Kay Francis:
“Trouble in Paradise”


No one suffered on-screen like Kay Francis. Throughout a series of Warners weepers in the ’30s, Kay played a string of unwed mothers, streetwalkers and terminally ill heroines. Despite their dilemmas, their suffering was made easier by being draped in assorted furs, silk and diamonds.

Kay’s screen incarnations had nothing on the lady herself, who endured no end of indignities during her last few years at Warners. Jack Warner considered it a real coup when he lured Kay from Paramount in 1932. Once Kay’s star had fallen a few years later, she crashed and burned in the worst films the studio could dig up in the hopes that she’d leave. But Kay wouldn’t quit, especially if it meant giving up her well-padded paycheck.

Kay rebounded somewhat with the successful Four Jills in a Jeep tour during World War II, and a Broadway stint in State of the Union, but she lived out her last years bitter over her mistreatment in Hollywood. Few remembered she was once the epitome of Hollywood chic.

Although she probably didn’t plan it that way, Kay followed in the footsteps of her mother, a renowned actress named Katharine Clinton. Unlike Kay, Katharine was primarily a stage actress who achieved success in such classical roles as Jessica in The Merchant of Venice. Her career slowed down when she married Joseph Sprague Gibbs, an Oklahoma City hotel manager, on December 7, 1903. The exact date of Kay’s birth is unclear, since at various times she listed several dates between 1899 and 1910. Most sources list her birth date as either January 13, 1903 (in which case her mother would have been eight months pregnant when she got married), or July 13, 1905. One thing is certain—on the night Katherine Edwina Gibbs was born, her father got drunk and arrived home by horseback, riding the animal through the hotel lobby and up the long staircase to the room where his wife and new daughter were resting.

When Kay was a year old her family moved to Santa Barbara and then Denver. When Kay was three or four her mother, fed up with Gibbs’ drinking, took Kay and went east to resume her stage career. Kay rarely saw her father after that, and was bitter toward him for the rest of her life.

Kay’s childhood was a depressing one, steeped in poverty and hunger. She and her mother tramped from one dirty theatrical boarding house to another. They sometimes subsisted on salty popcorn and water when they couldn’t afford a decent meal. Kay’s difficult childhood accounted for her resentment toward her mother, as well as her willingness to later accept whatever dreadful roles Warners gave her if it meant having a large and steady income.

Kay claimed to have been educated at the Holy Angels Convent in Fort Lee, New Jersey, and Notre Dame School in Roxbury, Massachusetts; however, there is no record of her attendance at either school. Her elementary school education was spotty, although Kay did attend Miss Fuller’s Girls Academy in Ossining, New York, where she said it was “Katie did” when she did something well, and, more often, “Katie didn’t” when she fared poorly.

She spent two years at Miss Fuller’s and then transferred to the Cathedral School of St. Mary in Garden City, New York, for her junior year. It was around this time that Kay’s first brush with acting occurred, but again there’s ambiguity. One version is that at Miss Fuller’s Kay wrote a three-act play, which was performed at the school, and she played the male lead.

More probable is that Kay appeared in the leading male role in the play You Never Can Tell, which was written by her fellow classmate Katty Stewart, while at the Cathedral School. Still, Kay at the time had no desire to be an actress, and instead wanted to be a trapeze artist.

Kay never graduated from high school. In September 1921, at her mother’s request, she enrolled in the Katharine Gibbs Secretarial School. After successfully completing the course, she got a secretarial job, for which she received $30 a week. She then bounced from one job to another, including working as a publicist and a real estate agent. Her first important job was as an assistant to Julianna Cutting, who booked coming-out parties for debutantes. Fringe benefits of the job included joining her boss on a European tour and establishing important social contacts with some of the wealthy young men she met. Kay was briefly engaged to Allan Ryan, Jr., of the Thomas Fortune Ryan family, but they didn’t marry. On the night before his marriage to socialite Eleanor Barry, Ryan caused a minor scandal by escorting Kay to Harlem’s Cotton Club.

Kay also modeled for artist Leo Mielziner, who later became her father-in-law. His oil painting of Kay attracted much attention and was exhibited at the British Royal Academy in 1926.

In January 1922 Kay met James Dwight Francis, the handsome scion of a wealthy Pittsfield, Massachusetts, family. Francis had attended Harvard for three and a half years, but left the school in 1919 without earning his degree and had since become a playboy who drank excessively. Kay found him charming, and loved being seen with him at New York’s hottest spots.

They were married on December 6, 1922, but immediately there were problems. Francis had been living well beyond his financial means, and out of financial need they moved from New York to Pittsfield. The change of locale didn’t help matters. Even worse, Francis physically abused Kay, which caused emotional scars that made it difficult for her to establish a successful relationship with any of her other husbands. After being married slightly more than a year, Kay divorced Francis but retained his surname.

Kay returned to New York, where she met Bill Gaston, with whom she had a torrid affair. When she suspected she was pregnant, they were secretly wed. Two days after they were wed, she discovered she wasn’t expecting, and Gaston asked for a divorce. A single woman again, Kay rented a flat with her friend Lois Long. The women became part of a clique that spent their nights frequenting one speakeasy after the other.

It was around this time that Kay began considering a stage career. Kay had two handicaps: She lacked experience and formal acting training, and she had a terrible lisp, which made all of her r’s sound like w’s. Her friend Dwight Deere Wiman, an up-and-coming theatrical producer, suggested that she take speech therapy, which, to some degree, took care of one problem.

Through her friend Charles Baskerville, Kay was introduced to producer Edgar Selwyn, who engaged her to understudy Katherine Cornell in The Green Hat. Obviously, a neophyte like Kay could never equal Cornell as an actress, but physically she was a good match. Fortunately for both Kay and Selwyn, Cornell never missed a performance.

In November 1925 Kay made her Broadway debut in Horace Liveright’s modern dress production of Hamlet starring Basil Sydney as the Danish prince. The show opened to mixed reviews, and Kay, as the Player Queen, went unnoticed by critics. Years later, when Kay was asked how she was cast in the challenging play, she joked, “By lying a lot—to the right people.”

Kay was anxious to gain experience on the stage, which led to a successful audition with Stuart Walker’s stock company. She spent five months touring with the company in Indianapolis, Cincinnati and Dayton, playing bits, walk-ons and occasional second leads in Candida, Polly Preferred and Puppy Love. Kay regarded this experience as her real acting training.

Kay’s best opportunity came when she won a supporting role in the underworld drama Crime, starring Sylvia Sidney and Chester Morris. Though critics again ignored Kay when the show premiered on February 22, 1927, at Broadway’s Eltinge Theater, audiences seemed to enjoy her work, and she stayed with Crime for its 133-performance run.


Warners couldn’t wait to steal Kay Francis from Paramount, then later on couldn’t wait to lose her.

Following her appearance in the short-lived Amateur Anne, Kay had an unusual role in Venus, by Rachel Crothers. She played a woman who takes a pill that gives her masculine energy, in this case, the urge to become an aviator.

She attracted some attention in Venus and in Elmer the Great, a Ring Lardner baseball farce starring Walter Huston. Elmer the Great closed after just forty performances, but it was a fortuitous show for Kay. Huston had been signed by Paramount to star in Gentlemen of the Press (1929), a newspaper drama being filmed at Astoria, Long Island. Paramount had not yet cast anyone as the vamp who seduces a reporter (Huston) and gets him involved with crooked politicians. Kay had the right look, and director Millard Webb and producer Monta Bell offered her a test. Although the script originally called for a “blonde menace,” Kay’s test proved so successful that she soon became a “brunette menace.”

Concerned about Kay’s inexperience before the camera and, even more critical, the microphone, Paramount had her work extensively with dialogue director John Meehan. Their close time working together led to more amorous feelings, and they were married—briefly. The marriage was dissolved so quickly that some of Kay’s friends didn’t even know about it.

Kay’s cool beauty and her poise when it came to wearing clothes balanced out any liabilities she had conveying great emotion. Still, Webb was impressed by her understanding of the part and expressed his feelings to Paramount execs. “Her snake-like study of this part is absolutely fascinating. She can become the first great vamp of the audible screen,” he said.

