Fay Wray, 1907-2004: King Kong's co-star, horror-heroine icon

The actress Fay Wray, 96, who died of a heart ailment Sunday at her home in New York, will forever have a place in screen and scream history. She was the blond damsel-in-distress in the original "King Kong" (1933), one of the greatest fright films of all time.

Ms. Wray had leading roles in about 75 other motion pictures between 1923 and 1958 — 11 alone in 1933, including "King Kong." But none would so define her career as that classic tale about unrequited love between a virginal beauty and a giant ape.

She played Ann Darrow, an unemployed actress invited by a film producer on a long voyage to mysterious Skull Island. The producer uses Darrow as bait to capture Kong and then puts the towering creature on display for all New York to see. The plan goes awry as Kong starts on a big-city rampage in search of Darrow. In the end, he literally falls for her — from the Empire State Building.

"It was beauty killed the beast," the producer moralizes.

Ms. Wray became a prototype of the horror-film heroine, a character who decorated more than dominated a movie and was gamely willing to shriek in terror.

The sexual suggestiveness of the wholesome and wide-eyed Ms. Wray screaming and squirming in Kong's firm, hirsute grip would become an often imitated and lampooned image of cinema lore.

Ms. Wray said in her 1989 autobiography, "On the Other Hand," that her "King Kong" saved RKO-Radio Pictures from bankruptcy. The American Film Institute honored the picture in 1998 as one of the greatest 100 American films of all time.

Initially, Ms. Wray thought of Cary Grant or Gary Cooper when co-director Merian C. Cooper gave the actress a teasing description of her co-star as the "tallest, darkest leading man in Hollywood."

She soon discovered her tantalizing co-star was an 18-inch model made of metal, rubber, cotton and rabbit fur designed by animation expert Willis O'Brien. To filmgoers, Kong appeared 40 feet tall through such techniques as rear-screen projection and stop-motion photography.

The process was so slow that she made the action film "The Most Dangerous Game" (1932) on the "Kong" set while waiting for O'Brien to complete his work.

She largely retired from film in 1942, after a succession of undistinguished dramas as well as problems at home with her first of three husbands, writer John Monk Saunders.

Ms. Wray attempted a career in playwriting and did some stage acting.

Ms. Wray told interviewers she realized "King Kong" was why she would be remembered.

"Being in the most famous movie of all time is my greeting card," she told the Toronto Star in 1990.

Born Vina Fay Wray in Alberta, Canada, Ms. Wray moved with her family to Arizona and Colorado before she left for Los Angeles with a guardian.

A major break came in 1928, with the release of Erich von Stroheim's hit epic "The Wedding March."

She then worked with some of the most renowned directors of the period, usually on fast-paced, action-oriented fare. Among them were Josef von Sternberg ("Thunderbolt," 1929), George Abbott ("The Sea God," 1930) and Frank Capra ("Dirigible," 1931).

Survivors include a daughter from her first marriage; two children from the second marriage; and two grandchildren.