Don's Blog: Clay Shaw and the Actress Kay Francis

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Wednesday, August 25, 2021

Clay Shaw and the Actress Kay Francis

Clay Shaw knew the actress Kay Francis, who was a big film star during the first half of the 1930s. Her career plateaued during the second half of the 1930s, and declined from there forward. She struggled with alcohol and Rx drug issues and died at a relatively early age during the 1960s.

While researching Man of a Million Fragments: The True Story of Clay Shaw, I was told by at least one person that Shaw knew Francis, but I never resolved the facts of how they met, and how well they knew each other.

I recently found a website that summarizes entries from diaries that Kay Francis kept for decades. Those summaries reveal that Francis, who traveled frequently and widely in those years, had been to New Orleans in the late 1920s where she pursues a romantic (or physical) relationship with another woman. The affair didn't last long, and it is unclear whether she knew Clay Shaw that early.

However, an entry from 1953 revealed that Francis visited with Clay Shaw (and others) on a visit to New Orleans. Perhaps the actual diaries reveal more detail. They are located at Wesleyan University.

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