Paramount took note and offered her a contract, starting at $500 a week. Her first role after signing was as another vamp in The Cocoanuts (1929) with The Four Marx Brothers, also filmed at Astoria. Though she got to ask Harpo Marx, “Did anyone ever tell you that you look like the Prince of Wales?” the funny stuff was all left to the Marxes, and the musical numbers to Mary Eaton. Kay seemed to get lost in the shuffle.

Kay’s first film shot in Hollywood was Dangerous Curves (1929), in which she finally got to live out her earlier fantasy of being a trapeze artist. Kay vamped it up again as Zara, an aerialist who seduces her partner (Richard Arlen) and then abandons him. Arlen finds happiness with leading lady Clara Bow, as a circus waif.

Bow was most helpful to Kay during the making of Dangerous Curves and immediately sensed that Kay would become a major star. It was Bow who suggested that instead of Katherine Francis, she should be billed as Kay Francis, which would fit better on a marquee.

Judging by the roles Kay was getting, it didn’t seem that Paramount shared Bow’s assessment. She was wasted in minor roles in Illusion (1929), with Nancy Carroll, and The Marriage Playground (1929), a popular version of Edith Wharton’s novel The Children, starring Fredric March and Mary Brian.

Then Paramount finally entrusted Kay with a juicy supporting role as a vixen who drives scheming magician William Powell to suicide in Behind the Makeup (1930). “Kay Francis does nicely as the adventuress,” said Mordaunt Hall of The New York Times.

Response to the Powell-Francis teaming was enthusiastic, so Paramount planned a starring vehicle for their new romantic duo. Street of Chance (1930), directed by John Cromwell, featured Kay as the wife of a gambler (Powell) whose addiction is beyond any help she can offer. Stilted and melodramatic today, Street of Chance was considered strong drama when it was released and provided evidence of the lure of the Powell-Francis matchup. For Kay it was an enormous personal success that showed she was capable of displaying sincerity and compassion.

At the time, musical revues were in vogue on the screen. MGM hit the jackpot with Hollywood Revue of 1929 (1929), Warners had The Show of Shows (1929) and Fox had Happy Days (1930). Paramount’s entry was a star-studded affair called Paramount on Parade (1930), with Maurice Chevalier, Gary Cooper, Ruth Chatterton and Helen Kane topping the line-up of more than 20 headliners. Kay had little to do but look attractive in her two spots—one as a Spanish señorita and another as George Bancroft’s stooge in a drawing room skit.

Kay was back to vamping in A Notorious Affair (1931), her first film at Warners, with Billie Dove. Kay played a titled nymphomaniac who seduces nobleman Basil Rathbone. The New York Times despised the film (“Offers no end of witticisms and alleged epigrammatic dialogue”) but liked Kay, whom the reviewer said “puts Miss Dove somewhat in the shade.”

For the Defense at her home studio was a well-made legal drama based on the career of criminal attorney William J. Fallon. William Powell was the alcoholic lawyer having a hard time holding onto both his career and the woman (Kay) who loves him.

Paramount then loaned Kay to producer Samuel Goldwyn for her first stab at sophisticated comedy (one can hardly count her work in The Cocoanuts) in Raffles (1930), opposite Ronald Colman. The film was a delightful story of a suave safecracker (Colman) who is just as adept at charming women as he is stealing. Colman was the epitome of the debonair Englishman, and Kay showed a surprising flair for witty dialogue.

Raffles netted a handsome $200,000, a considerable sum for that time. The film’s success is amazing considering that director Harry d’Abaddie D’Arrast was fired by Goldwyn in mid-production for playing the scenes too fast. He was replaced by George Fitzmaurice. Raffles was released without a directorial credit.

Back at Paramount Kay was scheduled to make The Virtuous Sin (1930), with Walter Huston, but since the film wasn’t ready to go into production, Kay was thrown into a king-sized turkey called Let’s Go Native (1930). The outlandish plot had survivors of a shipwreck landing on a tropical isle run by a king (Skeets Gallagher) who hailed from Brooklyn! The incongruent talents of Jeanette MacDonald, Jack Oakie and Kay didn’t blend well under Leo McCarey’s misguided direction. It’s notably strictly for the chance of seeing Kay sing a duet with Oakie.

By the time Let’s Go Native was thankfully finished, Kay was set to start work on The Virtuous Sin, though it might not have been worth the wait—at least from an artistic standpoint. Kay suffered nobly in this one, as the wife of a scientist (Kenneth MacKenna) who is willing to sleep with a general (Walter Huston) to prevent her husband’s court-martial. Variety felt there was no excuse for the picture “running 80 minutes when 70 would have been better.”

The Virtuous Sin may not have been the high-water mark of Kay’s screen career, but it was important as the film that really established Kay’s on-screen persona. Throughout the ’30s, especially in her Warners vehicles, Kay would forever be the epitome of tragic chic as she made one grand sacrifice after another.

It was The Virtuous Sin that also brought together Kay and MacKenna, the son of Leo Mielziner, who had painted Kay’s portrait in 1922. The two tried to keep their romance a secret, but rumors of an engagement began making the rounds of gossip columnists. They were wed on January 17, 1931, at Avalon on Catalina Island. Indicative of Kay’s lifelong fear of reliving her destitute childhood, prior to the ceremony she had her lawyer draw up a prenuptial agreement.

In less than two years Kay had blossomed from supporting player to one of the top female draws in Hollywood. Her face was often splashed on the covers of fan magazines, though she rarely granted interviews. When one magazine ran an article citing her as the best dressed woman in the movies, Kay responded, “I’m not well-dressed on the screen—I’m usually overdressed.”

Kay was certainly handsomely attired in MGM’s Passion Flower (1930), a typical “woman’s” picture that pitted her against Kay Johnson for chauffeur Charles Bickford.

At Paramount Kay was given two strong scripts—the newspaper drama Scandal Sheet (1931) and the crime thriller The Vice Squad (1931), and acquitted herself nicely under John Cromwell’s fast-moving direction in both.

Sandwiched between those two films was the racy Ladies’ Man (1931), a drama fascinating more for its subject matter and casting than for its execution. William Powell, still playing heels, starred as a gigolo who enjoys letting women supply him with the niceties of life in exchange for sexual favors. He eventually sees the error of his ways when he nearly drives away the one woman (Kay) who loves him, and causes the suicide of another (Carole Lombard).

Though some critics reviled Ladies’ Man, it holds up better than many of the more-revered films of the early sound era by presenting an unusually black portrait of life among New York high society. Kay is fine in Ladies’ Man, but it’s Powell’s polished performance that carries the movie. While Kay won his heart in the movie, Lombard was the victor in real life, and they wed only a few weeks after Ladies’ Man was released.

Kay went back to suffering in her next two films, Transgression (1931) at RKO and Guilty Hands (1931), an implausible courtroom drama at MGM. She returned to Paramount for 24 Hours (1931), in which she and Clive Brook played a bored married couple who contemplate affairs (he with Miriam Hopkins and she with Regis Toomey) during a twenty-four hour period.

Girls About Town (1931), Kay’s next, was released with little fanfare, an odd move since this was one of her best films. Inspired by Zoe Akins’ play The Greeks Had a Word for It, the picture had Kay and Lilyan Tashman playing a pair of charming gold diggers. Kay sets her sights on handsome Joel McCrea, while Tashman digs her claws into the more generous—and married—Eugene Pallette.

Smart, sexy and sophisticated, Girls About Town gave Kay a break from the melodramas she had been appearing in of late, and judging by her performance, she welcomed the change. George Cukor, who had a way with actresses, worked well with Kay by bringing out a lighter, more carefree aspect of her personality than had been evidenced up to now. She seemed more relaxed and had a nice rapport with both McCrea and Tashman.

Kay was back to being noble—at least by the fadeout—in The False Madonna (1932), in which she played a cardsharp posing as a dead woman to steal a fortune. Having fared well in Girls About Town, Paramount put her in another romantic comedy, Strangers in Love (1932), with Fredric March, and again she was delightful.

