Biography
Distinctive Features
She had a slight speech impediment
Friends and Family
Lilyan Tashman
[Friend]
::
Miriam Hopkins
[Friend]
::
Carole Landis
[Friend]
::
Katharine Clinton Franks
[Mother]
::
Joseph Sprague Gibbs
[Father]
Trivia and Quotes
Quotes
 "I can`t wait to be forgotten." "I`m not antisocial, just unsocial."
“I`m not a star, I`m a woman, and I want to get fucked!"
Trivia
Would say goddammit when she messed up
Adrienne Morrison gave her a little stuffed dog. Lay named it Huggles and it was her constant comapnion
Had a teddy bear, which was her good luck charm
According to her April 23, 1922, the seventeen year old Kay wrote "I am no longer a virgin though I have never slept with a man"
After a date with screenwriter/director Delmar Daves she is reported to have said, "Christ, he`s a good lover... my God, all hell broke loose. He came in his trousers."
Kay had a tremendous influence on style trends. Women waited for the next Kay Francis vehicle before planning their season`s wardrobe.
Kay was married four times. All her marriages ended in divorce.
Kay`s mother was scarcely part of her daughter`s life, and on the rare occasion when she came to visit, she was kept under wraps and never allowed to visit her daughter at the studio.
Many found her lisp-- she had difficulty pronouncing the letter r properly-- charming. However, because of this speech impediment, she was known around the Paramount lot as "the wavishing Kay Fwancis." Her speech defect would in time become celebrated (her scripts were typed with rolling r`s).
On her attempt at being domestic during her first marriage (to James Dwight Francis), Kay said, "I hated every dust rag I owned and took a very hearty and very personal dislike to every egg I fried and every potato I boiled."
Once, years after her heyday, Kay encountered her former Warner Bros. rival, Bette Davis. When Bette asked why Francis had tolerated such abuse from Jack L. Warner, Kay responded, "I didn`t give a damn. I wanted the money." Davis commented, "I didn`t. I wanted the career."
She formed a backgammon foursome with Jessica Barthelmess, Beatrice Stewart and Dorothy Di Frasso.
She made sixty-eight films in seventeen years.
She was born on Friday the 13th, 1905.
After a 1934 date with Maurice Chevalier she wrote in her diary, "Maurice for dinner. Swell evening. Very exciting, discussing about lesbians and a threesome. Not practical, I`m afraid."
(divasthesite.com)
Claimed that her husband, Kenneth MacKenna, nagged and harassed her, ridiculed her choice of friends and style of dress, and cast aspersions on her acting ability.
(divasthesite.com)
Elsa Maxwell rated her among the best party-givers in Hollywood. She once had the entrance to a restaurant converted into the prow of a ship, and arriving guests were obliged to slide down a gangplank into a ballroom decorated with nautical devices.
(divasthesite.com)
Her pre-movie career included work as a real estate broker and public relations woman.
(divasthesite.com)
Kay was nicknamed Hetty Green, a reflection of her tight-fistedness.
(divasthesite.com)
Was first noticed on the Broadway stage.
(divasthesite.com)
Her customary breakfast at the studio was a ham sandwich, a pickle and ice cream.
(divasthesite.com)
She claimed that during her entire career she had seen only one close-up of herself that she considered beautiful and even that was achieved by illusion. "In One-Way Passage cameraman Bob Kurle had taken so much pains, shifting the camera fifty different ways, experimenting with light and shadow until it was beautiful," she said. "When I saw that, I felt the one pand of pure pleasure I`ve ever experienced when I`ve looked at myself on the screen."
(divasthesite.com)
She was the favorite actress of caricaturist James Montgomery Flagg.
(divasthesite.com)
Years after she was washed up in Hollywood, she laughed about climbing into a taxi to be told by the driver that he hated her. "Nothing personal," he added. "But when I wanted to see Tom Mix, Ma`d drag me to see you `n` George Brent."
(divasthesite.com)
After divorcing Kay, her husband James Dwight Francis married Lesley Frost, the daughter of poet Robert Frost.
Because of a speech impediment, she was known around the Paramount lot as "the wavishing Kay Fwancis."
Birth year has been in speculation for some time, with sources stating the year as anywhere between 1899-1908. Studio records (which occasionally were used to her detriment when the studio got mad at her) reflect the year of birth as 1899. However, her listing in the U.S. Census taken in April 1910, when she was living at a convent school, gives her age as five years.
Her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame is located at 6766 Hollywood Blvd.
Left most of her $1 million estate to train dogs at Seeing Eye, Inc.
Was one of the many stars labeled "box office poison" in an article published in The Hollywood Reporter in 1938.
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(as Amy Prentiss Parker)
with George Brent
in Living on Velvet (1935)
Super Star Sites
Silver Sites
Profile
Married
Relationship
"Encounter"
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