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 Death" (as ex-con Victor Mature's wife and Richard Widmark's target) and "Nightmare Alley" (as "Electra", Tyrone Power's wife and carnival performer). But she was lost in the male tide of Howard Hawks' western "Red River" (1948), and from there her career slid downhill quickly (her Fox contract ended in 1950).
Gray appeared in 24 films in the 1950s, for both major and Poverty Row studios. A good many were Westerns ("Apache Drums", 1951; "Arrow in the Dust", 1954; "The Black Whip", 1956) and crime melodramas ("Kansas City Confidential", 1952; "Las Vegas Shakedown", 1955; "The Killing", 1956). Among Gray's other films were "Father is a Bachelor" (1950), "Models, Inc." (1952), the enjoyable cult horror film "The Leech Woman" (1960), "The Phantom Planet" (1961) and "P.J." (1968). She made only one film in the 70s ("The Late Liz", 1971) and one in the 80s (the religious flick "Cry from the Mountain", produced by Billy Graham in 1986).
On TV, Gray had roles in the soaps "Days of Our Lives" and "Bright Promise" (both NBC), and appeared on "Pulitzer Prize Playhouse" (ABC), "Faith Baldwin's Theater of Romance" (ABC), "Bonanza" (NBC) and "Adam 12" (NBC), among others. She also had roles in the series "Window on Main Street" (1961-62), the TV-movie "Ellery Queen: Don't Look Behind You" (NBC, 1971) and the miniseries "The Best Place to Be" (NBC, 1979).