Coleen Gray Movies and Career Information

Coleen Gray (born October 23, 1922) is an American movie and television actress born in Staplehurst, Nebraska. She is known for her roles in the films Nightmare Alley (1947), the frontispiece of Red River (1948), in which she played John Wayne's character's fiancée, and Stanley Kubrick's The Killing (1956). Born Doris Jensen, Gray was a farmer's daughter from Nebraska. After graduating from high school, she studied dramatics at Hamline University, graduating with a bachelor of arts degree. She then decided to see America and traveled to California, stopping at La Jolla, where she worked in a restaurant as a waitress. After several weeks there, she moved to Los Angeles and enrolled in a drama school. She had several leading roles in the Los Angeles stage productions Letters to Lucerne and Brief Music, which won her a 20th Century Fox contract in 1944. After initially playing a bit part in State Fair (1945), she became pregnant and briefly stopped working, only to return a year later as the love interest of John Wayne in Red River (1948), which was shot in 1946 but held for release until 1948, by which time she had already graduated to leading roles in films noir like Kiss of Death