EDITOR'S NOTE: The way they wore their hair, spoke their lines or held a cigarette was mimicked by millions. They were movie stars -- the 20th century's new royalty -- and the world couldn't get enough of them. Following is the second in an occasional series of interviews with some of the performers who helped define stardom in this century.
LOS ANGELES -- When Tennessee Williams met Fay Wray for the first time, he clasped her hand and murmured, "I'm glad you got away from that big ape."
But at 91, she still hasn't escaped. She's still in the palm of her adoring co-star in countless television showings of the 1933 classic "King Kong."
She long ago became reconciled to being identified by a single film out of the 80 she made during her long career, and she even gave her 1988 autobiography the whimsical title "On the Other Hand."
Yet Miss Wray deserves to be considered a star of the century for more than one unforgettable movie. Her career dates back to 1919, with her debut at age 12 in "Blind Husbands." She is one of a handful of remaining Hollywood figures who starred in silent films, her most notable being Erich von Stroheim's "The Wedding March."
Fay Wray -- her real name and not a studio invention -- has witnessed virtually the entire history of Hollywood. She arrived when producers were pouring in from the East for the sunshine and scenery. She starred in silents and talkies, saw the rise and fall of the big studios, took part in the TV revolution.
She has seen a host of changes in both the Hollywood landscape and the business, including the advent of the $20 million star. She worked on "King Kong" off and on for 10 months, earning $10,000. She also appeared in 10 other films in 1933 -- "every fourth Monday we started a new picture."
Today, Miss Wray lives alone in a Century City high-rise apartment she shared with her third husband, neurosurgeon Sandy Rothenberg, who died in 1991. She is lovely as ever, possessing the same high cheeks and eyes that twinkle when she laughs, which is often. Her only concession to age is a cane for a gimpy leg.
"I've seen a lot," she volunteered in her clear, sultry voice. "It's been a wonderful span of time. I think the older we get -- as long as we keep going -- the more fun it is. All three of my children are interesting, talented, gifted, pretty well-behaved. Very well-behaved, I would say. I also have two grandchildren: a boy, Jacob, and a girl, Nora, and they're darling."
She hasn't acted since the 1980 TV movie "Gideon's Trumpet" with Henry Fonda. Instead, she has found a new pastime: appearing at special screenings of her favorite movie. No, not the one with the lovesick gorilla -- "The Wedding March," of course, in which the Viennese director starred as a prince who runs from an arranged marriage into the arms of a poor girl -- Fay Wray.
"I'm not a kid anymore," she said. "But I want you to know I have been very active in the last couple of years. I went to a film festival at Pine Bluff, Ark. It was a beautiful experience because the people were so very nice, warmhearted and kind. I cherish the memory of it.
"They showed 'The Wedding March,' and I appeared and talked about that. I loved the opportunity because it's a distinguished picture."
Last year she was flown on the Concorde to London, where she stayed at the Savoy Hotel and appeared for a capacity screening of "The Wedding March," with a special score played by the London Philharmonic Orchestra.
One of five children, she was born in Wrayville (founded by her family) in Alberta, Canada, where her parents lived in a log cabin. When she was 3, the family moved to Arizona "to get warm." Days of 120 degrees were a little too warm, however, and when the parents broke up, mother and children went to Salt Lake City. But the winters there proved harmful to Fay's chronic tonsillitis, and at 14, she was sent off to Los Angeles with a family friend.
"Hollywood was a small town then, everybody knew everybody," she recalled. "So naturally I got to know a lot of movie people."
While she was a student at Hollywood High School, she earned money as an extra and stand-in on films, soon graduating to bit parts. Her big break came with a sea picture, "The Coast Patrol," in 1925. "The producer wanted to change my name to June Darling," she recalled. "I had the guts to say no."
She followed with a herd of low-budget Westerns with titles like "Loco Luck" and "Spurs and Saddles." Then came the star-making role in "The Wedding March," in which she played von Stroheim's love interest. It was released in 1928 when the film industry was in a turmoil over the advent of sound.
Unlike many silent stars, Miss Wray had no trouble converting to talkies. An independent producer had sold her contract to the giant Paramount Pictures, which tested her voice along with William Powell, Richard Arlen and others. All qualified.
"I was not really happy when sound came in," she commented. "I believed that the art of the silent film had a special quality to it and that sound might spoil that. And I think that in a sense it did."
The early talkies brought her roles as the woman in jeopardy in such films as "Dr. X," "The Vampire Bat" and "The Mystery of the Wax Museum." Her eloquent scream made her perfect casting for "King Kong."
She decided long ago not to complain about having her name for- ever attached to a monkey. King Kong, she says, turned to be "a good P.R. person" for her.
Also, "Now that I have looked at the picture seriously, I think that he was very touching. There have been a lot of attitudes expressed about King Kong. Now there's a heartbeat of affection for him. It hurts me to see him shot down," she says, referring to the climactic scene where the ape falls from the Empire State Building to his death.
Producer and co-director Merian C. Cooper planned to film the final sequence atop New York City's Chrysler Building. He was in New York when the Empire State Building was being completed and decided it would be a better location. "The Chrysler would have been too slippery," the actress observed.
Cooper and co-director Ernest Schoedsack, adventurers both, flew the biplanes that finally conquered Kong.
The film makes it seem that Miss Wray was in great danger. Was she?
"No," she said. "I was just in a big hand. The action was done by people on the set with levers."
At 21, she married John Monk Saunders, a former army pilot who wrote books and scripts about flying. He was a brilliant, bedeviled man, an alcoholic who later turned to drugs. During their 10-year marriage, each had earned a half-million dollars. When she finally left him in 1939, he had spent it all. Six months later he hanged himself.
In 1942, she married Robert Riskin, who wrote most of Frank Capra's hits, including "It Happened One Night," "Lost Horizon" and "You Can't Take It With You." When he joined the Office of War Information during World War II, she quit her career to be with him in New York.
Their marriage was idyllic. But in 1950 he underwent brain surgery, which ended his writing career. He died in 1955.
Miss Wray, who has had a play produced and still writes stories, seemed to be attracted to writers. Between marriages she was wooed by novelist Sinclair Lewis but found him physically unattractive. Not so playwright Clifford Odets, with whom she had a torrid affair.
After Riskin's death, she resumed acting, this time in character roles for such films as "The Cobweb," "Queen Bee" and "Tammy and the Bachelor." She finally retired in 1959, emerging only for "Gideon's Trumpet."
She'll be 92 in September. She spends half the year in Los Angeles, the rest at her apartment in New York, where she goes to the theater and visits friends and family. She is working on a one-act play which might turn out to be full-length, she says.
Does she have any regrets?
"Why should I?" she responded. "What would you think I should be regretful about? I've had a rich life, a full life, a very interesting life. And I feel very good remembering anything and everything."