Capitol Records .

Musicals (selection)

Dolores Gray played in 20 musical productions from 1944 to 1987. They included:

  • 1944-1945: Seven Lively Arts
  • 1945–1946: Are You With It?
  • 1947-1949: Annie Get Your Gun
  • 1951-1952: Two On The Aisle
  • 1953: Carnival in Flanders
  • 1959-1960: Destry Rides Again
  • 1967: Sherry!
  • 1980-1986: 42nd Street

Filmography (selection)

Web links

Commons : Dolores Gray  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Biography of Dolores Gray on filmreference.com , accessed September 16, 2012.
  2. ↑ a b c Note in Telegraph , June 28, 2002.
  3. ^ A b Biography of Dolores Gray in the Internet Movie Database , accessed September 16, 2012.
  4. ↑ List of all productions on filmreference.com , accessed on September 16, 2012.
personal data
SURNAME Gray, Dolores
BRIEF DESCRIPTION US-american actress
DATE OF BIRTH June 7, 1924
PLACE OF BIRTH Chicago , Illinois, United States
DATE OF DEATH June 26, 2002
Place of death New York City , New York, United States