Virginia Grey

Virginia Grey (March 22, 1917 – July 31, 2004) was a prolific American actress appearing in over 100 films and a number of TV shows from the 1930s through to the early-1980s.

Biography

Born in Edendale, California, Grey was the youngest of three daughters of the director Ray Grey. One of her early babysitters was movie star Gloria Swanson. Grey debuted at the age of 10 in the silent film Uncle Tom's Cabin(1927) as Little Eva. She continued acting for a few more years, but then left movies for three years in order to finish her education.

Grey gave up a training to be a nurse and returned to films in the 1930s with bit parts and work as an extra, and eventually signed a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), appearing in several films, including The Hardys Ride High (1939), Another Thin Man (1939), Hullabaloo (1940), and The Big Store (1941).

She left MGM in 1942, and signed with several different studios over the years, working steadily. During the 1950s and 1960s, producer Ross Hunter frequently included Grey in his popular soap melodramas, such as All That Heaven Allows,Back Street and Madame X.

She had an on again/off again relationship with Clark Gable in the 1940s. After Gable's wife Carole Lombard died and he returned from military service, Gable and Grey were often seen at restaurants and nightclubs together. Many, including Virginia herself, expected him to marry her with the tabloids expecting a wedding announcement. It was a great surprise when he hastily married Lady Sylvia Ashley in 1949, leaving Grey heartbroken. Gable divorced Ashley in 1952. However, Gable never rekindled their romance and Grey's friends say that her hoping and waiting for Gable was the reason she never married.

She was a regular on television in the 1950s and 1960s, appearing on Playhouse 90, U.S. Marshal, General Electric Theater, The DuPont Show with June Allyson, Your Show of Shows, Red Skelton, Wagon Train, Bonanza, Marcus Welby, M.D., Love, American Style, Burke's Law, The Virginian, Peter Gunn, Ironside and many others.

She was portrayed by Anna Torv in the HBO Mini-series The Pacific.

Filmography

• Uncle Tom's Cabin (1927)
• The Michigan Kid (1928)
• Heart to Heart (1928)
• Jazz Mad (1928)
• Misbehaving Ladies (1931)
• Palmy Days (1931)
• Secrets (1933)
• Dames (1934)
• The St. Louis Kid (1934)
• The Firebird (1934)
• Gold Diggers of 1935 (1935)
• She Gets Her Man (1935)
• The Great Ziegfeld (1936)
• Old Hutch (1936)
• Our Relations (1936)
• Secret Valley (1937)
• Bad Guy (1937)
• Rosalie (1937)
• The Canary Comes Across (1938, short)
• Test Pilot (1938)
• Billy Rose's Casa Mañana Revue(1938, short)
• Snow Gets in Your Eyes (1938, short)
• Ladies in Distress (1938)
• The Shopworn Angel (1938)
• Rich Man, Poor Girl (1938)
• Youth Takes a Fling (1938)
• Dramatic School (1938)
• Idiot's Delight (1939)
• Broadway Serenade (1939)
• The Hardys Ride High (1939)
• The Women (1939)
• Thunder Afloat (1939)
• Another Thin Man (1939)
• Three Cheers for the Irish (1940)
• The Captain Is a Lady (1940)
• The Golden Fleecing (1940)
• Hullabaloo (1940)
• Keeping Company (1940)
• Blonde Inspiration (1941)
• Washington Melodrama (1941)
• The Big Store (1941)
• Whistling in the Dark (1941)
• Mr. and Mrs. North (1942)
• Grand Central Murder (1942)
• Tarzan's New York Adventure(1942)
• Bells of Capistrano (1942)
• Tish (1942)
• Secrets of the Underground (1942)
• Idaho (1943)
• Stage Door Canteen (1943)
• Sweet Rosie O'Grady (1943)
• Strangers in the Night (1944)
• Grissly's Millions (1945)
• Flame of Barbary Coast (1945)
• Blonde Ransom (1945)
• Men in Her Diary (1945)
• Smooth as Silk (1946)
• House of Horrors (1946)
• Swamp Fire (1946)
• Wyoming (1947)
• Unconquered (1947)
• So This Is New York (1947)
• Glamour Girl (1948)
• Who Killed Doc Robbin (1948)
• Unknown Island (1948)
• Leather Gloves (1948)
• Jungle Jim (1948)
• Mexican Hayride (1948)
• The Threat (1949)
• Highway 301 (1950)
• Hurricane at Pilgrim Hill (1950)
• Three Desperate Men (1951)
• Bullfighter and the Lady (1951)
• Slaughter Trail (1951)
• Desert Pursuit (1952)
• A Perilous Journey (1953)
• The Fighting Lawman (1953)
• Captain Scarface (1953)
• The Forty-Niners (1954)
• Target Earth (1954)
• The Eternal Sea (1955)
• The Last Command (1955)
• The Rose Tattoo (1955)
• All That Heaven Allows (1955)
• Accused of Murder (1956)
• Crime of Passion (1957)
• Jeanne Eagels (1957)
• The Restless Years (1958)
• No Name on the Bullet (1959)
• Portrait in Black (1960)
• Tammy Tell Me True (1961)
• Back Street (1961)
• Bachelor in Paradise (1961)
• Flower Drum Song (1961)
• Black Zoo (1963)
• The Naked Kiss (1964)
• Love Has Many Faces (1965)
• Madame X (1966)
• Rosie! (1967)
• Airport (1970)
• The Lives of Jenny Dolan (1975)
• The Moneychangers (1976)