1940s Film Poster

Sally Gray

22 x 28 inches

A chromolithographed film star poster published in London towards the end of the 1940s.

As the dark days of World War II receded the population of England in the late 1940s turned to the cinema for light relief and a sense of glamour. Who could have been more glamorous than the sultry beauty, Sally Gray, doyenne of the British stage and screen in the 1930s and resurgent starlet in the booming film industry of the late 40s?

Like so many young hopefuls before her, Sally Gray was born into humble stock in London; her parents were a cabbie and a ballet dancer. Her talent and good looks soon propelled her onto the stage. The movie studios were quick to spot her ample gifts, film parts followed and comparisons were made with her more famous counterparts in Hollywood. At the peak of her career she was known as the British Ginger Rogers. Looking at this poster and the vibrancy of her green velvet dress we can perhaps assume that the poster coincided with her first big post-war film that came out in 1946, "Green for Danger".

Sally's charms caught the eye of an Anglo-Irish aristocrat, Baron Oranmore and Brown. The couple were married in 1951 and moved to Ireland but the lure of the West End was ever present and they returned to London in the swinging 60s where Sally lived until her death in 2006.