GRAY AREA

Stuck between noir and a dark place

London born Sally Gray has an interesting aka—she was Constance Vera Browne, Baroness Oranmore and Browne. From 1930 to 1952, billed as Gray, she appeared in more than twenty films, including Danger in Paris, Green for Danger, I Became a Criminal, and the 1949 film noir Obsession. We don’t have a date on this photo but the noir style of it, Gray’s youthful appearance, and the fact that she made no films between 1942 and 1945 leads us to triangulate it to around 1946. Don’t quote us on it.

Edit: Some sources have since claimed the photo was made for Gray’s 1949 film The Hidden Room, but we’ve found one with a press sticker on the flipside and it says this:

Just right for informal evening wear is this emerald green jumper in fine silk with wool crepe with its well-cut simple black skirt and bright gold buttons; seen on Sally Gray appearing in the new Two Cities Film of Compton Mackenzie’s “Carnival”, starring Sally Gray and Michael Wilding, with Stanley Holloway and Bernard Miles; directed by Stanley Haynes at Denham Studios.

Carnival was a period movie in which Gray wore no modern wardrobe, so this is not a shot of her in character from the film. It may be one of those promos unassociated with any film. Actors shot sessions all the time just to keep their visual material current. However, in either case, Carnival was made in 1946, so our guess about the year was spot-on.

Danger in Paris, I Became a Criminal, Obsession, Green for Danger, Sally Gray

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

February 12

1961—Soviets Launch Venus Probe

The U.S.S.R. launches the spacecraft Venera 1, equipped with scientific instruments to measure solar wind, micrometeorites, and cosmic radiation, towards planet Venus. The craft is the first modern planetary probe. Among its many achievements, it confirms the presence of solar wind in deep space, but overheats due to the failure of a sensor before its Venus mission is completed.

February 12

1994—Thieves Steal Munch Masterpiece

In Oslo, Norway, a pair of art thieves steal one of the world’s best-known paintings, Edvard Munch’s “The Scream,” from a gallery in the Norwegian capital. The two men take less than a minute to climb a ladder, smash through a window of the National Art Museum, and remove the painting from the wall with wire cutters. After a ransom demand the museum refuses to pay, police manage to locate the painting in May, and the two thieves, as well as two accomplices, are arrested.

February 11

1938—BBC Airs First Sci-Fi Program

BBC Television produces the first ever science fiction television program, an adaptation of a section of Czech writer Karel Capek’s dark play R.U.R., aka, Rossum’s Universal Robots. The robots in the play are not robots in the modern sense of machines, but rather are biological entities that can be mistaken for humans. Nevertheless, R.U.R. featured the first known usage of the term “robot”.

February 10

1962—Powers Is Traded for Abel

Captured American spy pilot Gary Powers, who had been shot down over the Soviet Union in May 1960 while flying a U-2 high-altitude jet, is exchanged for captured Soviet spy Rudolf Abel, who had been arrested in New York City in 1957.

February 9

1960—Woodward Gets First Star on Walk of Fame

Actress Joanne Woodward receives the first star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the Los Angeles sidewalk at Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street that serves as an outdoor entertainment museum. Woodward was one of 1,558 honorees chosen by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce in 1958, when the proposal to build the sidewalk was approved. Today the sidewalk contains more than 2,800 stars.

February 9

1971—Paige Enters Baseball Hall of Fame

Satchel Paige becomes the first player from America’s Negro Baseball League to be voted into the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. Paige, who was a pitcher, played for numerous Negro League teams, had brief stints in Cuba, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and the Major Leagues, before finally retiring in his mid-fifties.