LOS ANGELES (AP) — Frances Dee, a dark-haired beauty who co-starred in the 1930s and '40s with Maurice Chevalier, Gary Cooper, Ronald Colman and her husband, Joel McCrea, has died at 94.
Dee died Saturday at a hospital in Norwalk, Conn., her son, Peter McCrea, said Monday. The actress had suffered a stroke three weeks ago after spending the winter with her son at his home in Connecticut.
Dee achieved stardom in 1930 opposite Chevalier in one of the first talkie musicals, "The Playboy of Paris." Her beauty earned her leading roles in comedies and dramas, notably in the 1931 "An American Tragedy" as Sondra Finchley, the role played by Elizabeth Taylor in the 1951 remake "A Place in the Sun."