King Kong (1933) & Fay Wray: The Making of the Original Scream Queen — RKO, Damsels in Distress, and Hollywood's Impossible Spectacle

When They Were Making It

This episode chronicles Fay Wray's journey from a poverty-stricken childhood in Canada to becoming Hollywood's original scream queen, anchored by her iconic role in the 1933 RKO production of King Kong.

Key takeaways

• Fay Wray won a newspaper subscription contest at age 12 that led to her first screen test, launching her path to Hollywood.
• Erich von Stroheim cast the 18-year-old Wray as Mitzi in The Wedding March, giving her her first major leading role and rigorous acting training.
• RKO associate producer Merian C. Cooper repurposed footage from the abandoned film Creation to pitch King Kong, leveraging Willis O'Brien's stop-motion dinosaur models.
• The production filmed test reels using a borrowed jungle set from The Most Dangerous Game, combining miniature effects with live actors via traveling matte technology.
• Wray performed her famous screams against blank backgrounds and rear projection screens, later recording an
• in post-production for editors to layer throughout the film.

Main topics

• Fay Wray's early life and career
• The making of King Kong (1933)
• Willis O'Brien stop-motion animation

Notable quotes

"I used to resent King Kong, but now I don't fight it anymore. I realize that it is a classic, and I am pleased to be associated with it."

