Stage Name: Kay Francis
Birth Name: Katharine Edwina Gibbs
Occupation: Movie, Stage Actress / Early Hollywood Icon / WWII U.S. Troop Entertainer
Years Active: 1925–1948
Notable Works: Kay Francis made her applauded stage debut as the Queen in Hamlet on Broadway (1925) and her screen debut in Gentleman of the Press (1929); Photoplay magazine called Kay’s performance "one of the most astonishing first performances in the history of motion pictures". Other memorable credits include: The False Madonna (1931), Strangers in Love (1932); First Lady (1937), and Four Jills in a Jeep (1944) which tells the story of how she led the charge of Hollywood celebrities to the front lines of World War Two, it costars Martha Raye, Mitzi Mayfair, and Carole Landis all playing themselves.
Date/Place Birth: January 13, 1905 (1905-01-13); Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States of America
Date/Death/Cause: Kay lost a two year battle with breast cancer August 26, 1968 at age 63 in New York, New York, United States. Kay Francis's body was cremated and ashes scattered. Having no living immediate family members, Francis left over $1,000,000 to a company, Seeing Eye, Inc., which trained guide dogs for the blind.
Spouse(s) & Children: Francis married five times and had numerous well-publicized affairs with both sexes. Eric Barnekow(final husband 1939-divorced ?); Kenneth MacKenna (fourth husband 17 January 1931 - February 1933); James Dwight Francis (third husband December 1922 - 1924 divorced);William Gaston (second husband ? - ?); John Meehan (first husband? - ?)
Short Biography: An underappreciated talent among the few who successfully made the transition from silent to talking films dispite the fact that she had a slight speech impediment she was known around the Paramount lot as "the wavishing Kay Fwancis". Kay Francis left Paramount where she had worked on 21 films between 1929 and 1931 and from 1932 through 1936, Francis was the queen of the Warners lot and increasingly her films were developed as personal star vehicles. By the mid-thirties, Francis was one of the highest-paid people in the United States. Eventually, Francis herself became dissatisfied with these vehicles and began openly to feud with her employers and in 1939 MGM canceled her contract. She threw herself into supporting our troops during WWII but took an early retirement and never came close to making a comeback.