At this time Kay seemed to have everything she could possibly want. Her films were consistent moneymakers and she was a favorite with audiences, especially women. Likewise, her marriage appeared to be a happy one. She and Kenneth had a mutual love of the theater, books and tennis. He taught Kay about sailing and it became another of her passions. Kenneth had also turned from acting to directing, which reduced any chance of career jealousy between them.

Kay had become so popular that she soon found herself in the middle of a battle of the studios for her services. With the exception of MGM, the major Hollywood studios were all having financial problems during the Depression and operating at a considerable loss. Paramount had been especially hard hit. Warner Bros. decided the best way to solve its own money problems was by luring stars from other studios. In a gutsy move, Warners went on a studio raid of Paramount and made offers to William Powell, Ruth Chatterton and Kay, all of whom accepted. In Kay’s case, Warners promised her solo starring vehicles and three months vacation.

Paramount was furious and a court battle between the studios ensued. The judge ruled in favor of Warners, but it was decided that Paramount could ask for Kay’s services as needed.

Warners trumpeted its acquisition of Kay with the following publicity statement: “Has very tender vocal chords and is unable to scream when called upon to do so; to save her throat has somebody else to scream for her.”

Screaming was hardly called for in her first Warners film, Man Wanted (1932), a sophisticated affair with Kay as a bored wife and career woman who turns to her male secretary (David Manners) for some after-office-hours relief. Sprightly direction by William Dieterle helped Kay turn in a fresh, charming performance.

“Kay Francis radiates so much charm throughout Man Wanted … that the familiar theme somehow does not matter,” hailed Richard Nason of The New York Times.

Street of Women (1932) was more typical of Kay’s Warners films. Inspired by the success of Back Street (1932), Street of Women was a standard triangle with Kay as the understanding mistress of a married man (Alan Dinehart) so besotted with love for him that she rejects a life of respectability with Roland Young. Complicating matters is her brother (Allan Vincent), who gets involved with her lover’s daughter (Gloria Stuart). Variety found it “slow and choppy.”

Much better was the sparkling comedy Jewel Robbery (1932), in which she was reteamed with William Powell. Kay played a banker’s bored wife who falls for a charming jewel thief (Powell) in William Dieterle’s mostly successful attempt to make a film in the Lubitsch vein.

Kay then had her best weepie with One Way Passage (1932), a five–Kleenex winner and her last with Powell. What must have sounded rather mawkish on paper (a dying girl and a doomed prisoner meet aboard a ship and fall in love) was given an entertaining spin thanks to a tight screenplay by Wilson Mizner and Joseph Jackson, and crisp direction by Tay Garnett. The movie also benefited from superb performances by Frank McHugh as a pickpocket, Aline MacMahon as a phony countess and Warren Hymer as the policeman in charge of Powell. Garnett tried to weave as much humor into the film as possible, even with his two stars, whose roles were hardly a laughing matter. Robert Lord won an Academy Award for his original story.

One Way Passage was a difficult shoot for everyone involved. The studio hired a rickety iron boat for location shooting and to take the cast offshore. Uncomfortably hot temperatures, bad food, drunken behavior and Garnett’s moodiness were prevalent throughout filming. Warners finally got fed up with the delays and ordered Garnett and company to finish the film at the studio.

Despite all of those problems, MacMahon recalled in interviews that Kay was completely professional the whole time, performing with dignity and never complaining at any time.

Kay sparkled once again in Trouble in Paradise (1932), an Ernst Lubitsch gem which was the director’s favorite of his films. The “Lubitsch Touch” of sexual innuendo and sophistication was apparent all throughout this smart tale of two jewel thieves, Gaston Monescu/LaValle (Herbert Marshall) and Lily Vautier (Miriam Hopkins), who plan to fleece a perfume company executive, Mme. Mariette Colet (Kay Francis), of her fortune by posing as her secretary and maid. Their plan goes awry when Gaston falls for Mariette, and is recognized by a former victim.

Kay was at her most alluring in Trouble in Paradise, and also at her most intelligent. She performed the sharp, witty dialogue with a skill that resulted in her finest screen performance.

“A shimmering engaging piece of work … in virtually every scene, a lively imagination shines forth,” beamed The New York Times. “Kay Francis is attractive and able as Mariette, whose sins consist of being too credulous and in being very fond of romantic adventures.”

Trouble in Paradise made nearly every critic’s Ten Best list in 1932, but for Kay it was a disappointment because she was third-billed under Miriam Hopkins and Herbert Marshall. Only one year earlier Kay had been billed over Hopkins in 24 Hours, but this seemed like Paramount’s attempt at payback for her defection to Warners.

Trouble in Paradise also ran over schedule, which meant Kay could not play the lead in 42nd Street at Warners as planned. The studio couldn’t delay the start of 42nd Street, and Bebe Daniels filled Kay’s dancing shoes as the temperamental star of a Broadway musical.

Instead, Kay was loaned to the Goldwyn Studios after Goldwyn’s latest discovery, socialite Dorothy Hale, proved unsuitable for the wronged wife in Cynara (1932). The movie was a well-carved piece of soap about a prominent London barrister (Ronald Colman) who becomes involved with a much younger woman (Phyllis Barry) while his wife is on vacation. Their affair turns into a scandal when the girl gets pregnant and then commits suicide. Under King Vidor’s direction, Kay delivered one of her most sensitive performances and received excellent notices.

From this point on, though, the general quality of Kay’s films and performances seemed to decline over the next few years. Instead of stylish romances like One Way Passage, or intelligent fare like Girls About Town and Trouble in Paradise (and, to a lesser extent, Jewel Robbery), she began getting scripts that can best be described as potboilers. The Keyhole (1933), directed by Michael Curtiz, had Kay as a glamorous wife whose jealous husband has her shadowed during a cruise. The obvious plot machination with the detective (George Brent) falling for his client’s wife could be seen at first glance. The plot was used to more harmonious effect as the basis for Doris Day’s first film, Romance on the High Seas (1948), also directed by Curtiz.

Kay then toiled at MGM in the visually stunning but artistically challenged Storm at Daybreak (1933) as a mayor’s (Walter Huston) wife having an illicit affair with his best friend (Nils Asther). Back at Warners she was Mary Stevens M.D. (1933), sacrificing her infant son (illegitimate, of course) to save other children during a shipboard epidemic. Though Kay was the star, it was more typical of the cookie cutter, economical programmers made by Warners’ second-string players, such as Joan Blondell and, at the time, Bette Davis.

I Loved a Woman (1933) was a more expensive and prestigious production, more so for the presence of Edward G. Robinson than for Kay. The period drama featured Kay as an opera star who is loved by a Chicago meat packer accused of sending U.S. troops tainted meat during the Spanish-American War. Kay was allotted surprisingly little screen time after three of her scenes were deleted from the film before it was released. Little wonder that in The New York Times review of the film Kay was cited as “part of the supporting cast.”

Kay stayed in period garb for The House on 56th Street (1933), which had been rejected by Ruth Chatterton. Kay played a Floradora girl who leaves her lover (John Halliday) to marry into New York society. She later is charged with the murder of her lover and sent to prison for twenty years. She returns to her home, which has been turned into a speakeasy.

The House on 56th Street gave Kay her first opportunity to age on-screen, and she looks attractive as a silver-haired, middle-aged matron. Otherwise, the movie was unashamedly sentimental and dramatically overripe, adjectives that could easily be applied to many of her Warners films. Kay disregarded the movie and gave a frank assessment of its appeal: “If it does any better than my other films, it’s because I parade thirty-six costumes instead of sixteen.”

While Kay may have downplayed the quality of the film or her contribution to it, there’s no denying the professionalism and diligence she brought to her work. She typically woke up about 6 a.m. each day, and was on the set in full costume and makeup by 9 a.m. She usually worked until 6:30 p.m., minus a short lunch break. She then went over her scenes for the next day, or viewed the rushes and was home between 7:30 and 8 p.m. Once home, she had a refreshing shower, then joined Kenneth for dinner, served on a tray. By 10:30 p.m. she was in bed, ready to follow the same rigorous routine the next day.

