Fay Wray, who will be forever immortalized as the object of King Kong's affections in the 1933 classic film, passed away Sunday at age 96.
Though an official cause of death has not been released yet, it's believed that the actress passed away in her sleep at her Manhattan apartment of natural causes stemming from a heart ailment she had.Vina Fay Wray was born in a small town in Alberta, Canada on Sept. 15, 1907 and grew up in Los Angeles in a large family of six children. She started acting as a teenager, and had leading roles in about 75 other motion pictures between 1923 and 1958. But none would so define her career as that classic tale about unrequited love between a young beauty and a giant ape.
In the film, Wray played Ann Darrow, an out-of-work actress invited by a film producer on a long voyage to mysterious Skull Island. The producer tries to use Darrow as bait to capture Kong but the plan goes awry as the great ape starts on a rampage in New York in search of Darrow, culminating in a fall to the death from the Empire State Building.
In her 1988 autobiography, the actress wrote that she had been paid a mere $10,000 for her historical role in King Kong, which was budgeted at $680,000, but her 10 weeks' work was stretched over a 10-month period. This was also in the early years of cinema when actors never received residuals from future revenues earned by the film, as many major actors do now. But it was a role that secured her immortality on the silver screen. The image of her screaming in the giant hand of the ape as he clings to the very top of the Empire State Building is one of the most recognizable scenes in the history of celluoid.
Director Peter Jackson (Lord of the Rings) is currently doing a second remake of King Kong with Naomi Watts in the role Wray made famous, and was reportedly interested in having Wray do a cameo. Unfortunately that cinematic full circle will never come to fruition.
Wray is survived by a daughter, Susan, from her first marriage, a daughter and son, Victoria and Robert Jr, from her second, and two grandchildren.
