FAY WRAY AND ROBERT RISKIN: A Hollywood Memoir

Fay Wray was most famous as the blonde in a diaphanous gown who captured the heart of the mighty King Kong, the 25 foot 60 tonne gorilla as he placed her, nestled in his 8 foot hand, on the ledge of the 102 story Empire State Building, putting Wray at the height of New York's skyline and cinematic immortality. She starred in more than 120 films opposite Hollywood's biggest stars including Gary Cooper (The Legion of the Condemned, The First Kiss, The Texan, One Sunday Afternoon), Spencer Tracy, Clark Gable, William Powell and Charles Boyer and cowboy stars like Ronald Colman (The Unholy Garden), Ralph Richardson and Melvyn Douglas. She was directed by the masters of the age in The Wedding March, The Street of Sin, The Four Feathers and King Kong, Thunderbolt, Behind the Make-Up directed by Dorothy Arzner and Dirigible by Frank Capra among them. The book's and Fay Wray's counterpart Robert Riskin was considered one of the greatest screenwriters of all time. Academy-Award winning writer (nominated for five), producer, ten-year-long collaborator with Frank Capra on pictures such as American Madness, It Happened One Night, Mr Deeds Goes to Town, Lost Horizon and Meet John Doe, he was hailed by many as 'among the best screenwriters in the business' - F. Scott Fitzgerald. Riskin wrote women characters who were smart, sexy and always resilient and made streetwise optimistic films with a sense of humour. The couple lived large lives finding each other after establishing their artistic selves and after each had had many romantic attachments - Wray an 11 year long difficult marriage and a fraught affair with Clifford Odets and Riskin a series of romances with among others Carole Lombard, Glenda Farrell and Loretta Young. Here are their lives, work, their fairy-tale marriage that ended so tragically, told in a dual quintessential biography of American lives, ultimately and blissfully intertwined. The book is written by their daughter, an acclaimed writer and producer. 397 desirable roughcut US pages, approximately 50 illustrations.