G-L-O-R-I-A!
Gloria, Gloria Hallelujah!
She was one of the most idiosyncratic of all the ladies of noir. Gloria Grahame never exactly personified the femme fatale , she would indubitably portray the archetypal good girl gone bad, endearingly naive, hedonistically oblivious to the lurking evils that surrounded her. And this she illustrates best as Debby Marsh in 1953's The Big Heat. She is the unconditional girlfriend of a most nefarious Lee Marvin, who mercilessly disfigures her beauty by hurling scalding coffee in her face. It is the scene most recounted by its audience, but sadly, her time truly to shine there was in the last contretemps she has with a police official's heartless widow. The breathtaking realism of that moment, was testament to Miss Grahame's uncanny ability to meld into her character.
The precocious Gloria studied acting with her mother ( stage veteran Jean Grahame). In 1944, Gloria Grahame signed for MGM after capturing the attention of Louis B Mayer during one of her Broadway stints. Soon after, Columbia borrowed her so she could play a small town floozy in It's A Wonderful Life (1946) but the next year her contract would be taken over by RKO. Her very first liaison with noir began with the 1947 shocker Crossfire. The undeniable passion with which she played Ginny Tremaine, the sassyfrassin', soulful nightclub hostess, would actually garner her an Oscar nomination.
In 1948, Grahame would marry noted director Nicholas Ray, who had already cast her in the film A Woman's Secret, prior to their wedding. This would not underline her dynamic screen presence quite so much as Crossfire, but this would all change by 1950 , when Ray directed her in In A Lonely Place. At this point Grahame and Ray were divorced, but her show certainly went on!
Her illuminating years were surely the 1950s, this would be the juncture where she would unravel her entire range and prove her acting chops most. A commodity in demand, she would go on to play two more noir roles in 1952; Macao and Sudden Fear. This would also occur the same year she would take home a big golden boy for her startling performance as Dick Powell's coquettish spouse in the first noir satire, The Bad And The Beautiful. Gloria would do more work for Fritz Lang in Human Desire (1954) and did a 360 spin as the amazing Ado Annie in Oklahoma! (1955) Her final noir excursion would be Odds Against Tomorrow in 1959.
And soon after, consequently, her filmic career would wane, but she still remained a stage actress until her death in the years she was doing repertory theatre in the North of England. There are beautiful words written of her last days by her lover Peter Turner in a heartstring tugging memoir Film Stars Don't Die In Liverpool.
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