NaN, Was Movie Actress And Radio Star In 1930S And 1940S

Nan Grey, blonde leading lady of 1930s films and 1940s radio who abandoned her career when she married singer Frankie Laine in 1950, died on her 75th birthday.

Miss Grey died Sunday at the Laines' San Diego home of heart failure, said Joseph Laredo, co-writer of Laine's autobiography.

Born Eschol Loleet Miller in Houston, she broke into films in 1934 as Nan Grey in "The Firebird." Over the next seven years, she appeared in two dozen films including "Three Smart Girls" in 1936, which introduced Deanna Durbin; its 1939 sequel, "Three Smart Girls Grow Up," and "Tower of London" that same year with Vincent Price and Basil Rathbone.

Other films included "Babbitt" in 1934, "Dracula's Daughter" in 1936, "The Storm" and "Girls' School" in 1938, and "The House of the Seven Gables" and "Margie" in 1940. Her final film was "Under Age" in 1941.

In the 1940s, the actress switched to radio, for seven years playing the female lead Kathy Marshall in the popular soap opera, "Those We Love."

She met Laine at Hollywood's Cocoanut Grove nightclub and largely retired from show business after their marriage on June 15, 1950. She made one guest appearance on television with him in 1960 in an episode of "Rawhide," the Western series for which he recorded the theme song.

In the mid-1960s, Miss Grey marketed a special cosmetic mirror for nearsighted women, and numbered among her customers Princess Grace of Monaco.

In addition to Laine, she is survived by two daughters, Jan Steiger of Los Angeles, and Pam Donner of Beverly Hills, and four grandsons.