Kay Francis

 Kay Francis (January 13, 1905 – August 26, 1968)

After a brief period on Broadway in the late 1920s, she moved to film and achieved her greatest success between 1930 and 1936, when she was the number one female star at the Warner Brothers studio, and the highest-paid American film actress. She appeared in George Cukor's Girls About Town (1931) and Twenty-Four Hours (1931). After Kay's career skyrocketed at Warner Bros., she would return to where her career began at Paramount for Ernst Lubitsch's Trouble in Paradise (1932). From the years 1930 - 1937, Francis appeared on the covers of 38 film magazines, the most for any adult performer and second only to Shirley Temple who appeared on 138 covers during that period. Unfortunately, in 1938 Francis appeared on a list of stars nicknamed "Box Office Poison". Others on the list included Mae West, Katharine Hepburn, Greta Garbo, Fred Astaire, Marlene Dietrich, and Dolores del Río. After her release from Warners, Francis was unable to secure another studio contract. Through help from friends in Hollywood, such as Carole Lombard, she was able to find roles in different movies through World War II. She her own against Rosalind Russell in The Feminine Touch, for example—and mothers opposite rising young stars such as Deanna Durbin. Francis did have a lead role in the Bogart gangster film King of the Underworld, released in 1939. In 1966, Francis was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a mastectomy, but the cancer had spread and proved fatal. She died in 1968 at age 63, and was cremated.