Frances Dee
Frances Marion Dee (November 26, 1909 – March 6, 2004) was an American actress. She was born in Los Angeles and moved with her family to Chicago when she was seven. After high school and two years at the University of Chicago, she returned to California. She started as a movie extra and got her big break starring opposite Maurice Chevalier in Playboy of Paris (1930).
Dee appeared in An American Tragedy (1931), Little Women (1933), Becky Sharp (1935), and the horror film I Walked With a Zombie (1943). She also co-starred with her husband Joel McCrea in Four Faces West (1948) and retired after Gypsy Colt (1953).
She met Joel McCrea on the set of The Silver Cord (1933). They married on October 20, 1933, and had three children, including Jody McCrea. The couple lived on a ranch in California and donated land to the Conejo Valley YMCA in Thousand Oaks. Dee was a Republican. Joel McCrea died in 1990 on their 57th wedding anniversary. Frances Dee McCrea died in Norwalk, Connecticut, on March 6, 2004, at age 94 after a stroke. In 1998 she was honored at the Memphis Film Festival.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 07:18 (CET).