Chatterton had also rejected Mandalay (1934), a delirious piece of camp that could give Marlene Dietrich’s Blonde Venus (1932) a good run as the most audacious pre–Code film. Kay played Tanya, yet another misguided heroine, this time being sold by her deserting lover (Ricardo Cortez) to a white slaver (Warner Oland). Within five years Tanya is transformed into a gaudily attired (especially for Kay) madam named Spot White, or as one patron says, “It ought to be Spot Cash.” The remainder of the film deals with her attempts to go straight with a new identity, Marjorie Lang. As expected, her former lover returns, which leads to the movie’s most famous scene, in which Kay poisons Cortez and then neatly disposes of his body through a ship’s porthole. No one will ever accuse Mandalay of being artistic, but boring it isn’t.

The New York Times found Kay “highly decorative.”

Mandalay was released in February 1934, the same month that Kay was granted a divorce from Kenneth. Kay testified that her husband “nagged and harassed her … ridiculed her selection of home, manner of dressing and even her acting did not suit him. [He] assumed an air of superiority and made slighting remarks in the presence of friends.” Kay neglected to reveal her own problems, which included being argumentative after having a few too many drinks.

Wonder Bar (1934), Kay’s next film, fueled her anger with Warner Bros. Kay was unhappy about playing yet another dissatisfied wife, this time married to a ruthless lawyer (Douglas Dumbrille). Matters got worse as Kay’s part was continually trimmed to provide more scenes for Dolores Del Rio, who had just joined Warners after leaving RKO. As a result, the film is dominated by Al Jolson and the fiery Del Rio, with Kay reduced to a supporting role. The popularity of Jolson and the imaginatively staged musical numbers by Busby Berkeley (save the politically incorrect “Goin’ to Heaven on a Mule”) made Wonder Bar a wonder at the box office.

Doctor Monica (1934) was more women’s magazine fare with Kay as the titled doc who finds herself in the unlikely position of delivering her friend’s (Jean Muir) illegitimate child sired by the medic’s husband (Warren William). Director William Keighley packed plenty of drama into this highly improbable but oddly compelling film’s fifty-three minutes. “It moves apace and the acting is excellent,” said Mordaunt Hall of The New York Times.

Warners then put her in a spy thriller, British Agent (1934), which was tightly knit and well-acted, though she had to take a back set to Leslie Howard.

Sooner or later it seemed like every Warner Bros. leading lady got teamed with George Brent. Actresses generally liked working with Brent—for two important reasons: He lent a sturdy, masculine presence to their films, and his performances were generally so bland there was little chance that he would steal the spotlight from them. Unfortunately, the films Kay made with Brent—Living on Velvet (1935), Stranded (1935) and The Goose and the Gander (1935)—all fared poorly, which gave Warners pause to think about the team’s potency. Not everyone was disinterested in them. One reviewer of The Goose and the Gander noted, “the Francis-Brent team seems to be a happy combination. Mr. Brent’s engaging comedy is an excellent antidote for Miss Francis’ penchant for heavy tragedy, and he keeps her from taking her art too seriously.”

After completing Stranded and The Goose and the Gander, Kay took a much-needed ocean voyage to France, leaving from New York on the Aquitania. Reporters flooded Kay’s stateroom on the day of her departure. Basically, they got to take some nice photos of her modeling her latest outfit—something called a tailleur, which was a basic black dress with a big lace vest on it and equally large lacy cuffs. To round out the ensemble, she wore a hat that looked like the top of a black cat’s head. When one reporter dared to ask her some personal questions, a flustered Kay clammed up, and then her cabin door was closed to the press.

When Kay returned she made I Found Stella Parish, a top-notch tale of mother love. Kay starred as Stella, a famous actress on the London stage who has refused dozens of offers to appear in New York because of her dark past, which she wants to keep hidden from her young daughter (Sybil Jason). An inquisitive reporter (Ian Hunter) affects a disguise to worm his way into Stella’s confidence—and her heart—in hopes of getting an exclusive story.

Though Kay seemed awkward in her early scenes, appearing onstage as England’s answer to Eleanora Duse, overall she gave a moving performance. It was a pleasure to see Kay in some lighter moments with Jason. The former child star developed an immediate bond with Kay, whom she said was the “spitting image” of her mother. “She treated the crew and the extras with no less attention than she would have given to any executive, and they adored her for it,” she said.

Though The New York Times enjoyed the performances of Hunter and Jason, Kay didn’t fare as well. “Francis’ unfortunate lisp continues to plague this corner; it makes even more unbelievable the notion that London could regard Stella Parish as the Duse of the day.” Audiences disagreed and the film was Kay’s last hit for Warners.

It was around this time that Warners’ option on Kay was about to expire. Dissatisfied with the sometimes tasteless and subordinate roles she had been getting, she was reluctant to renew her contract. “Even if it was me the public so kindly went to see, there was a limit to the number of times a certain type of story or motif could be repeated,” she said.

Based on the strength of I Found Stella Parish, Jack Warner still considered Kay a bankable star and persuaded her to extend her contract with the promise of the lead in Tovarich (1937). Hopeful of a good part, Kay signed. She was also happy about getting to play her first biographical role in The White Angel (1936), which she saw as a welcome departure from the “True Confessions” type of movies she had been doing.

Unfortunately, this story of English nurse Florence Nightingale demonstrated Kay’s limitations as an actress. Rather than being an enlightened look at Nightingale’s life, it was a stilted, historically inaccurate production, that looked great, especially for its scenes at the Crimea Hospital, but failed to entertain. Try as Kay might, she was unable to come across as anything more than the great movie star in awe of the woman she was portraying. As the Journal of the American Medical Association put it, her performance was “antiseptic.”

With comments like that, The White Angel was a financial disaster and marked the beginning of Kay’s decline. Her next film, Give Me Your Heart (1936), playing her umpteenth self-sacrificing mother, was a less expensive film to mount, but still was responsible for red ink on Warners’ ledgers. Throughout filming of Give Me Your Heart, Kay had a stormy relationship with director Archie Mayo, whom she felt did not have a good grip on the material. Much of her frustration, however, stemmed from her insecurity regarding her performance in The White Angel.

At the end of 1936 Kay was the highest paid employee on the Warners roster, with a salary of $227,500. A distant second was Joe E. Brown, who made $201,562. The difference, though, was that the budgets on Brown’s movies were generally about one-quarter of what Kay’s films cost, plus they had been consistent moneymakers.

Kay’s position at the studio became even more precarious in 1937 with the release and subsequent failure of her next three movies—Stolen Holiday, Confession and Another Dawn. Of that trio, Confession, a remake of Pola Negri’s German film Mazurka, was the most interesting. Kay played a washed-up cabaret singer who shoots her former lover (Basil Rathbone) when he attempts to seduce the mature daughter (Jane Bryan) she gave up as an infant. Director Joe May’s creative use of flashbacks in structuring the story made Confession at least interesting for its novel film technique, even if the trite script was typical Francis fodder.

Kay did get one last good opportunity at Warners with First Lady (1937), based on the George S. Kaufman-Katherine Drayton play that had been a hit for Jane Cowl. Kay played the wife of the Secretary of State (Preston Foster), whom she hopes will be a candidate for the presidency. Kay’s rival on-screen was Verree Teasdale as the wife of a Supreme Court Justice with her eye on the White House. By this point, Kay had become dispirited over her career and it showed in her performance, which lacked the cattiness her scenes with Teasdale demanded. Critics cited Kay as the film’s weak link, and once again she had another flop.

Missing from Kay’s 1937 roster was Tovarich, which Warners gave to Claudette Colbert, borrowed from Paramount. Kay was furious and brought suit against Warners to cancel her contract because the studio reneged on its promise about Tovarich. After considerable press from both Kay and Warners, it was announced that an “amicable” settlement had been reached.

