page_title: Frank Fay (American actor)
section_title: Talkies
hierarchical_section_title: Frank Fay (American actor) / Talkies
caption_attribution_description: English: Lobby card for the 1940 film They Knew What They Wanted. Pictured are Charles Laughton, Carole Lombard and Frank Fay (the priest).
context_page_description: Frank Fay was an American vaudeville comedian and film and stage actor. For a time he was a well known and influential star, but he later fell into obscurity, in part because of his abrasive personality and fascist political views. He is considered an important pioneer in stand-up comedy. He played the role of "Elwood P. Dowd" in the Broadway play Harvey by the American playwright Mary Coyle Chase. He is best known as actress Barbara Stanwyck's first husband. Their troubled marriage is thought by some to be the basis of the 1937 film A Star Is Born, in which the previously unknown wife shoots to stardom while her husband's career goes into sharp decline. Fay was notorious for his bigotry and alcoholism, and according to the American Vaudeville Museum, "even when sober, he was dismissive and unpleasant, and he was disliked by most of his contemporaries".
  Although very talented, Fay offended most of the people he worked with because of his enormous ego. Former vaudevillian and radio star Fred Allen remarked, "The last time I saw him he was walking down Lover's Lane, holding his own hand."
context_section_description: When talkies arrived, Warner Bros. studio was eager to put him under contract along with a host of other famous stage personalities. Fay was cast as master of ceremonies in Warner Bros.' most expensive production of 1929, the all-star, all-talking revue The Show of Shows (1929). Based on the success of that film, Fay was quickly signed up for an all-Technicolor musical comedy entitled Under a Texas Moon (1930), in which he also displayed his singing abilities. The movie was a boxoffice success and made a hit of the theme song, also titled "Under a Texas Moon". Fay sang the theme song several times throughout the picture. Another expensive picture, Bright Lights (1930), an extravagant all-Technicolor musical, quickly followed. Fay also starred in The Matrimonial Bed (1930), a Pre-Code comedy in which he sang the song "Fleur d'Amour" twice. Fay quickly found himself associated with musical films, and this led to a decline in his popularity when public interest in musical films waned in 1931. In fact, in his next film, God's Gift to Women (1931), the musical sequences were cut for the American release, though they were retained for other countries. 
  Fay was always cast as a debonair lover, irresistible to women, and he frequently threw in suggestive jokes (e.g., on homosexuality and sex). His pre-Code risque humor did not bode well with the rising conservative movement ushered in by the Great Depression. Fay's performance in God's Gift to Women failed to get the rave reviews he had previously enjoyed. He attempted to produce his own picture in 1932 and struck a deal with Warner Bros. to have them release his film, A Fool's Advice. It failed, and resurfaced five years later as Meet the Mayor, with new titles prepared by the Warner Bros. studio. These new credits reflect the low regard Fay's professional colleagues had for him: his name appears in the smallest possible type as both star and author, with the supporting cast members' names more than twice the size of Fay's. Fay made only one more appearance for Warner, billed near the bottom of the cast in Stars over Broadway (1935), in which he presided over a radio amateur hour.
caption: L-R: Carole Lombard, Charles Laughton and Frank Fay in They Knew What They Wanted (1940)
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