Conclusion

The episode demonstrates how King Kong evolved from a precarious studio

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) A quick content note before we begin. This episode includes brief discussion of inappropriate behavior toward a minor and suicide. These moments are handled with care, but we wanted to give you a heads up. Also, just a reminder that every episode of When They Were Making It is built to bring you into the story from the beginning. You don't need to know King Kong, Fay Wray, or any of the other people behind the film to enjoy the episode. Thank you. Speaker 1 (0:36) Culver City, California. Spring 1932. Inside Stage 12 at Archaeopath A Studios, a jungle has taken over. Fog hangs over a shallow swamp. Artificial rock rises toward the rafters. There's a cave, a ravine crossed by a huge log, tropical trees crowding in from every side. A woman and a man are running through this jungle. They're panicked, breathless, and seemingly running out of places to go. Because somewhere behind them, in the dark beyond the trees, is a monster. And they are the prey. The film they're making is called The Most Dangerous Game. It's an RKO thriller about a Russian aristocrat, the monster in question, who hunts shipwrecked strangers through the jungle for sport. Made quickly, three weeks on the schedule, a little over $200,000 on the budget, it's the kind of picture Fay Wray, the woman running through the jungle, knows well. Ray is 24. By now, she has appeared in dozens of pictures, comedies, melodramas, westerns, and thrillers just like this. The following year, she will have 11 more pictures released. The Most Dangerous Game is just another film on a crowded schedule, and there's no reason to think it will be anything more than that. Except, It's not the only film using this jungle. Around the edges of the shooting day, a second crew begins to gather on stage 12. The picture's associate producer, Marion C. Cooper, has been trying to persuade RKO to take a chance on another project. He needs a test reel, just a few minutes of film, to do it. So he's been borrowing Fay Wray to help him with this project. The jungle is still there, the swamp, the cave, the trees crowding in on every side. But for a little while, it will belong to another island. Cooper is not shooting a feature. Not officially. The project has no approved budget and no final title. On the studio books, it is Production 601. Its first working title was The Beast. Shooting starts on this second project. The camera finds Ray in the jungle again, a blonde wig now covering her brown hair. And this time, the monster she's in fear of is not a man. It's an ape. One that actually isn't there. Eventually, when the second crew is finished with her, Ray will take off the wig and go back to the most dangerous game. Back to a packed schedule, a long day on set, and the relentless rhythm of an established working actress's career. Well, not exactly. What seems, at the time, to be only a few borrowed hours in the middle of another picture, is in fact... something else. Something much bigger. Something that will eventually change her life, whether she likes it or not. Fay Wray doesn't know it yet, but she's just filmed test footage for the picture that will one day make her immortal. And it won't be called The Beast. Speaker 1 (5:08) Welcome to When They Were Making It. I'm your host, Patrick Rankin, and this is the podcast that dives deep into the glorious, often messy, and utterly human stories behind Hollywood's greatest films and the legends who created them. To begin our October Halloween run, we're exploring the making of King Kong and the life of its leading lady, Faye Ray. King Kong, the extraordinary RKO production that turned one film, one young actress, and one giant ape into movie history, helped redefine what movie spectacle could be, and helped transform Fay Wray into Hollywood's original screen queen. Speaker 1 (6:02) Veena Faye Ray was born on September 15, 1907, on a ranch outside Cardston, Alberta, Canada. She was known simply as Faye. Her name, Veena, came from her mother, Elveena Marguerite Jones, the daughter of a prominent Mormon family in Salt Lake City. Faye's father, Joseph Heber Ray, had been born in Hull, England, but had come to America as a child, and ended up in Utah. Faye's parents had both been married before. Elvina had left her own marriage for Joseph, and together they had gone north to Alberta to start again. For two Latter-day Saints, it was a scandal. But in southern Alberta, far from Salt Lake City, they made a home for themselves. They bought 156 acres of land outside Cardston. Joseph built a large two-story house and a sawmill. At the gate, the name of the property was carved into a stone, Rayland. By the time Faye was born, there were already three other children in the family, her older brother Vivian, and her sisters Veda and Willow. The family had land. They had a house. They had the sawmill. This was not a poor childhood. Not yet. But it wasn't exactly an easy life. The winters could be punishing. Faye would later remember being snowed in for weeks at a time. Her father, she said, didn't really know that much about farming. Her mother was too genteel to be a country wife. And, gradually, the family began to come apart. Alvina struggled with depression, made worse by the isolation and the long winters. Joseph sent her to a hospital, and the children were placed with local families while she was away. Faye was still only a toddler. For a time, she lived with a local doctor's family. When Elvina came home, she found her children scattered across Cardston. The family did not stay at Rayland much longer. In about 1910, Joseph sold the ranch and the sawmill and took them south, first to Mesa, Arizona. He tried farming again. It failed. After a few years, the family moved back to Salt Lake City. By then, there were six Ray children. Faye's two younger brothers, Richard and Victor, had been born. Now, Joseph was often away looking for work. Alvina took whatever she could find, including sewing. There was simply not enough food to eat, and the children were often left hungry. When Victor had been born, Alvina reportedly gave the doctor her wedding ring as payment. This was where Faye's real childhood began. In a crowded household with very little money, and a family trying to hold itself together. By 1914, that family was moving again. Joseph had found work in Lark, Utah, a small copper mill town southwest of Salt Lake City. Faye was now about six years old. Lark was a company town, built around the mine and the mill. There wasn't much there. But there was one thing Faye remembered. A local pool hall had been turned into a makeshift cinema, a projector, a bed sheet for a screen, and a piano player. It was there that Faye saw films by Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd, and Mary Pickford. For her, the films were an escape. from a life that was getting harder around her. The mill burned down, Joseph lost his job, and this time Elvina did not follow him when he left to look for work. She took the children back to Salt Lake City, and Faye's parents separated. Now the family was truly poor. Elvina sewed dresses, the children began taking whatever work they could find. In January 1920, when Faye was 12, Her older sister, Veda, died of influenza and pneumonia. It was one more hardship in a family that had already known its share. But that same year brought Faye some brightness. The Salt Lake Telegram announced a subscription drive. The prize, for the person who sold the most subscriptions, was a motion picture screen test. Faye entered, and she won. The test was, by one account, filmed at the county courthouse. Faye sat on a bench holding a bouquet of red roses and was told to look upward. The whole thing ended up being a publicity stunt for the newspaper. But it was the first time Faye had stood in front of a camera. And it set in stone something that had begun years earlier, in that converted pool hall in Lark. Faye Ray want it to be in the movies. The screen test would not be her way in. Faye went back to the telegram and took a small job stuffing envelopes. Her way in came the following year, through her older sister, Willow. Or, more accurately, Willow's