Kay Francis is one of my favorites, and not only because of her striking looks and wonderful fashion sense. So often, one hears stories of Hollywood actresses marrying men who frittered away all their money, left them practically penniless and then divorced them. The ones that avoid that pitfall often find their own ways of gaining the valuable experience of poverty in their old ages. Not Kay Francis. Not by a long shot! She always lived well, but well within her means and saved her money and invested it in sensible ways and left an estate of over $1 million, most of which went to Seeing Eye, Inc, to train dogs for the visually impaired. The lady had class.
People often spoke of her speech impediment, she could not pronounce the letter "R" and was known around the Paramount lot as "the wavishing Kay Fwancis." I've listened carefully to her movies and have never been able to detect it myself.
Now, strictly speaking, Ms Francis was not a film noir star, in the main. Her great period was the pre-code era, but I'm a big fan of those films as well, so there!
"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines."
"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines."
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
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ReplyDeleteVery nice Mark.
ReplyDeleteYOU did a superb job here.
The thing I find interesting
about Kay Francis is she
was 5'9 and wore a size 5 shoe.
Being that tall she kept
falling because of her small feet.
Love your new blog background here !
A pretty good actress. An incredible, breathtaking beauty. If she were a bit more careful about the roles she chose, she might be more of an icon. Nonetheless, we have Lubitsch's masterpiece, Trouble in Paradise. Was she not perfect?
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