For the second year in a row, Kay was the highest paid employee on the Warners roster, though her salary had dropped to $209,100. Jack Warner, who only five years earlier promised Kay full star treatment when she left Paramount, felt Kay was no longer worth her hefty paycheck.

“Kay was making too much money, and her films were not bringing enough money back into the studio,” said actor Jimmy Lydon, a friend of Kay’s during her Hollywood years. “One thing should be cleared up. All actors in those days were always saying that Jack Warner hated actors. That’s extremely untrue. He was a businessman and did what he felt was best to keep the studio running smoothly.”

In Kay’s case, she became a second-class citizen on the lot. On the premise that her plush dressing room suite was going to be redecorated, her belongings were moved from there to a single room in the Featured Players Dressing Room. Unfortunately, they weren’t brought back. While it was true that her dressing room was being redecorated, no one told her that it was for a new occupant—John Garfield, who was on the brink of stardom in Four Daughters (1938).

Kay wasn’t even being handed any new scripts. Instead, she was assigned to do screen tests of young hopefuls the studio was considering as contract players. She was usually given a 9 a.m. studio call, though she wasn’t generally used until mid-afternoon. She’d be there sitting on the sidelines, knitting and getting in a nip of gin from a silver flask. Once Kay was needed, she was used merely to feed lines to the actor being tested. The whole time the camera would be focused on the unknown actor, shooting over Kay’s shoulder. Though Kay felt humiliated by the demeaning way in which she was being treated, she refused to go on suspension and give up her $4,000 a week paycheck as Warner hoped.

Perhaps Kay’s most denigrating experience during her downfall was when she brought two friends to the studio commissary for lunch and was denied two passes. No explanation was given. A rueful Kay just told the commissary worker, “I understand. Thank you anyway.”

Most of the Warner Bros. employees were sympathetic toward Kay. Two of her greatest champions were Bette Davis and James Cagney, who were so appalled about the situation that they arranged to meet with Harry Warner, president of Warner Bros., to get him to do something. Though Harry appeared sympathetic, he said his brother was in charge of production and he didn’t want to usurp Jack’s authority. Afterwards, there was an unconfirmed rumor around the studio that the plot to destroy Kay was devised by Harry, and that Jack Warner was merely carrying out orders.

Kay wound up doing pictures for producer Bryan Foy’s B unit—undoubtedly the only B performer in Hollywood earning a six-figure income. Women Are Like That (1938), with Pat O’Brien, was so bad that Photoplay remarked, “Poor Kay Francis certainly got a dirty deal in this. Unbelievably gauche and tiresome…. Maybe we’d better pretend we didn’t know about it.”

Her next two were no better received. The slushy My Bill (1938) had Kay as a widow with four of the most obnoxious children ever put on the screen, and Secrets of an Actress (1938) was a lame soap opera with stage star Kay falling for an architect (George Brent).

Kay’s offscreen romantic exploits seemed just as bumpy as her professional life. She had just ended a long affair with up-and-coming producer Delmer Daves, whom it was rumored she would marry. Then in the summer of 1937 she met Baron Raven Erik Barnekow, a force in the aviation business, while staying at the Beverly Hills home of Countess di Frasso. In March of 1938 Kay announced that they would be married in the spring and she would retire from films.

It’s easy to see why Kay would have been attracted to Barnekow. He was handsome, sophisticated, charming and wealthy. At the same time, she seemed to overlook his less attractive qualities, such as his jealous nature, a penchant for alcohol and an Old World European attitude toward women. He objected to Kay wearing makeup, as well as her questions about any last-minute trips he occasionally went on. Those secret trips led some of Kay’s friends to suspect that he might be a German agent.

Kay’s nerves weren’t helped by the script for her next film, a dreary soap opera called Comet Over Broadway (1938), which had already caused a rift between Bette Davis and Warners. The Busby Berkeley–directed drama had Kay as an actress who implicates her husband (Ian Hunter) in a murder and then tries to get him paroled.

Berkeley had been warned by other directors on the lot that Kay could be difficult and tactless with co-workers, but he saw no evidence of it on this picture. “I do know she was unwilling to participate in the publicity game. That didn’t interest her at all. And it seemed to me she lacked that driving ambition an actress needs in order to get the best parts in the best films,” recalled Berkeley to author Tony Thomas. “I found her to be cooperative and humorous, perhaps because she knew this was one of her last films for Warners. She had been under contract since 1932 at the rate of four pictures a year, and I think she was rather glad the grind was coming to an end.”

No one could blame her, based on the terrible films she was given in 1938. She had hoped that Jack Warner might consider her for Empress Carlotta in the studio’s prestigious Juarez (1939), starring Paul Muni as the Mexican leader. Not surprisingly, Bette Davis, the new queen of the Warners lot, got the part.

In 1939, Davis also had outstanding roles in Dark Victory, The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex and The Old Maid. Kay, by contrast, was tossed into King of the Underworld (1939), a transgendered remake of Doctor Socrates (1935), in which she was the medic previously played by Paul Muni. As if further evidence of Kay’s diminished stature was needed, she was billed below the title in letters about half the size of her co-star, Humphrey Bogart.

Vincent Sherman, who co-wrote the screenplay with George Bricker, saw no temperament from Kay, despite those circumstances. “I only got to know her briefly but liked her,” he said. “She was a tall statuesque lady with a certain talent and was at one time one of the Warner Brothers big draws, but the films they gave her did not capitalize on her qualities and she fell into disfavor. The diffference between success and failure in Hollywood does not always depend on talent alone.”

Kay finished her contract in a B called Women in the Wind (1939), an aviation drama directed by John Farrow, who previously worked with her on My Bill. This one, in which Kay was an aviatrix in a “power puff derby” race, was as dreary as their previous film together.

Though Kay’s last two years at Warner Bros. had been hellish, she at least received one nice gesture on her last day: As she drove off the lot, the cop at the gate saluted her.

Most people figured Kay was washed up in Hollywood, but her friend Carole Lombard came to the rescue when she recommended Kay for the role of Cary Grant’s bitchy wife in In Name Only (1939) at RKO. The combination of career troubles and her unstable relationship with Barnekow caused Kay to gain twenty pounds. Aghast at how she looked in her wardrobe tests, Kay succeeded in losing the excess weight.

In Name Only was directed by John Cromwell, who had helmed several of Kay’s Paramount films, which made her feel at ease on the set. Lombard played an artist in love with a married man (Grant) whose wife refuses to give him a divorce. Though it was a supporting role, Kay was given above-the-title billing with Lombard and Grant, and all three gave outstanding performances. The film showed that when given a literate script and a role she cared about, Kay was capable of a fine performance. Bosley Crowther, never Kay’s greatest fan, on this occasion cheered that she was “the model cat, suave, superior and relentless.”

In Name Only was a tremendous hit, and for Kay its success and her favorable reviews were sweet revenge after her treatment at Warners. The three stars of In Name Only repeated their roles for Lux Radio Theater in December 1939.

Prior to the release of In Name Only, Kay broke her engagement to Barnekow. Their last few months together had been particularly ugly after the Baron instituted a slander suit against the Countess di Frasso, whom he claimed called him a Nazi spy. Di Frasso denied the charges, and the District Attorney dismissed the case. A vigilant Barnekow repeated the charges to the press, which only succeeded in putting an end to Kay’s friendship with the countess.

Despite these recent troubles, Kay still wanted to marry Barnekow. Fearing he would be interned as an enemy alien, Kay proposed that they head off to Hawaii, where they could easily retire on her savings. The Baron refused and, against Kay’s wishes, returned to Germany for the outset of World War II in September 1939.

Kay tried to pick up the pieces by concentrating on her career, which had been rejuvenated with the success of In Name Only. At Universal, she made It’s a Date (1940), a lighthearted musical starring the studio’s top draw, Deanna Durbin. Kay played Durbin’s glamorous mother, who falls for dashing Walter Pidgeon. Though It’s a Date was clearly a star vehicle for Durbin, Kay was radiant. It proved a good follow-up to In Name Only, and made a ton of money.