fiancé. His name was William Mortensen. He was 24 years old, an art teacher and photographer who had studied in New York, traveled through Greece, and was now planning to go to Hollywood himself. Mortensen told Elvina that he could take Faye with him and help her get into pictures. It was an unusual arrangement. Faye was 13 going on 14. Willow was supposed to be the one engaged to Mortensen. But Faye wanted to be in the movies. Mortensen was going to Los Angeles. And Elvina agreed. So, in 1921, Fay Wray got on a train to Hollywood with her older sister's fiancé. It did not take long for the arrangement to become something else. On the journey, Mortensen told Faye he was in love with her. Not Faye's sister, Willow. Faye. In Los Angeles, Mortensen took Faye around the studios and also photographed her, supposedly to help her find work. He also began crossing boundaries. Faye recalled him touching her body without consent and coming into her room and lying beside her. On another occasion, Faye spent a weekend at the home of a producer Mortensen knew. Late one night, someone tried to enter her room. and she had to push a chest of drawers against the door to keep it shut. All the while, Mortensen continued taking photographs of her. At the beach, in a swimsuit, posed as he said a young actress should be posed. About a year later, Alvina moved to Los Angeles herself. She had been warned by a spiritualist that Mortensen was dangerous. When she saw the photographs Mortensen had taken of her daughter, she went straight to his studio and demanded the negatives. Mortensen handed over the glass plates, and Elvina smashed them. Faye was not to see him again. For a time, Elvina took her out of school and kept her close to home. But Faye eventually returned. First, by one account, to 30th Street Junior High, then to Hollywood High. And in 1923, she found her way into the movies for real. Like a lot of young people in Hollywood, she'd begun making the rounds. Photographs and a resume in hand. looking for anyone who might give her a chance. At 16, she got one. Century Comedies, a small studio making two real shorts, put her to work. First, by one account, as a Charleston dancing clown. Then, in a picture called Gasoline Love. Neither was big, but Faye was in the movies. More small parts followed. And in about 1925, Faye signed a six-month contract at Howe Roach Studios. The pay was $60 a week. As Faye would later put it, it was heavenly. Because now, not only was she on screen, she was making money that actually helped her family. Faye appeared in small parts in roach comedies, working with people like Charlie Chase and Stan Laurel. The work was not glamorous, but it was regular. She rented a small house for the family to live in, and she bought a second-hand car to get herself to the studio, sometimes giving other actresses rides as well. When the Roach contract ended, Faye began working at Universal, where she was offered a little more money and a lot more work. She made routine westerns opposite Hoot Gibson, Art Acord, and Jack Hoxie, learned to ride, and began doing some of the horseback work herself. By 1926, Faye had already appeared in more than a dozen shorts and features. Two real comedies, westerns, and whatever work came her way. Most of the parts were small. Some went uncredited. But Faye was no longer just the girl with the tiny part in a comedy short. Hollywood started to notice her. One of the groups paying attention was the Western Association of Motion Picture Advertisers, better known as WAMPAS. Almost each year, WAMPAS selected a group of young actresses it believed might become the next generation of stars. They called them Baby Stars. In 1926, Faye was chosen alongside Joan Crawford, Mary Astor, Dolores Del Rio and her friend, Janet Gaynor, one of the actresses she would sometimes carpool to the studios with. It wasn't an award for acting, it was a publicity campaign. But it put Faye's face in the trade papers and movie magazines, alongside the other young women Hollywood was betting on. Janet Gaynor would go on to make a Fox film called Sunrise. It would, as Faye put it, make her a star almost overnight. Faye watched it happen, and she wanted the same thing. But Wampus didn't get Faye the job she really wanted. Faye did. Later that year, Erich von Stroheim was preparing an enormous picture about pre-war Vienna called The Wedding March. He wanted a fresh face to play the female lead, Mitzi. Faye was 18. Her agent told her she was the wrong type. Too tall, too brunette, not the petite blonde Stroheim was said to want. Faye went after the part anyway. She later remembered Stroheim pacing around the room, telling her the story of the film. Finally, he stopped and asked if she thought she could play Mitzi. Faye said, I know I can. Stroheim extended his hand. Goodbye, Mitzi. She'd gotten the part. For Faye, it was a different kind of opportunity from anything she had known before. She had made westerns and two real comedies. Now she was being cast as the leading lady in an expensive, ambitious picture by one of the most demanding directors in Hollywood. The wedding march began filming in the summer of 1926. Mitzi was the daughter of an innkeeper who falls in love with a prince, played by Stroheim himself. It was melodramatic, it was romantic, and Stroheim intended to make every piece of film look real. And there would be a lot of pieces of film. Because Eric von Stroheim had a reputation. He was one of the most admired directors in Hollywood, but also one of its most difficult. By now, he was known for productions that ran long and cost too much. He shot far more footage than anyone thought reasonable, then took far longer than anyone expected to finish. The wedding march would prove to be no different. Stroheim built pre-war Vienna on the studio lot. There were dozens of sets, including a replica of St. Stephen's Cathedral. The Imperial Guard uniforms in the production were constructed meticulously to look like the real thing. Even the apple blossoms in one orchard had been made by hand. Filming had begun in June 1926. It was still going eight months later. Stroheim would shoot scenes again and again, sometimes 30 or 40 times. So by then, he'd exposed some 200,000 feet of negative. Fay Wray was in the middle of all of it. And she loved it. It was a kind of work she hadn't known before. Stroheim was pushing her for feeling, for detail, for the things inside a performance. not just for laughs or stunts or to look pretty. Years later, Faye would say she never had another director quite like him. She would also admit she fell a little in love with Stroheim, too. Puppy love, she called it. Though, she said, he never tried to seduce her. But whatever Faye felt about the arrangement, the people paying for it did not agree. The film was becoming too expensive to continue. By January 1927, producer Pat Powers had had enough. After eight months of shooting, he stopped production. The wedding march was still unfinished. The budget had climbed past a million dollars, by Powers' count. Paramount stepped in and took control of the picture. And Faye Ray. In February 1927, she became a Paramount contract player. The wedding march was still more than a year away from reaching theaters. But Faye had gone. in the space of one extraordinary production, from lackluster film to lackluster film, to being part of one of the biggest studios in Hollywood. Paramount began putting Faye to work almost immediately. It was the beginning of a three-year run in which she would make around 25 more features. Her first major assignment was The Legion of the Condemned, an aviation drama directed by William Wellman and starring Gary Cooper in one of his first leading roles. It not only brought Ray another starring role, but something else. The script had been written by a rising Paramount screenwriter named John Monk Saunders. Saunders had already made a name for himself with Wings, the World War I epic that would win the first Academy Award for Best Picture. Ray reportedly met him at a party given by Pat Powers. To her, Saunders was successful, intelligent, and part of a more glamorous, established Hollywood than Ray had known. They began seeing each other, and soon, Ray was moving through that