Frances Dee

Frances Marion Dee, born November 26, 1909, in Los Angeles, California, was an American actress whose career spanned film and stage. Her father, Francis "Frank" Marion Dee, worked as a civil service examiner in Los Angeles. She was the younger of two daughters. When Dee was seven, the family relocated to Chicago, Illinois, where she attended Shakespeare Grammar School and Hyde Park High School. At Hyde Park High, she was known by the nickname Frankie Dee, served as vice president of her senior class, and was voted Belle of the Year upon graduating in 1927. She subsequently enrolled at the University of Chicago, participating in dramatic activities during her two years there before returning to California.

Her entry into film came by chance. Following her sophomore year in 1929, she traveled with her mother and older sister to visit family in the Los Angeles area and began taking work as a movie extra. While still working as an extra, she was offered the lead role opposite Maurice Chevalier in the musical Playboy of Paris (1930). Early appearances alongside Paramount stars Charles "Buddy" Rogers and Richard Arlen built her audience profile and led to the co-starring role of Sondra Finchley in Paramount's An American Tragedy (1931), directed by Josef von Sternberg, in which she appeared opposite Phillips Holmes and Sylvia Sidney. She went on to appear in Little Women (1933), Of Human Bondage, Becky Sharp (1935), June Moon, and Payment on Demand. She is also recognized for her role in the Val Lewton psychological horror film I Walked With a Zombie (1943). Dee co-starred with her husband Joel McCrea in the Western Four Faces West (1948) and retired from film following the production of Gypsy Colt in 1953.

In addition to her film work, Dee appeared on Broadway in 1945 in The Secret Room.

Dee met actor Joel McCrea during the filming of The Silver Cord in 1933, and the two married on October 20 of that year. They remained married for 57 years until McCrea's death in 1990, which occurred on their wedding anniversary. Together they raised their children and kept horses on a ranch in what was then an unincorporated area of eastern Ventura County, California. The couple donated several hundred acres of their property to the newly formed Conejo Valley YMCA for the city of Thousand Oaks, California. Both Dee and McCrea were Republicans. Dee was honored at the 1998 Memphis Film Festival in Tennessee. She died on March 6, 2004, in Norwalk, Connecticut, from complications following a stroke, at the age of 94.