Director Was More Serious Than His Films, Wray Recalls

Fay Wray, well remembered as the beauty who killed the beast in the 1933 classic “King Kong,” will be making a personal appearance at the May 12 screening of Gregory La Cava’s “The Affairs of Cellini” at the Los Angeles County Art Museum.’

“It’s a pretty good film,” says Wray, a wry, spry, 93. “I do have fond memories of it. I think it was shown at Grauman’s Chinese and somehow, that seemed like a kudo for all of us who were in it. It had a certain amount of charm, even though it was a little wacky.”

“Cellini,” a 1934 bedroom romp nominated for four Oscars, is set in 16th century Florence. Wray plays Angela, the beautiful, but rather dim model of a dashing artist, Benvenuto Cellini (Fredric March). Angela also catches the attention of the befuddled womanizing Duke of Florence (Frank Morgan) who is intent on making the young woman his mistress. In return, the Duke’s spoiled wife (Constance Bennett) sets her sites on Cellini.

Director La Cava throws in a lot of crazy touches like the fact that Angela’s mother, Beatrice (Jessie Ralph), happens to have a beard and mustache.

“How did I get to be attractive with a mother like that?” Wray says during a recent phone interview from her home in New York.

Wray recalls that La Cava wasn’t as wild and crazy as his films. “He was a rather serious guy,” she says. “He had a reputation for wanting to rewrite everything while he was making the film. You could tell from the script what was expected of you, unless he altered it. He was kind of a hands off director it seems to me.”

Wray, who hasn’t seen the film since 1934, recalls that she felt she looked a “bit too glamorous” as Angela. “I thought I should have looked kind of like a stray person. I thought that would have been more appropriate.”

The director Wray most admired working with was Erich Von Stroheim. The two starred together in “The Wedding March” (1928), which Von Stroheim also directed. ‘I respected everything that he did. . . . I had the good fortune to work with a lot of talented and interesting people.”

And she’s still amazed at the continuing popularity of “King Kong.”

“People do love it and children love it,” she says. “It appeals to a lot of people and has a different meaning to different people.”