By contrast, her other Universal effort, When the Daltons Rode (1940), was a step back. The whitewashed account of the Dalton gang featured Kay as Randolph Scott’s sweetheart. But she seemed better suited to Central Park West than the Wild West.

Kay then played one of her favorite roles, the grown-up Jo March in Little Men (1940), Louisa May Alcott’s sequel to Little Women. In the film, Jo, now married, runs a school with her husband (Carl Esmond). Her biggest problems are dealing with the school’s finances and Danny (Jimmy Lydon), a troublesome youth put in her charge.

Kay enjoyed working with director Norman Z. McLeod, whom cast and crew referred to as “The Stick Man” because he would map out every scene for his actors using drawings of stick figures. McLeod had a hard time directing Little Men because of a large boil on his buttocks, and he had to sit on a rubber-inflated cushion. Despite his discomfort, he was pleasant to his actors.

Co-star Jack Oakie was also responsible for Kay’s fondness for Little Men. According to Lydon, Oakie kept everyone amused with his antics on the set, planning out his laugh-getters the night before.

As for Kay, Lydon had only pleasant memories of working with her. Though he was only sixteen when they made the movie, Kay wasn’t the least bit condescending. “Kay was a wonderful gal,” he said. “She had been a big, big star at Warners, and I already had a long career from the stage. We worked together as two professionals. I still have a picture she gave me that’s signed, ‘To Danny, With Love from Kay,’ and then another one that says ‘To Jimmy, Love Kay.’ She did a lot of heavies before Little Men. This was a tender part, which she liked.”

Although everyone’s heart was in the right place, Little Men suffered from low-budget production values and a makeshift script by Mark Kelly and Arthur Caesar. Most of the publicity went to Elsie the Cow, loaned for the film by the Borden company.

Far worse was Play Girl (1941), a supposed comedy in which gold digging Kay teaches a neophyte (Mildred Coles) the art of snagging a rich beau. The weak screenplay by Larry Cady and the arch performances of Kay and Coles made for a rather dull Play Girl.

Kay returned to Universal for The Man Who Lost Himself (1941), a comedy with Brian Aherne that bypassed New York. She fared better with the wonderful Charley’s Aunt (1941) at Fox, co-starring with Jack Benny in one of his funniest films. Though Kay’s role was subordinate to Benny’s, she seemed to enjoy herself and gave one of her most spirited performances.

She followed with another good comedy role in The Feminine Touch (1941) at MGM, with Rosalind Russell, Don Ameche and Van Heflin. Her last few films demonstrated that she could be quite the farceur, and perhaps she had been wrongly cast in so many weepie roles.

Kay amazingly agreed to return to Warners when her friend Walter Huston insisted on her as his co-star in Always in My Heart (1942), a semi-musical designed to showcase Warners’ answer to Deanna Durbin, the colorless Gloria Warren. The maudlin story had Kay about to remarry when her former husband (Huston), newly released from prison, shows up. Warren’s endless singing and the weak script, which climaxed with its junior soprano at sea in the middle of a tempest, made for one soggy flop.

Kay played a mother again in Between Us Girls (1942), a Universal comedy that was meant to serve as a springboard for newcomer Diana Barrymore. Kay was at her most elegant as Barrymore’s mother in this tale of mother-daughter romances. In Kay’s case, her paramour was John Boles, while Barrymore was wooed by Robert Cummings. Critics decided that Barrymore lacked the acting gene of her more famous relatives, and the film had a poor box office take.

Lonely, and with no interesting film offers coming her way, Kay decided she could be of service in the war effort. She signed up for a USO tour, along with Martha Raye, Carole Landis and Mitzi Mayfair. The four women traveled to Bermuda, Northern Ireland, England and North Africa to entertain thousands of soldiers hungry for entertainment and news from home.

The troupe, which became known as Four Jills in a Jeep, sang, jitterbugged and engaged in snappy bantering with the soldiers. Everywhere they went, all four women delighted their audiences. They generally only got about five hours sleep each night, and dined on the same food as the GIs. Kay considered the tour one of the real high points of her life.

The tour was chronicled in the book Four Jills in a Jeep, which became a bestseller in 1943, and was picked up by 20th Century–Fox. The film featured Kay, Raye, Landis and Mayfair recreating their exploits, and appearances by top Fox stars, such as Alice Faye and Betty Grable. Interspersed with the musical numbers was a love story involving Mayfair and Dick Haymes.

Kay’s enjoyment of Four Jills and a Jeep prompted her to focus on jump-starting her film career once more. She signed a deal to produce three films for Poverty Row graveyard Monogram, whose work ethic was to get the film in the can quickly and cheaply. Kay took full control on Divorce (1945), Allotment Wives (1945) and Wife Wanted (1946). She not only convinced distinguished actors such as Bruce Cabot, Paul Kelly and Otto Kruger to work for less than usual, but she also worked with the screenwriters on fine-tuning the scripts.

The films were generally shot in about ten days, and, unfortunately, the haste and tight-fistedness in which they were made was evident. They had relatively little distribution, and ended up being a rather ignoble curtain call to Kay’s film career.

Prior to shooting Wife Wanted, Kay agreed to appear in the play Windy Hill, a summer stock tryout directed by Ruth Chatterton and starring Patsy Ruth Miller, Roger Pryor and newcomer Eileen Heckart. The show, which went through excessive rewrites, was a difficult experience for Kay, who battled with the playwright, John Van Druten. Still, the strength of its stars’ names helped Windy Hill do good business.

Midway in production of Wife Wanted, producer Leland Hayward asked Kay if she could replace Ruth Hussey in State of the Union on Broadway. An ecstatic Kay jumped at the offer.

In New York Kay was abetted by Howard “Hap” Graham, the stage manager who helped get her ready for rehearsals with director Howard Lindsay. As such, she was effective in the role. She also entered into a romance with Graham, which began well but was soon marked by arguments.

Their on-again, off-again affair continued when both went on tour with State of the Union. Kay hated touring, which brought back unpleasant memories of traveling with her mother, but the show played to packed houses. Kay was tired and depressed most of the time, reaching her worst state in Columbus, Ohio, when she took an overdose of sleeping pills. Graham phoned a doctor who told him to feed her plenty of coffee and make sure she got fresh air until he arrived.

Graham took Kay to the window and leaned her head outside. When he tried to force coffee into her, he accidentally scalded her neck, which caused her to faint against the burning radiator, which had been turned on the night before to heat her dinner. Graham soon noticed that her legs had been burned. Kay was immediately rushed to the hospital, where her stomach was pumped and she was treated for second-degree burns. Graham, meanwhile, was arrested on suspicion of intent to kill. When Kay regained consciousness five hours later and heard of the arrest, she immediately phoned the jail and had Graham released.

Arrangements were made for Kay to be transferred to New York’s Cornell Medical Center where she underwent extensive and often painful treatments for her burns. She wasn’t released from the hospital until five months later, in June of 1948.

That summer she joined a touring company of The Last of Mrs. Cheyney, the first of several companies she appeared with over the next few years. She later appeared in stock productions of Let Us Be Gay; Goodbye, My Fancy; The Web and the Rock; Mirror, Mirror; Theater; and Portrait in Black.

During the tour of Theater, Kay began a relationship with the show’s director, Dennis Allen, which lasted nearly ten years. In addition to being her last great romance, Allen also was a strong source of support for Kay as she experienced many medical setbacks, including surgical removal of both a lung and a kidney; fracturing a bone in her ankle; and injuring her back after a fall in the bathtub. The last incident forced her to wear a brace.

By 1961, as Kay became more infirm, her quarrels with Allen became more frequent and intense, and they finally severed their relationship. Over the next few years Kay’s health worsened. She developed breast cancer and underwent a mastectomy. She stayed in bed most of the time, spending her days reading, watching television, drinking and taking medication.

Kay died on August 26, 1968, leaving the bulk of her $2 million estate to Seeing Eye Inc., a Morristown, New Jersey, charity that trains seeing eye dogs. The bequest came as a surprise to Seeing Eye, which had no idea Kay was aware of the organization. A friend later revealed that Kay felt loss of sight was the worst ill that could happen to anyone.

