Fay Wray

Fay Wray died a few years ago.  She did so in the way most of us would want: quietly in her sleep.  She was 96.  In the years after King Kong, she played to type--the blond damsel in distress whose already-gauzy dresses would--in the course of the film--either be shredded to tatters or thoroughly soaked. Until I began looking at her face more closely for this post, I felt certain that she--the beauty who killed the beast--had a look that wouldn't bar her from today's mainstream movie tastes. But in looking over photos of her career--1930s-1950s--I'm not so sure.  There's something of Meryl Streep in the eyes and nose, and--needless to say--we will have to investigate Meryl Streep in the future.