Fay Wray in King Kong

Vina Fay Wray's was born in Alberta, Canada. Her family moved from Canada to California where she eventually went to Hollywood High School. Inn 1923, she started to work in movies, primarily in Universal Westerns. Erich von Stroheim rescued her from her popular cowgirl image with a featured role in The Wedding March in 1926 when she was nineteen. She continued s to work steadily through the 1930s, and into the early 1940s. Later, in the 1950s, she returned for occasional character roles.

Fay was Hollywood's first "scream queen" after made the thrillers Doctor X (1932), Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933), The Vampire Bat (1933), and, of course, the biggest scream-fest of all - King Kong (1933) which saved RKO from bankruptcy Wray was paid $10,000 dollars to play the role of Ann Darrow, the gorilla's fatal love interest.The film was a commercial success. Wray was reportedly proud that the film saved RKO from bankruptcy.Wray's portray would become the iconic role with which she would always be remembered.

She is referenced twice in The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) when Frank-N-Furter says, 'Whatever happened to Fay Wray/that delicate, satin-draped frame/as it clung to her thigh, how I started to cry/cause I wanted to be dressed just the same'; and in the opening song: 'then something went wrong/for Fay Wray and King Kong/they got caught in a celluloid jam'.

On The 70th Annual Academy Awards (1998). Billy Crystal introduced a clip of her in King Kong and then came offstage and stood next to Fay in the audience, and introduced her as the "Beauty who charmed the Beast, the Legendary Fay Wray".

In 2004, Fay was approached by director Peter Jackson to appear in a small cameo for the 2005 remake of King Kong. Before filming of the remake commenced, however, she died in her sleep on August 8, 2004. On August 10, 2004 , the lights on the Empire State Building in New York City (scene of the climax from King Kong) were dimmed for 15 minutes in her memory.

So dim the lights on Fay's birthday and watch King Kong while baking some gorilla bread .Gorilla Bread also called “Affenbrot” (German, literally meaning “ape bread"), is a breakfast buns similar to monkey bread, which was popularized by Paula Dean when she served it to Jimmy Carter on her television show in 2005. The primary difference between the two is the cream cheese in the Gorilla bread.

Gorilla Bread

Ingredients

1/2 cup granulated sugar
3 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup butter
2 ripe bananas

1 cup packed brown sugar
1 package (8-ounce size) cream cheese
2 cans (10-count size) refrigerated biscuits
1&1/2 cup coarsely chopped walnuts

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350º F.
2. Spray a Bundt pan with nonstick cooking spray. Mix the granulated sugar and cinnamon. In a saucepan, melt the
    butter and brown sugar over low heat, stirring well; set aside.
3. Cut the cream cheese into equal cubes. Press the biscuits out with your fingers and sprinkle each with 1/2
    teaspoon of cinnamon sugar.
4. Cut each banana into 10 slices. Place a banana slice and a cube of cream cheese in the center of each biscuit,
    wrapping and sealing the dough around the cream cheese.
4. Sprinkle 1/2 cup of the nuts into the bottom of the Bundt pan. Place half of the prepared biscuits in the pan.
    Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar, pour half of the melted butter mixture over the biscuits, and sprinkle on
    1/2 cup of nuts.
5. Layer the remaining biscuits on top, sprinkle with the remaining cinnamon sugar, pour the remaining butter
    mixture over thebiscuits, and sprinkle with the remaining 1/2 cup of nuts.
6. Bake for 50 minutes. Remove from the oven and cool for 5 minutes. Place a plate on top and invert.