‘King Kong’ star Fay Wray dies at 96

Fay Wray, who screamed her way into movie history as the apple of King Kong’s eye, has died. She was 96.

Wray died Sunday night at her home in New York City, according to Rick McKay, a close friend. No cause of death was reported.

“She was fairly active up until the end,” said McKay, who directed the documentary “Broadway: The Golden Age,” which included an interview with Wray. Her last public appearance was at the New York premiere of the film in June.

The Canadian-born Wray was already a silent screen and talkie star when at age 25 she was cast by director Merian C. Cooper as Ann Darrow – a.k.a. “the girl” – in the 1933 film “King Kong.”

Although she made about 80 movies, her fame as a co-star to a giant ape – she referred to her unrequited lover simply as “Kong” – far outlasted the notoriety she got from her films with the pantheon of Hollywood’s leading men, including Gary Cooper, Ronald Colman, Cary Grant, William Powell and Spencer Tracy.

For many years, Wray resisted the attention that came to her for her role opposite her “tallest, darkest leading man.”

But Wray eventually embraced “King Kong” with good humor. “I’m liking it better now than I did in the beginning, when it seemed to me that it was not Shakespeare,” she told an interviewer in 1994.