Dolores Gray Movies
Primarily a stage actress -- she starred in the London production of Irving Berlin's Annie Get Your Gun -- blonde, long-limbed
Dolores Gray enjoyed a brief flurry of film activity. Though she made a brace of cameo appearances in
Lady for a Night (1941) and
Mr. Skeffington (1944), she began her movie career proper as Gene Kelly's vis-à-vis in MGM's
It's Always Fair Weather (1955). She went on to play the alluring Lalume in
Kismet (1955), the gossipy Sylvia in
The Opposite Sex (the 1956 musical remake of The Women), and the TV star, ex-flame of sportswriter Gregory Peck in
Designing Women (1957). When MGM briefly decided to abandon big-budget musicals in 1957,
Dolores Gray bade farewell to films, successfully returning to the Broadway and London stage. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

- 1988
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In the conclusion of the three-part story "Silver Nemesis," the Doctor (Sylvester McCoy) steps up his efforts to hurl the deadly living-metal Nemesis statue back into Deep Space. Meanwhile, Ace (Sophie Aldred) finds herself locked in mortal combat with the Cybermen, who want to get their hands on the precious validium within the statue. Musical-comedy favorite Dolores Gray makes a rare TV appearance as Mrs. Remington. Written by Kevin Clarke, "Silver Nemesis, Episode 3" originally aired on December 7, 1988. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
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- Starring:
- Sylvester McCoy, Sophie Aldred, (more)

- 1966
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The Bell Telephone Hour originally aired on NBC between October 1959 and April 1968. A music program conceived and produced along the lines of ABC's Lawrence Welk Show (aka 'Toast of the Town'), Bell featured the best names in Hollywood, Nashville, and Broadway musical performance delivering songs in a vast range of musical styles (excising rock). Frequent guests included Mahalia Jackson, Robert Goulet, The Kingston Trio, Carol Lawrence, and Ray Bolger. The various volumes in the Bell Telephone Hour series of home releases feature highlights from the program of the title, with each volume collecting and presenting back-to-back the musical performances of a Bell Telephone Hour regular. Dolores Gray: Bell Telephone Hour Appearances, 1959-65 does the same for Gray. Though not as well known as many of her contemporaries, Gray demonstrated fine vocal gifts and tremendous versatility, carving out a name for herself in stage and film musicals, and in her frequent radio, nightclub, and television spots. Per its title, this release features performances that span ray's entire tenure on the show, from 1959 through '65. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi
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- 1957
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Vincente Minnelli directed this sophisticated comedy, which owes a debt to Spencer Tracy/Katherine Hepburn vehicles. Sportswriter Mike Hagen (Gregory Peck) and fashion designer Marilla (Lauren Bacall) are New Yorkers who meet while both are vacationing in California. It's love at first sight, and the two decide on the spur of the moment to get married. However, once they return to the Big Apple, it starts to occur to them just how different they are after Mike moves out of his sloppy bachelor lair in the Village and joins Marilla in her luxury flat on the Upper East Side. While they try to sort out their differences, Mike encounters his former girlfriend Lori (Dolores Gray), while Marilla runs into her onetime beau Zachary (Tom Helmore); given the haste with which they married, neither of their exes had yet heard that Mike and Marilla were hitched, and the notion that they could still be lured away hangs in the air. Meanwhile, Mike has written a series of articles exposing corruption in boxing, which earns him no friends among some ill-mannered Gotham mobsters. Bacall's sparkling comic performance was a remarkable display of personal strength; as the movie was being filmed, her husband Humphrey Bogart was suffering from the last stages of the cancer that would soon claim his life. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
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- Starring:
- Gregory Peck, Lauren Bacall, (more)

- 1956
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The Opposite Sex is an opulent musical remake of Clare Booth Luce's The Women (1939). June Allyson stars in the old Norma Shearer role, playing the virtuous wife who loses her husband to scheming Joan Collins (as the Joan Crawford character). At first agreeing to a divorce, June decides to win hubby back by utilizing the same crafty feminine wiles that Joan had employed to lead him astray. Doloress Gray plays the counterpart to Rosalind Russell's vitriolic gossip. The original The Women boasted an all-female cast: the remake includes several male characters, played by the likes of MGM contractees Leslie Nielsen and Jeff Richards. Dick Shawn, Jim Backus and Harry James are also on hand, billed as "special guest stars." The satirical bite of The Women has been softened in The Opposite Sex, but musical fans should have a good time. Sammy Cahn, Nicholas Brodszky, Ralph Freed and George Stoll were among the songwriters; Collins, Allyson and Jeff Richards perform musical numbers in the film. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
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- Starring:
- June Allyson, Dolores Gray, (more)

