Frances Dee

The younger daughter of Francis "Frank" Marion Dee and his wife, the former Henriette Putnam, Frances Marion Dee was born in Los Angeles, California, where her father worked as a civil service examiner.Her birth name is given as Frances Marion Dee in the California Birth Index, 1905-1995, accessed via ancestry.com on January 13, 2011Frank Dee's occupation is given in the 1910 U.S. Federal Census for Los Angeles, California, in which he is listed with his wife, Henriette, and daughters Margaret and Frances. In the 1920 U.S. Federal Census for Chicago, Illinois, Frank Dee is listed as an employment manager at a packing company. In the 1930 U.S. Federal Census for Indianapolis, Indiana, he was living as a lodger in a boarding house and working as a secretary at a public utility. All census records accessed on ancestry.com on January 13, 2011.

When Dee was seven years old, her family moved to Chicago, Illinois.{{cite news|last1=Soanes|first1=Wood|date=June 17, 1934|title=Frances Dee and Joel McCrea See Future Felicity and Freedom Upon Ranch When Studios Begin to Pall|newspaper=Oakland Tribune |page=39|agency=Oakland Tribune|location=California, Oakland|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/4673193/oakland_tribune/|access-date=March 19, 2016|via=Newspapers.com}} {{Open access}} She attended Shakespeare Grammar School and Hyde Park High School, where she went by the nickname of Frankie Dee.{{Citation needed |date=December 2023}}

After graduating from Hyde Park High in 1927, of which she was vice president of her senior class, as well as voted Belle of the Year, she spent two years at the University of Chicago, where she participated in dramatic activities, then returned to California.

File:FrancesDeeinBeckySharp.jpg (1935)]]

Following her sophomore year in 1929, she went on summer vacation with her mother and older sister to visit family in the Los Angeles area. She began working as a movie extra as a lark. Her big break came when she was still an extra; she was offered the lead opposite Maurice Chevalier in Playboy of Paris.

The audience appeal established in two films opposite Paramount stars Charles "Buddy" Rogers and Richard Arlen led to the co-starring role of Sondra Finchley, opposite Phillips Holmes and Sylvia Sidney, in Paramount Pictures's prestigious and controversial production of An American Tragedy, directed by Josef von Sternberg.

Dee's additional screen credits included June Moon, Little Women, Of Human Bondage, Becky Sharp, and Payment on Demand. She co-starred with her husband Joel McCrea in the Western Four Faces West (1948).

Dee met actor Joel McCrea on the set of the 1933 film The Silver Cord.{{cite news|last1=Bowers|first1=Emilie|title=Charming Frances Dee|newspaper=Oakland Tribune |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/4672988/oakland_tribune/|agency=Oakland Tribune|date=March 3, 1935|location=California, Oakland|page=59|via = Newspapers.com|access-date = March 19, 2016}} {{Open access}} The couple married on October 20, 1933, after a whirlwind courtship, and remained married until McCrea's death in 1990. During their lifetime together, the McCreas lived, raised their children, and rode their horses on their ranch in what was then an unincorporated area of eastern Ventura County, California.{{cite news|url=http://www.vcstar.com/story/news/local/communities/conejo-valley/2018/02/07/mccrea-familys-hollywood-legacy-lives-conejo-ranch/997848001/|title=McCrea family's Hollywood legacy lives on at Conejo ranch|newspaper=Ventura County Star|first=Robyn |last=Flans|date= February 7, 2018|access-date=8 February 2018}} They ultimately donated several hundred acres of their personal property to the newly formed Conejo Valley YMCA for the city of Thousand Oaks, California. Dee, like McCrea, was a Republican.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QfHXAAAAQBAJ&q=Kathryn+Grayson+Republican&pg=PA173|title=When Hollywood Was Right: How Movie Stars, Studio Moguls, and Big Business Remade American Politics|first=Donald T.|last=Critchlow|date=October 21, 2013|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=9780521199186|via=Google Books}} Joel McCrea died on their 57th wedding anniversary.

Dee was honored at the 1998 Memphis Film Festival in Tennessee.{{Cite web|url=http://www.westernclippings.com/festivalfotos/filmfestivalfotos_20.shtml|title=Western Film Festival Photos--Gallery 9|website=www.westernclippings.com}} In 2004, Frances Dee McCrea died in Norwalk, Connecticut due to complications from a stroke at the age of 94.{{Cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/news/2004/mar/10/guardianobituaries.film1|title=Obituary: Frances Dee|first=Ronald|last=Bergan|newspaper=The Guardian |date=March 10, 2004|via=www.theguardian.com}}

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• {{IMDb name|0214168}}
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• [http://www.francesdeemccrea.com/ francesdeemccrea.com]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20060616083903/http://eeweems.com/val_lewton/cast_dee.html Frances Dee] Biography and obituary
• [http://film.virtual-history.com/person.php?personid=302 Photographs of Frances Dee]

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Category:1909 births

Category:2004 deaths

Category:20th-century American actresses

Category:21st-century American actresses

Category:Actresses from Norwalk, Connecticut

Category:American film actresses

Category:University of Chicago alumni

Category:Actresses from Chicago

Category:Actresses from Los Angeles

Category:California Republicans