GLORIA GRAHAME | THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL (1952) Portrait

[Los Angeles]: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, [1952]. Vintage original 8 x 10″ (20 x 25 cm.) black-and-white glossy silver gelatin photo. Verso includes two ink date stamps for April 2, 1952. There is also a “Return to Chronicle Morgue” stamp. Various notations in pencil also date it as 4-52 and contain instructions on where and how the image is to be used in the Sunday magazine feature. Photo is coded 7964 and “Gloria Grahame-Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer” etched into print negative. “Made in USA” printed at bottom right edge margin. Near fine.

Gloria Grahame was a bit of a free agent, working at various studios at the time when she landed the plumb role of Rosemary, beloved but distracting wife to writer James Lee Barwell (Dick Powell) in the Vincente Minnelli drama which some felt told too intimate a story of the real Hollywood. For her character, which was somewhat based on Zelda Fitzgerald, her performance (which lasts just 9 minutes, 32 seconds) is the shortest ever to win an Academy Award.