- 1955
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This fourth film version of the warhorse Edward Knoblock theatrical piece Kismet was based on the Broadway musical version of the same property. Howard Keel stars as Hadji, the poet of old Baghdad, who goes from beggar to millionaire in a single day. Hadji's daughter Marsinah (Ann Blyth) falls in love with the young Caliph (Vic Damone), while Lalume (Dolores Gray), the sexy wife of the despotic Wazir (Sebastian Cabot), sets her sights on Hadji. Meanwhile, the Wazir plots and plans to topple the Caliph from the throne and to add Marsinah to his own harem. Making periodic appearances is Omar Khayyam, played as a doddering old meddler by Monty Woolley. The Robert Wright-George Forrest musical score, based on themes by Borodin, includes such standards as "Baubles, Bangles and Beads", "This is My Beloved", "Stranger in Paradise" and "Not Since Ninevah". Though the dancing girls in the film are more modestly dressed than their stage counterparts, they are put through some fairly sensuous paces by choreographer Jack Cole. Kismet was good for another go-round in 1967, when it was adapted for television with Jose Ferrer, Barbara Eden, Anna Maria Alberghetti, George Chakiris and Hans Conried in the cast. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
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- Starring:
- Howard Keel, Ann Blyth, (more)

- 1955
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Cooked up by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, It's Always Fair Weather could well have been titled On the Town Ten Years Later. Like 1949's On the Town (also a Comden/Green collaboration), this MGM musical follows the exploits of three servicemen buddies, played by Gene Kelly, Dan Dailey and Michael Kidd. The difference here is that the threesome has just been discharged from service. The boys agree to get together again exactly ten years after their parting. Flash-forward to 1955: Kelly, who'd dreamed of being a show biz entrepreneur, is a small-time boxing promoter, heavily in debt to the Mob; Dailey has abandoned his plans of becoming an artist in favor of a stuffy, grey-flannel existence as an ad executive; and Kidd, who'd aspired to being a master chef, is running a modest diner. On behalf of TV-personality Dolores Gray, network-staffer Cyd Charisse contrives to reunite the three men on a This is Your Life style TV special, but all three are hostile to the notion. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
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- Starring:
- Gene Kelly, Dan Dailey, (more)

- 1944
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From a novel of the same name by "Elizabeth", the film begins in 1914, with Bette Davis cast as vain, flighty society woman Fanny Trellis. Informed by Jewish-American financier Job Skeffington (Claude Rains) that her brother Trippy (Richard Waring) has stolen money to pay his gambling debts, Fanny marries Job, securing his promise that he won't prosecute her thieving sibling. Angered by Fanny's agreeing to this loveless union, Trippy runs off to join the army, and is killed during World War I. Fanny holds Skeffington responsible for her brother's death, and demands a divorce with a generous cash settlement. Despite Job's oft-repeated belief that "a woman is only beautiful when she is loved," Fanny uses her coquettish beauty to flit indiscriminately from man to man. While on a sailing trip with her latest beau, Fanny comes down with diphtheria. The disease destroys her facial beauty, and before long the shallow Fanny is left completely alone. Her self-centered efforts to reunite all of her old boyfriends for a party is a failure due to her pathetic middle-aged efforts to be kittenish, and the grotesqueness of the mounds of facial makeup she apples. Meanwhile, Skeffington, who has resettled in Europe with his daughter, is captured by the Nazis and placed in a concentration camp. He manages to escape, returning to the US totally blind and utterly penniless. A chastened Fanny comes back to her husband, promising to care for him for the rest of his life. Most TV prints of Mr. Skeffington run 127 minutes; the videocassette and cable TV versions have been restored to the original length. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
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- Starring:
- Bette Davis, Claude Rains, (more)

- 1941
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The unlikely combination of John Wayne and Joan Blondell adds a bit of vinegar and spice to the so-so costume drama Lady for a Night. Blondell is cast as Jenny Blake, owner of the Memphis Belle-not a WW2 bomber, but a gambling ship moored just outside New Orleans. Jenny's partner and erstwhile suitor is local political boss Jack Morgan (Wayne). She loves Morgan, but decides to marry for money and prestige, and to that end weds "black sheep" socialite Alan Alderson (Ray Middleton). Her new in-laws are infuriated by this marriage of convenience, and do everything they can to ruin Jenny in the eyes of society. When Alderson dies suddenly, his vengeful mother Julia (Blanche Yurka) accuses Jenny of poisoning her husband. Throughout the subsequent trial and scandal, Morgan stands loyally by Jenny's side, convincing her at long last that he's been the "right man" for her all along. Hattie Noel, who two years earlier lost the role of Mammy in Gone with the Wind to Hattie McDaniel, essays a neat Mammy-like characterization as Jenny's all-knowing maidservant. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
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- Starring:
- Joan Blondell, John Wayne, (more)