Kay’s story was more tragic than that of any of the cardboard heroines she played. She might have helped her cause during her decline by being cooperative with the press and getting them to rally behind her. Instead, Kay chose to go it alone, and sadly that was how she ended up.


Filmography

Gentlemen of the Press (Paramount, 1929) Directed by Millard Webb. Cast: Walter Huston, Charles Ruggles, Betty Lawford, Katherine (Kay) Francis. (Released in silent and talkie versions.)

The Cocoanuts (Paramount, 1929) Directed by Joseph Santley and Robert Florey. Cast: The Four Marx Bros., Mary Eaton, Oscar Shaw, Katherine (Kay) Francis, Margaret Dumont.

Dangerous Curves (Paramount, 1929) Directed by Lothar Mendes. Cast: Clara Bow, Richard Arlen, David Newell, Kay Francis, Anders Randolph. (Released in silent and talkie versions.)

Illusion (Paramount, 1929) Directed by Lothar Mendes. Cast: Charles “Buddy” Rogers, Nancy Carroll, Kay Francis, June Collyer, Regis Toomey. (Released in silent and talkie versions.)

The Marriage Playground (Paramount, 1929) Directed by Lothar Mendes. Cast: Mary Brian, Fredric March, Lilyan Tashman, Kay Francis, Huntley Gordon, William Austin, Seena Owen.

Behind the Makeup (Paramount, 1930) Directed by Robert Milton. Cast: Hal Skelly, William Powell, Kay Francis, Fay Wray, E.H. Calvert, Paul Lukas, Agostino Borgato.

Street of Chance (Paramount, 1930) Directed by John Cromwell. Cast: William Powell, Kay Francis, Jean Arthur, Regis Toomey, Stanley Fields, Brook Benedict, Betty Francisco.

Paramount, on Parade (Paramount, 1930) Eleven directors, supervised by Elsie Janis. Cast: Maurice Chevalier, Kay Francis, Helen Kane, Ruth Chatterton, Clive Brook, George Bancroft, Nino Martini, William Powell, Clara Bow, Richard Arlen, Charles “Buddy” Rogers, Gary Cooper, Jean Arthur, Fay Wray, Leon Errol, Jack Oakie, Mitzi Green, Nancy Carroll, Warner Oland.

A Notorious Affair (Warner Bros., 1930) Directed by Lloyd Bacon. Cast: Billie Dove, Basil Rathbone, Kay Francis, Montagu Love, Kenneth Thomson.

For the Defense (Paramount, 1930) Directed by John Cromwell. Cast: William Powell, Kay Francis, Scott Kolk, William B. Davidson, John Elliott, Thomas Jackson, James Finlayson.

Raffles (Goldwyn-United Artists, 1930) Directed by Harry d’Abbadie D’Arrast. Cast: Ronald Colman, Kay Francis, Bramwelll Fletcher, Frances Dade, David Torrance, Alison Skipworth.

Let’s Go Native (Paramount, 1930) Directed by Leo McCarey. Cast: Jeanette MacDonald, Jack Oakie, Kay Francis, Skeets Gallagher, James Hall, William Austin, David Newell.

The Virtuous Sin (Paramount, 1930) Directed by George Cukor and Louis Gasnier. Cast: Walter Huston, Kay Francis, Kenneth MacKenna, Paul Cavanaugh, Jobyna Howland.

Passion Flower (MGM, 1930) Directed by William C. de Mille. Cast: Kay Francis, Charles Bickford, Zasu Pitts, Kay Johnson, Winter Hall, Lewis Stone, Dickie Moore.

Scandal Sheet (Paramount, 1931) Directed by John Cromwell. Cast: George Bancroft, Kay Francis, Clive Brook, Lucien Littlefield, Gilbert Emery, Regis Toomey.

Ladies Man (Paramount, 1931) Directed by Lothar Mendes. Cast: William Powell, Kay Francis, Carole Lombard, Gilbert Emery, Olive Tell, Martin Burton, John Holland.

The Vice Squad (Paramount, 1931) Directed by John Cromwell. Cast: Kay Francis, Paul Lukas, Helen Johnson, William B. Davidson, Rockliffe Fellows, Esther Howard, Monte Carter.

Transgression (RKO Radio, 1931) Directed by Herbert Brenon. Cast: Kay Francis, Paul Cavanaugh, Ricardo Cortez, Nance O’Neil, John St. Polis, Adrienne d’Ambricourt.

Guilty Hands (MGM, 1931) Directed by W.S. Van Dyke. Cast: Lionel Barrymore, Kay Francis, Madge Evans, William Bakewell, C. Aubrey Smith, Polly Moran, Alan Mowbray.

24 Hours (Paramount, 1931) Directed by Marion Gering. Cast: Clive Brook, Kay Francis, Miriam Hopkins, Regis Toomey, George Barbier, Adrienne Ames, Charlotte Granville.

Girls About Town (Paramount, 1931) Directed by George Cukor. Cast: Kay Francis, Joel McCrea, Lilyan Tashman, Eugene Pallette, Alan Dinehart, Lucille Webster Gleason.

The False Madonna (Paramount, 1932) Directed by Stuart Walker. Cast: Kay Francis, William “Stage” Boyd, Conway Tearle, John Breeden, Marjorie Gateson.

Strangers in Love (Paramount, 1932) Directed by Lothar Mendes. Cast: Fredric March, Kay Francis, Stuart Erwin, Juliette Compton, George Barbier, Sidney Toler, Lucien Littlefield.

Man Wanted (Warner Bros., 1932) Directed by William Dieterle. Cast: Kay Francis, David Manners, Andy Devine, Una Merkel, Kenneth Thomson, Claire Dodd, Charlotte Merriam.

Street of Women (Warner Bros., 1932) Directed by Archie Mayo. Cast: Kay Francis, Alan Dinehart, Marjorie Gateson, Roland Young, Gloria Stuart, Allen Vincent, Louise Beavers.

Jewel Robbery (Warner Bros., 1932) Directed by William Dieterle. Cast: William Powell, Kay Francis, Hardie Albright, Andre Luguet, Henry Kolker, Lee Kohlmar, Spencer Charters.

One Way Passage (Warner Bros., 1932) Directed by Tay Garnett. Cast: William Powell, Kay Francis, Aline MacMahon, Frank McHugh, Warren Hymer, Frederick Burton, Douglas Gerrard.

Trouble in Paradise (Paramount, 1932) Directed by Ernst Lubitsch. Cast: Miriam Hopkins, Herbert Marshall, Kay Francis, Charles Ruggles, Edward Everett Horton, C. Aubrey Smith.

Cynara (Goldwyn-United Artists, 1932) Directed by King Vidor. Cast: Ronald Colman, Kay Francis, Phyllis Barry, Henry Stephenson, Viva Tattersall, Florine McKinney, Clarissa Selwyn.

The Keyhole (Warner Bros., 1933) Directed by Michael Curtiz. Cast: Kay Francis, George Brent, Glenda Farrell, Allen Jenkins, Monroe Owsley, Helen Ware, Henry Kolker.

Storm at Daybreak (MGM, 1933) Directed by Richard Boleslawski. Cast: Kay Francis, Nils Asther, Walter Huston, Phillips Holmes, Eugene Pallette, C. Henry Gordon, Louise Closser Hale.

Mary Stevens, M.D. (Warner Bros., 1933) Directed by Lloyd Bacon. Cast: Kay Francis, Lyle Talbot, Glenda Farrell, Thelma Todd, Una O’Connor, Charles Wilson, Hobart Cavanaugh.

I Loved a Woman (First National, 1933) Directed by Alfred E. Green. Cast: Edward G. Robinson, Kay Francis, Genevieve Tobin, J. Farrell MacDonald, Henry Kolker, Robert Barrat.

The House on 56th Street (Warner Bros., 1933) Directed by Robert Florey. Cast: Kay Francis, Ricardo Cortez, Gene Raymond, John Halliday, Margaret Lindsay, Frank McHugh, Sheila Terry.

