This Minnesota farm girl made a good start in movies in the late 1940s, but her career quickly peaked. After graduating from college in the Midwest, the former choir singer hit Los Angeles, doing odd jobs until several leading roles in L.A. stage productions ("Letters to Lucerne", "Brief Music") won her a 20th Century-Fox contract in 1944. At first, though, she was relegated to bits in such films as "State Fair" (1945), "Margie" (1946) and "The Shocking Miss Pilgrim" (1947), while attending the studio's "starlet school".Finally, Gray made good impressions in two 1947 films noir: "Kiss of
