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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ClassyCo" data-source="post: 293321" data-attributes="member: 7">I was watching Joan Crawford: The Ultimate Movie Star, the well-produced TCM documentary, one day last week. At one point in the documentary, actress Virginia Grey was interviewed about her time working with Crawford on THE WOMEN in 1939. Grey says that she had "just the one sequence with Crawford at the makeup counter" and that she was glad she wasn't involved with the rest of the actresses during production because it was "just one big catfight". Virginia Grey was born in Edendale, California in 1917. She was the youngest of three daughters born to director Ray Grey and his wife Florence. One of Virginia's earliest childhood babysitters was silent screen star Gloria Swanson. At just 10 years old, Grey made her film debut as Little Eva in UNCLE TOM'S CABIN (1927). Despite this, she would ultimately leave show business for the next few years to finish her education. Grey gave up her ambitions to enter the medical and returned to acting in the 1930s. She started out working as an extra and receiving bit parts in various movies, such as SECRETS (1933), starring silent screen star Mary Pickford in one of her few attempts at talkies. Grey eventually signed with MGM in 1936, and her first picture there was the Oscar-winning biopic THE GREAT ZIEGFELD (1936), starring William Powell, Myrna Loy, and Luise Rainer. She appeared in the Laurel and Hardy comedy called OUR RELATIONS (1937), and had leading roles in B-movies like SECRET VALLEY (1937) and BAD GUY (1937). She had sizable roles in TEST PILOT (1938), DRAMATIC SCHOOL (1938), and IDIOT'S DELIGHT (1939), appearing opposite such stars as Clark Gable and Norma Shearer. She was the leading lady for Wallace Beery in THUNDER AFLOAT (1939). In 1937, Grey was briefly considered by MGM to takeover for the recently deceased Jean Harlow in the unfinished SARATOGA. Harlow had died before completed all of her scenes, and the studio toyed with the idea of starting over with the film with Grey in Harlow's place. The idea was eventually scrapped, however, and Harlow's stand-in was used for the remaining  (reconstructed) scenes. Grey eventually left MGM in 1942, although she continued to work successfully in motion pictures for the next two-and-half decades, primarily in secondary roles. She supported Fox's biggest star, Betty Grable, in SWEET ROSIE O'GRADY (1943), and played the title role in the quickie B-movie musical called GLAMOUR GIRL (1948). Into the '50s and '60s, she appeared in such films as ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS (1955), JEANNE EAGELS (1957), PORTRAIT IN BLACK (1960), FLOWER DRUM SONG (1961), and MADAME X (1966), just to name a few. Grey's final film appearance came in THE MONEYCHANGERS (1976). Like many other Old Hollywood faces, Virginia Grey has one aspect of her life that I find particularly interesting. Grey began an affair with Clark Gable, the undisputed King of Hollywood, after the death of his wife, actress Carole Lombard, in 1942. Grey and Gable were quite popular together, appearing together at restaurants and on the cover of tabloid magazines. It was widely speculated that Gable would propose to Grey, but everyone, including Grey herself, was openly stunned when Gable married Lady Sylvia Ashley in 1949. Grey was heartbroken by the events, but even after Gable divorced Ashley in 1952, the Grey-Gable affair was not rekindled. Virginia Grey died on July 31, 2004, aged 87, in Woodland Hills, California.    [ATTACH=full]30525[/ATTACH]</blockquote>

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