Gilda Gray

Born in Krakow , which was then part of Austria-Hungary , in the family of Max and Wanda Michalski, who in 1909 immigrated to the United States and settled in Milwaukee , Wisconsin . As the family lived in poverty, her parents married Marianne at age 15 to violinist John Goretsky, ^[4] from whom she gave birth to a son, Martin, who became the head of the jazz orchestra a year later. She began her career with performances in a tavern, where she sang and danced.

Wanting to achieve popularity, she left her husband and moved to Chicago , where she met pianist Frank Westphal, who saw her talent and took her to New York . There she met his wife, the famous singer Sophie Tucker , who convinced her to change her name to Guild Gray. Gray's New York career began in 1919 with participation in vaudeville and revues, and in the same year she first appeared on movie screens. At the same time, she invented the shimmy dance, when during one of her performances she forgot some of the words of the US anthem , and in order to hide her embarrassment she began to shake her shoulders and hips. The dance quickly gained success with the public, and soon became one of the most popular dances of the time, and the actress herself was nicknamed the “Queen of Shimmy”. In the future, the shimmy dance became her hallmark.

Her career quickly gained momentum, and in 1922 she successfully participated in the famous Broadway revision of Siegfeld's Frenzy . In 1923, Gray married her agent Gillard Baugh, with whom she moved to Hollywood , where she continued her successful performances in vaudeville, and also began to intensively develop a career in cinema. The most successful paintings with her participation were “The Devil Dancer ” (1927) and “Piccadilly” (1929), which brought her great fees and the love of the public.

In 1929, after the collapse of the stock market , Gray lost most of her savings. The subsequent difficulties with work, stress and divorce from her second husband, led to a heart attack in 1931. In May 1933, she married a Venezuelan diplomat, Hector Briceño de Saa, whom she divorced five years later. By that time, her performances had become quite rare, and in 1939 the film "Rose Marie" was released, which became the last in her film career.

In 1946, Gray filed a million-dollar lawsuit against Columbia Pictures , claiming that their film Guild , starring Rita Hayworth , was based on her life. In 1954, after several years of proceedings, the lawsuit was rejected. In 1953, a documentary film dedicated to Guild Gray was released on television, telling about her courage during the Second World War in organizing charitable foundations in support of the Polish people, for which she was later awarded the Merit Cross . ^[five]

At the end of her life, Gray was experiencing serious financial problems, and for the past six years she has lived in the family of the captain of the fire department of Warner Bros. »Antonio Rayo. Five days before her death, Gray suffered an attack of food poisoning, and on December 22, 1959, she died of a heart attack at the age of 58. Her funeral at the Catholic Cemetery of the Holy Cross in Culver City was paid for by the Cinema Relief Fund, and in February 1960, her name star was laid on the Hollywood Walk of Fame .

• Gilda Gray on the Internet Movie Database
• Gilda Gray on the Internet Broadway Database