Mildred Shay

Mildreds star shone for what seemed like a split second and yet she knew everybody in town and the whole of tinsel town knew Mildred Shay. Adrian, Hollywoods premiere costumer made all her gowns and a pair of false breasts. She worked with, and unlike the rest of Hollywood got on with Joan Crawford despite the fact that as Helene, the French maid to Crystal Allen (Crawford) in George Cukors The Women 1939, Mildred Shay stole every scene. She dated eligible bachelors in Hollywood and married three of them. Errol Flynn, naked but for his shirt and sock garters, held her captive in his apartment before she succumbed to his advances. Cecil B DeMille wine and dined her at his Paradise Ranch, feeding her oysters, complete with the pearls still attached. Born into Palm Beach money, Mildred was educated at a Swiss school for genteel ladies in France. At fourteen her wealthy New York lawyer Father Joseph A. Shay brought Mildred and her younger sister to London. From London the family returned to their chateaux in Nice, then moved to Florence before finally settling in California. Mildred's father had taken up work acting on behalf of the Hollywood powerbrokers at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, United Artists and Fox. So it was living in the heart of Hollywood that young Mildred rang her father and told him that she wanted to be an actress. Within weeks Mildred was making her first screen test for MGM. Her first assignment was dubbing for Greta Garbo in Grand Hotel (1932). Later she played in The Women (1939) as well as Balalaika (1939) with Nelson Eddy, and All Women Have Secrets (1939). The following year Mildred headed East to New York where she appeared on Broadway. It was whilst in New York Mildred met and then eloped with Winthrop Gardner Junior, one of Americas finest and wealthiest bachelors. Gardner suffocated her with diamonds and furs. Walter Winchell jested on being shown an enormous gem, Mildred you could house Manhattan on that rock! As long as Mildred stayed in Hollywood she was always going to make headlines. She had a torrid affair with Victor Mature and Roy Rogers. In 1940 she met Geoffrey Steele, an army Captain in the Blue and Royals, they married the following year. With motherhood, Mildred gave up her career, only to return in 1974 with a starring role in The Great Gatsby. Two years later, and Mildred was asked by Ken Russell to appear in his new film Valentino (1976). At 91, she shows no signs of retirement. Mildred has just recently been photographed alongside Kevin Spacey, Catherine Zeta Jones, Shirley Temple, Kirk Douglas and Stephen Fry for an exhibition of film actors to be held in London and Beverly Hills over Oscar week 2004.