Kay Francis

Was considered for the role of Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind (1939).

Was one of the many stars labeled "box-office poison" in an article published in "The Hollywood Reporter" in 1938.

It had all started to go wrong for her, when she was assigned the role of 'women's picture star', effectively typecasting her in sentimental melodramas, earnest biopics (The White Angel (1936), and three handkerchief tearjerkers like My Bill (1938), her script filled with Rs and Ls as chastisement for bucking the system. Though she still managed to give several good performances, the writing was on the wall. By the end of the decade, the 'Queen of Warner Brothers' mantle had passed on to Bette Davis.

She had major hits with I Found Stella Parish (1935) and Confession (1937), which were excellent money-spinners for the studio. While much was made at the time and since of her famous lisp, this had not hitherto been a significant detriment to Kay's career. At least, not until her falling out with the studio executives who thought her salary too excessive. The tight control the studio exercised over the roles she played on screen caused her to file a lawsuit against Warner Brothers, trying to escape her contract.

Trade-paper articles in November 1933 announced that due to her conflicting schedule because she was working in Mandalay (1934), she had been replaced in Wonder Bar (1934) by Genevieve Tobin. Francis ultimately returned and completed her role in "Wonder Bar" as originally planned.

She appeared in the Lubitsch comedy Trouble in Paradise (1932), though unhappy about being billed below Miriam Hopkins in the picture.

One of her best early films was the comedy/drama One Way Passage (1932), playing a gravely-ill baroness opposite Powell's gentleman burglar, a doomed romance interlaced with witty dialogue described by a reviewer as 'spilled cocktail and love at first sight'. Paramount, at the time well-stocked with female stars but experiencing financial problems, decided to let Kay move to Warner Brothers, where she would remain for the rest of the decade. A tall, attractive, grey-eyed brunette with undeniable style and poise, she soon acquired a reputation as Hollywood's 'best dressed woman', wearing the most glamorous gowns designed by great studio costumers like Orry-Kelly, Travis Banton and Adrian. Particularly female audiences often flocked to see Kay Francis pictures simply to appreciate her sumptuous wardrobe. For her part, Kay spent a lot of time and effort on collaborative efforts with costume designers to select the right clothes for the parts she played. Dorothy Jeakins believed, that Kay possessed an 'innate sense of style'.

Kay Francis is possibly the biggest of the 'forgotten stars' from Hollywood's Golden Era, yet, for a while in the 1930s, she ranked as one of the most popular actresses, tagged the 'Queen of Warner Brothers', by 1935 earning a yearly salary of $115,000 (compared to Bette Davis with $18,000). The daughter of actress Katherine Clinton and businessman Joseph Gibbs, Kay did not start her working life in show business but sold real estate and arranged extravagant parties for wealthy socialites.

By the mid-1930s, Kay earned $5,250 per week and was voted by Variety as Hollywood's sixth most popular star. Numerous magazine articles were written about every detail of her life and in and off the studio lot.

On the strength of her stage work, Kay was screen-tested by Paramount and subsequently offered a contract (1929-31).

She had a bit in the first Marx Brothers outing, The Cocoanuts (1929), and then graduated to playing sophisticated seductresses opposite stars like William Powell and Ronald Colman.

A brief affair with writer / director Edmund Goulding (some time around April 1928) may also have been a contributing factor.

She appeared as Marjorie Grey in the melodrama "Crime" (1927) and in the Ring Lardner play "Elmer the Great" (1928), produced by George M. Cohan and starring Walter Huston as Elmer Kane.

Her first acting job was in a modernised version of 'Hamlet' (as the Player Queen) in 1925, performing as Katharine Francis.

Following her marriage in 1922 to James Dwight Francis, son of a moneyed family, Kay adopted the surname Francis.

The year of her birth has been speculated about for some time, with dates anywhere from 1899 to 1908. Studio records (which occasionally were used to her detriment when the studio got mad at her) reflect the year of birth as 1899. However, her listing in the U.S. Census taken in April 1910, when she was living at a convent school, gives her age as five.