Sally Gray

Sally Gray (February 14 1916 - September 24 2006) was an English movie actress of the 1930's and 1940's.

Born Constance Vera Stevens in Holloway, London, blonde actress Sally Gray possessed one of the most attractive voices in British films –husky, as well as a hazel-eyed beautiful face. She trained at Fay Compton’s School of Dramatic Art and became well established in the theatre before embarking on a series of light comedies, musicals and thrillers in the 1930's.

Gray began in films in her teens with a bit part in School for Scandal (1930), and returned in 1935, making nearly twenty films culminating with her sensitive role in Brian Desmond Hurst’s romantic wartime hit Dangerous Moonlight (1941). She was off the screen for several years due to an alleged nervous breakdown, and then returned in 1946 to make her strongest bid for stardom.

This latter involved a series of attractive melodramas, all of which stand up well today. They include the classic hospital thriller, Green for Danger (1947); the decorative Victoriana of Carnival (1946) and The Mark of Cain (1948); two films which, in their different ways, capture some of the essence of post-war Britain, a gangster’s moll in Alberto Cavalcanti's They Made Me a Fugitive (1947) and the stagebound Silent Dust (1948); and Edward Dmytryk's film noir piece Obsession (1949), in which she plays Robert Newton’s faithless wife. Her final film was the confusing spy yarn Escape Route (1952).

RKO Executives, impressed with Gray, authorized producer William Sistrom to offer her a long term contract if she would move to the United States. John Paddy Carstairs, director of "The Saint in London" also thought she could be a star. However, she declined the offer and instead retired in 1952 to marry Dominick Browne the 4th Lord Oranmore and Browne and live in County Mayo, Ireland. In the early 1960's, they returned to England and settled in a flat in Eaton Place, Belgravia in London. They had no children.

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* [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/news/2006/09/29/db2902.xml Obituary in the Daily Telegraph]