Fay Wray & King Kong (1933): The Making of the Original Scream Queen — RKO, Damsels in Distress, and Hollywood's Impossible Spectacle

The first in our October Halloween series: four weeks of classic Hollywood's darker, stranger, and more monstrous stories.

Fay Wray was already one of Hollywood's busiest young leading ladies when RKO cast her in King Kong. She had risen from Hal Roach shorts and the WAMPAS Baby Stars to Erich von Stroheim's The Wedding March, then made a name in the fast, precarious world of early-1930s pictures.

This episode follows Wray from her poverty-stricken childhood in Canada and early years in Hollywood through the silent era, Paramount, multiple leading lady roles, The Most Dangerous Game, and the extraordinary production that put her in the hand of a giant ape.

Alongside Wray's story is the making of that production, King Kong: Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack's grand RKO gamble, Willis O'Brien's stop-motion effects, Ruth Rose's screenplay, Max Steiner's score, the Empire State Building, and the film's event-scale 1933 release.

King Kong made Fay Wray famous in a way no other role did — but not immediately in the way Hollywood stardom is supposed to work. Over the decades, through reissues, television, and the film's growing reputation, one job among many came to define her public life — whether she wanted it to or not.

From the original film's influence on Godzilla to the 1976 remake with Jessica Lange and Peter Jackson’s 2005 version with Naomi Watts, this is the story of Fay Wray, King Kong, and the image that made them both immortal.

New episodes of When They Were Making It drop every Tuesday. Follow now wherever you get your podcasts.

WTWMI is written, produced, and hosted by Patrick Rankin. Original artwork by Simone Beech and original music by Lionel Ziblat.