King Kong actress Wray dies, aged 96

The Empire State Building - the skyscraper that King Kong scaled while holding tight to Fay Wray - yesterday dimmed its lights for 15 minutes in honour of the actress who died on Sunday.

Wray died quietly in her sleep at her Manhattan apartment, said Rick McKay, a friend and director of the 2003 documentary Broadway: The Golden Age, the last film she appeared in. She was 96.

Wray tried to wrestle free from the giant gorilla’s grip onscreen in the 1933 classic King Kong. In the years that followed, she yearned to shake the ape’s prestigious shadow.