Mandalay (First National, 1934) Directed by Michael Curtiz. Cast: Kay Francis, Ricardo Cortez, Warner Oland, Lyle Talbot, Ruth Donnelly, Reginald Owen, Hobart Cavanaugh.

Wonder Bar (First National, 1934) Directed by Lloyd Bacon. Cast: Al Jolson, Dolores Del Rio, Kay Francis, Ricardo Cortez, Dick Powell, Hal LeRoy, Guy Kibbee, Ruth Donnelly.

Dr. Monica (Warner Bros., 1934) Directed by William Keighley. Cast: Kay Francis, Warren William, Jean Muir, Verree Teasdale, Philip Reed, Emma Dunn, Herbert Bunston.

British Agent (First National, 1934) Directed by Michael Curtiz. Cast: Leslie Howard, Kay Francis, William Gargan, Philip Reed, Irving Pichel, Walter Byron, Ivan Simpson.

Living on Velvet (Warner Bros., 1935) Directed by Frank Borzage. Cast: Kay Francis, George Brent, Warren William, Helen Lowell, Henry O’Neill, Samuel S. Hinds, Russell Hicks.

Stranded (Warner Bros., 1935) Directed by Frank Borzage. Cast: Kay Francis, George Brent, Patricia Ellis, Donald Woods, Robert Barrat, Barton MacLane, Joseph Crehan, William Harrigan.

The Goose and the Gander (Warner Bros., 1935) Directed Alfred E. Green. Cast: Kay Francis, George Brent, Genevieve Tobin, John Eldredge, Claire Dodd, Ralph Forbes.

I Found Stella Parrish (First National, 1935) Directed by Mervyn LeRoy. Cast: Kay Francis, Ian Hunter, Paul Lukas, Sybil Jason, Jessie Ralph, Barton MacLane, Harry Beresford.

The White Angel (First National, 1936) Directed by William Dieterle. Cast: Kay Francis, Ian Hunter, Donald Woods, Nigel Bruce, Donald Crisp, Henry O’Neill, Billy Mauch.

Give Me Your Heart (Warner Bros., 1936) Directed by Archie L. Mayo. Cast: Kay Francis, George Brent, Roland Young, Patric Knowles, Henry Stephenson, Frieda Inescourt, Helen Flint.

Stolen Holiday (Warner Bros., 1937) Directed by Michael Curtiz. Cast: Kay Francis, Claude Rains, Ian Hunter, Alison Skipworth, Alexander D’Arcy, Betty Lawford, Walter Kingsford.

Another Dawn (Warner Bros., 1937) Directed by William Dieterle. Cast: Errol Flynn, Kay Francis, Ian Hunter, Frieda Inescourt, Herbert Mundin, G.P. Huntley, Jr., Billy Bevan.

Confession (First National, 1937) Directed by Joe May. Cast: Kay Francis, Ian Hunter, Basil Rathbone, Jane Bryan, Donald Crisp, Dorothy Peterson, Laura Hope Crews, Robert Barrat.

First Lady (Warner Bros., 1937) Directed by Stanley Logan. Cast: Kay Francis, Preston Foster, Anita Louise, Walter Connolly, Verree Teasdale, Victor Jory, Marjorie Rambeau.

Women Are Like That (Warner Bros., 1938) Directed by Stanley Logan. Cast: Kay Francis, Pat O’Brien, Ralph Forbes, Melville Cooper, Thurston Hall, Grant Mitchell, Gordon Oliver.

My Bill (Warner Bros., 1938) Directed by John Farrow. Cast: Kay Francis, Dickie Moore, Bonita Granville, John Litel, Anita Louise, Bobby Jordan, Maurice Murphy, Elisabeth Risdon.

Secrets of an Actress (Warner Bros., 1938) Directed by William Keighley. Cast: Kay Francis, George Brent, Ian Hunter, Gloria Dickson, Isabel Jeans, Penny Singleton, Dennie Moore.

Comet Over Broadway (Warner Bros., 1938) Directed by Busby Berkeley. Cast: Kay Francis, Ian Hunter, John Litel, Donald Crisp, Minna Gombell, Sybil Jason, Melville Cooper, Ian Keith.

King of the Underworld (Warner Bros., 1939) Directed by Lewis Seiler. Cast: Kay Francis, Humphrey Bogart, James Stephenson, John Eldredge, Jessie Busley, Arthur Aylesworth.

Women in the Wind (Warner Bros., 1939) Directed by John Farrow. Cast: Kay Francis, William Gargan, Victor Jory, Maxie Rosenbloom, Eddie Foy, Jr., Sheila Bromley, Eve Arden.

In Name Only (RKO-Radio, 1939) Directed by John Cromwell. Cast: Cary Grant, Carole Lombard, Kay Francis, Charles Coburn, Helen Vinson, Grady Sutton, Katherine Alexander.

It’s a Date (Universal, 1940) Directed by William A. Seiter. Cast: Deanna Durbin, Kay Francis, Walter Pidgeon, Eugene Pallette, Lewis Howard, Samuel S. Hinds, Cecilia Loftus, Fritz Feld.

When the Daltons Rode (Universal, 1940) Directed by George Marshall. Cast: Randolph Scott, Kay Francis, Andy Devine, Frank Albertson, Mary Gordon, Harry Stephens.

Little Men (RKO-Radio, 1940) Directed by Norman Z. McLeod. Cast: Kay Francis, Jack Oakie, George Bancroft, Jimmy Lydon, Ann Gillis, Carl Esmond, Richard Nichols, Elsie the Cow.

Play Girl (RKO-Radio, 1941). Directed by Frank Woodruff. Cast: Kay Francis, James Ellison, Mildred Coles, Nigel Bruce, Margaret Hamilton, Katharine Alexander, George P. Huntley.

The Man Who Lost Himself (Universal, 1941) Directed by Edward Ludwig. Cast: Brian Aherne, Kay Francis, Henry Stephenson, S.Z. Sakall, Nils Asther, Sig Rumann.

Charley’s Aunt (20th Century–Fox, 1941) Directed by Archie Mayo. Cast: Jack Benny, Kay Francis, James Ellison, Anne Baxter, Edmund Gwenn, Reginald Owen, Laird Cregar.

The Feminine Touch (MGM, 1941) Directed by W.S. Van Dyke. Cast: Rosalind Russell, Don Ameche, Kay Francis, Van Heflin, Donald Meek, Gordon Jones, Henry Daniell, Sidney Blackmer.

Always in My Heart (Warner Bros., 1942) Directed by Jo Graham. Cast: Walter Huston, Gloria Warren, Kay Francis, Patty Hale, Frankie Thomas, Una O’Connor, Sidney Blackmer.

Between Us Girls (Universal, 1942) Directed by Henry Koster. Cast: Diana Barrymore, Kay Francis, Robert Cummings, John Boles, Andy Devine, Guinn “Big Boy” Williams, Scotty Beckett.

Four Jills in a Jeep (20th Century–Fox, 1944) Directed by William A. Seiter. Cast: Kay Francis, Carole Landis, Martha Raye, Mitzi Mayfair, Alice Faye, Carmen Miranda, Betty Grable, George Jessel, John Harvey, Phil Silvers, Dick Haymes, Lester Matthews, Glenn Langan.

Divorce (Monogram, 1945) Directed by William Nigh. Cast: Kay Francis, Bruce Cabot, Helen Mack, Craig Reynolds, Jean Fenwick, Larry Olsen, Addison Richards, Jonathan Hale, Ruth Lee.

Allotment Wives (Monogram, 1945) Directed by William Nigh. Cast: Kay Francis, Paul Kelly, Otto Kruger, Gertrude Michael, Teala Loring, Bernard Nedell, Matty Fain, Anthony Ward.

Wife Wanted (Monogram, 1946) Directed by Phil Karlson. Cast: Kay Francis, Paul Cavanaugh, Robert Shayne, Veda Ann Borg, Teala Loring, Jonathan Hale, John Hamilton.