Sally Gray

For the British television presenter, see Sally Gray (television presenter).

Sally Gray
Born	Constance Vera Stevens 14 February 1916(1916-02-14) Holloway, London, England
Died	24 September 2006(2006-09-24) (aged 90) London, England
Other names	Dowager Lady Oranmore and Browne
Years active	1930–1952
Spouse	Dominick Browne, 4th Baron Oranmore and Browne (1951–2002) his death

Constance Vera Browne, Baroness Oranmore and Browne (14 February 1916 – 24 September 2006), commonly known as Sally Gray, was an English movie actress of the 1930s and 1940s.

Her mother was a ballet dancer and her grandmother was a "principal boy" in the 1870s. Born Constance Vera Stevens in Holloway, London, Gray made her stage debut at the age of twelve in All God's Chillun at the Globe Theatre in London, playing a little black boy.

She then went back to school for two years, training at Fay Compton’s School of Dramatic Art and then became well established in the theatre before embarking on a series of light comedies, musicals and thrillers in the 1930s.

Gray began in films in her teens with a bit part in School for Scandal (1930) and returned in 1935, making nearly twenty films, culminating in her sensitive role in Brian Desmond Hurst’s romantic melodrama Dangerous Moonlight (1941). She was off the screen for several years owing to an alleged nervous breakdown and then returned in 1946 to make her strongest bid for stardom.

This latter involved a series of melodramas. They include the hospital thriller Green for Danger (1946), Carnival (1946), and The Mark of Cain (1948). She made two films that, in different ways, capture some of the essence of postwar Britain: Alberto Cavalcanti's They Made Me a Fugitive (1947) (as a gangster's moll) and the stagebound Silent Dust (1948). She also appeared in Edward Dmytryk's film noir piece Obsession (1949), in which she plays Robert Newton’s faithless wife. Her final film was the spy yarn Escape Route (1952).

RKO Executives, impressed with Gray, authorized producer William Sistrom to offer her a long-term contract if she would move to the United States. John Paddy Carstairs, director of The Saint in London, also thought she could be a star. However, she declined the offer and instead retired in 1952 after secretly marrying Dominick Browne, 4th Baron Oranmore and Browne and lived in County Mayo, Ireland. In the early 1960s, they returned to England and settled in a flat in Eaton Place, Belgravia, in London. They had no children.

Selected filmography

• School for Scandal (1930)
• The Dictator (1935)
• Cafe Colette (1937)
• Lightning Conductor (1938)
• Over She Goes (1938)
• Sword of Honour (1939)
• The Lambeth Walk (1939)
• Dangerous Moonlight (1941)
• Green for Danger (1946)
• Obsession (1949)
• Escape Route (1952)

References

Film Star Who's Who on the Screen 1938.

External links

• Sally Gray at the Internet Movie Database
• Obituary in the Daily Telegraph
• Obituary in The Independent