Signed photo "Coleen Gray"
Signed paper attached to photo "Very best wishes Stephen McNally"
As a product of the post-World War II Hollywood assembly line, actress
Coleen Gray fared better than many other pretty young things lured to
the studios with the promise of a long-term contract. A plum role as
Victor Mature's girlfriend in "Kiss of Death" (1947) gave the
dark-haired Nebraskan just the right career boost, setting her up for
memorable turns as Tyrone Power's comely accomplice in "Nightmare Alley"
(1947) and as John Wayne's prairie sweetheart in "Red River" (1948).
Equally adept at etching characters of virtue and vice, Gray segued
seamlessly from playing a shady nurse in "The Sleeping City" (1950) to
the heroine of "Kansas City Confidential" (1951), which paired her
onscreen and off with leading man John Payne. Following a failed early
marriage, Gray's assignments were largely routine until Stanley Kubrick
lifted her out of B-movie mediocrity when he cast her as Sterling
Hayden's gun moll in the heist drama "The Killing" (1956). In middle
age, the actress endeared herself to a new generation of cult film fans
by playing a potential victim of "The Vampire" (1957) and an amoral
cosmetics company CEO who discovers the secret to immortality in "The
Leech Woman" (1960). A familiar face on television, Gray quit show
business for faith-based charity work alongside born-again Watergate
convict Chuck Colson, but she reemerged late in celebration of her
contributions to American cinema and to honor the memory of her departed
co-stars and leading men. Her death on August 3, 2015 at the age of 92
was mourned by generations of film noir fans.
While he never became a Hollywood legend, Stephen McNally did manage to
etch out a place for himself as a reliable character actor. He was a
practicing attorney until the late 1930s, at which point he decided to
pursue acting, and by the late '40s, appearances as villains or minor
characters (with Horace as his screen name) led to larger parts and
better quality pictures. McNally subsequently changed his working name
to Stephen, and his first film under the new alias was the '48 drama
"Johnny Belinda," in which he played the reprehensible Locky McCormick,
who rapes a deaf/mute girl portrayed by Jane Wyman. During the next
decade, he appeared in film noirs, westerns, and thrillers, playing
characters ranging from a medical resident in the film-noir "No Way Out"
to an ex-convict and cold-blooded killer in the thriller "Split
Second." One of his best-known roles was as outlaw Dutch Henry Brown in
"Winchester '73," a 1950 western starring James Stewart, which features a
famous shooting contest between his character and Stewart's.
Unfortunately, much in the same way that