On The Other Hand, A Life Story
by Fay Wray. Weidenfeld. Softcover.
270 pages. £5.99
 Fay Wray is perhaps everybodys favourite Scream
Queen from the horror genre's heyday. Written while in her late eighties, Fay fondly
recalls her most famous role cast as Ann Darrow alongside the "tallest,
darkest leading man in Hollywood", King
Kong.
While Fay is firmly etched in our minds as the beautiful star who swooned, fainted
and above all screamed at the hands of a whole host of demented scientists and rampaging
monsters we tend to forget that her career included work in all genres beginning in 1925
with THE COAST PATROL. She continued to appear films alongside such luminaries as Erich
von Stroheim in THE WEDDING MARCH (1928), Gary Cooper in THE FIRST KISS (1928), Emil
Jannings in THE STREET OF SIN (1929), Ronald Coleman in THE UNHOLY GARDEN (1931) and with
Jack Hulbert as his girlfriend in the superb BULLDOG JACK (1934).
Of course Fay's appearances in the horror
genre established her reputation and cast her with some of the top names in the industry
including Lionel Atwill in Dr. X (1932), Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933) and The Vampire Bat (1933); with Leslie Banks in The Most Dangerous Game (1932) and with Claude
Rains in The Clairvoyant (1934). Unfortunately
other than King Kong, Fay gives only a few
passages and the briefest of mentions to her other genre works. To the horror film buff
this may become rather frustrating and I would have thought that her horror film
association is why many people would purchase this book in the first place, but after all
this is a life story, and to afford every one of her 75 features in lenghty detail would
probably be asking a bit too much!
Available in the US click
here
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