Coleen Gray

Coleen Gray had titles in her filmography such as The Alley of Lost Souls , Perfect Heist , and despite the brevity of her role, she is also remembered for Red River . She looked like she was going to give a lot more, but she soon ended up in medium hair productions.

Born on October 23, 1922 in Staplehurst, Nebraska, Doris Bernice Jensen (her real name) helped out on her family’s farm as a child. At the same time she sang in the church choir, and at school she demonstrated her attitudes. She graduated with excellent grades in English Language, Theater and Music from Hamline University.

To try to make her way as an actress, she moved to Los Angeles, where she was given work in various theater productions. The good work of her on her tables did not go unnoticed by the scouts of Fox, a producer that offered her a contract to debut in the cinema.

After minor roles in State Fair , Three Little Girls in Blue and The Shocking Miss Pilgrim , Gray breaks out as the lovesick woman who visits the lead ( Victor Mature ) in prison in Henry Hathaway ‘s Kiss of Death . The censorship of the time forced them to remove all of Patricia Morrison’s sequences, because they saw it as dangerous to show a woman on the screen who committed suicide despite having two little girls, so Gray became the only actress with weight in the plot of this masterpiece of film noir.

She did an exceptional job as the innocent and naive Molly, young assistant and wife of a trickster turned fortune teller (Tyrone Power in an atypical role), in Edmund Goulding ‘s Alley of Lost Souls .

She also shone, despite her very limited screen presence, as John Wayne’s fiancée, at the beginning of Howard Hawks’ legendary western Red River .

In 1946 she married Rodney Amateau, a scriptwriter for television series and later a director, with whom she had a daughter. After her divorce, she married William Clymer Bidlack, an airline company executive, with whom she had another son, and whom she accompanied until her death. Since 1979 she has been with Fritz Zeiser, involved in helping some NGO.

At the end of the 1940s, she was quite a promising young woman, but Fox did not have high hopes for her, since her only great success had been Red River , where she was greatly overshadowed by male performers. She was decided that she would not have her contract renewed.

Even so, he managed some prominent role for other companies, such as in the low-budget but excellent film noir The Fourth Man , with John Payne , with whom he repeated in titles such as The Player and The Vanquished . A very young Stanley Kubrick bet on her, in Perfect Heist , where she was the memorable lover of Sterling Hayden ‘s character , a desperate lonely young woman capable of anything for love. “Johnny, run away,” she told him at a key moment in the film.

But despite the success of the remarkable robbery film, Coleen Gray never raised her head again. He went to series B productions, and fell into what was a real banishment at the time, science fiction and fantasy productions, although it is true that some have become cult titles, especially The Phantom Planet , PJ and The Leech Woman . She also went through series like Alfred Hitchcock Presents , Perry Mason , The Virginian and Bonanza . There is a feeling that she could have done much more in Hollywood.

His appearance in Congress, with the actors Victor Jory and Susan Seaforth, in favor of changing the constitution to allow prayer in schools, had a great public impact in the United States. She also helps prisoners in jails.