Happy 30th Anniversary, Gloria Grahame!

Gloria Grahame (November 28, 1923 – October 5, 1981)
Glenn Ford and Gloria Grahame in "The Big Heat" (1953)



In a Lonely Place (1950)--Meeting Laurel Gray, starring Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame

"Bernard Eisenschitz’s extraordinary biography of Ray (“Nicholas Ray: An American Journey,” which, sadly, is out of print) explains in fascinating detail the way in which, despite the screenplay credit to Andrew Solt, Ray made the movie his own: Of the 140 pages in the script, only four reached the shooting stage without revisions.… The changes may have been made by Solt, although he had (by his own account) been kept off the set by a momentary falling-out with Bogart. More important, they were occasioned by the bond between the director and the two leading actors.The romantic agony seems to have arisen directly from life, as, during the shoot, Ray and Grahame had separated, and here’s one way that, according to Ray (as cited by Eisenschitz), their turmoil found its way into the movie: Nobody knew that we were separated. And I just couldn’t believe the ending that Bundy [Solt] and I had written. I shot it because it was my obligation to do it. Then I kicked everybody off stage except Bogart, Art Smith and Gloria. And we improvised the ending as it is now. There’s an overarching point, going beyond Ray’s and the actors’ art, that should be made: the credits of Hollywood movies often don’t tell the real story of the work that went into them". Source: www.newyorker.com