Frances Dee

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Frances Dee (born November 26, 1909 in Los Angeles , California - † June 3, 2004 in Norwalk , Connecticut , actually: Frances Marion Dee - other sources: Jean Dee ) was an American actress who her best roles in the early Sound film era played.

Life

Frances Dee began her career in 1929 as an extra, before she was hired by a talent scout for Paramount Pictures in 1930 and was immediately placed as the leading lady alongside Maurice Chevalier in Playboy of Paris . In 1931 she was named one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars . In the following years she mostly played supporting roles and occasionally took on the leading role in B-films . One of the few challenging parts was the appearance in Josef von Sternberg's adaptation of Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy from 1931 alongside Sylvia Sidney . In 1933, after moving to RKO , she starred alongside Katharine Hepburn in Little Women , directed by George Cukor .

In the same 1933, while filming The Silver Cord , a melodrama starring Irene Dunne , she fell in love with the flick's male star, Joel McCrea . Both married some time later and remained a couple until McCrea's death in 1990. The marriage of the two was considered happy and went without scandals and they occasionally appeared together in films. They had three children, including actor Jody McCrea .

In 1954, Frances Dee retired from the film business, but made another short film shortly before her death, which was only released posthumously. She died of a heart attack in 2004 at the age of 94.

Filmography (selection)

Web links

Commons : Frances Dee  - Collection of Images
personal data
SURNAME Dee, Frances
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Dee, Frances Marion (full name); Dee, Jean
BRIEF DESCRIPTION US-american actress
DATE OF BIRTH November 26, 1909
PLACE OF BIRTH Los Angeles , California , United States
DATE OF DEATH June 3, 2004
Place of death Norwalk , Connecticut , United States