| Femmes Fatales | Feb 2 2019 |
Stuck between noir and a dark place
London born Sally Gray has an interesting aka—she was Constance Vera Browne, Baroness Oranmore and Browne. From 1930 to 1952, billed as Gray, she appeared in more than twenty films, including Danger in Paris, Green for Danger, I Became a Criminal, and the 1949 film noir Obsession. We don't have a date on this photo but the noir style of it, Gray's youthful appearance, and the fact that she made no films between 1942 and 1945 leads us to triangulate it to around 1946. Don't quote us on it.
Edit: Some sources have since claimed the photo was made for Gray's 1949 film The Hidden Room, but we've found one with a press sticker on the flipside and it says this:
Just right for informal evening wear is this emerald green jumper in fine silk with wool crepe with its well-cut simple black skirt and bright gold buttons; seen on Sally Gray appearing in the new Two Cities Film of Compton Mackenzie's "Carnival", starring Sally Gray and Michael Wilding, with Stanley Holloway and Bernard Miles; directed by Stanley Haynes at Denham Studios.
Carnival was a period movie in which Gray wore no modern wardrobe, so this is not a shot of her in character from the film. It may be one of those promos unassociated with any film. Actors shot sessions all the time just to keep their visual material current. However, in either case, Carnival was made in 1946, so our guess about the year was spot-on.
