Gaby Fay

Gaby, born Dorothy Fay Hammerton on September 26 1895, married to actor/producer David Clyde, appeared as a dancer on the British stage by the age of nine, and later turned to acting. Gaby Fay, who was the principal leading lady in many of the Players productions, bought a house for herself and David in Vancouver in 1930. From 1929 until November 1933, the British Guild Players defied the Depression, and competed with touring companies, radio, and talking pictures to produce current London and Broadway hits, often a new play every week. It seems clear that they left Vancouver only when talking pictures proved insurmountable. David and Gaby went to Hollywood in 1934, and he appeared that year in his first film Molly and Me. She worked with the Pasadena Playhouse.In 1936, two years after the couple moved to Hollywood, she made her screen debut. At first she was billed as Gaby Fay, which she soon changed to Fay Holden. For the next two decades she played supporting roles in numerous films, frequently cast as a warm, devoted mother. She is perhaps best remembered as Mickey Rooney’s wise and loving motherin the popular Andy Hardy series – and was selected by various groups as ‘the ideal American mother’. She was also selected for the Who’s Who of American Women. She retired from the screen after 1958, and died on June 23 1973 in Woodland Hills, California.