Rise to Fame
MGM had her for five years and barely used her. Talent scouts spotted her portrait in her brother-in-law's photography studio window in New York, signed her in 1941, and then parked her in decorative bit parts that asked nothing of her. The break came as a loan-out: Universal borrowed her for The Killers (1946) and handed her a scheming femme fatale opposite Burt Lancaster. Critics took notice. The studio that underused her had no one to blame but itself.
In the Spotlight
Her reputation has calcified around the face and the Frank Sinatra marriage. Both are real, but neither explains the more interesting choice: walking away from Hollywood in 1955. She moved to Spain and stayed for over a decade, then London until she died, not as a scandal retreat but because she genuinely preferred living elsewhere. Mogambo (1953) earned her an Oscar nomination the industry has largely forgotten. The interviews she gave in her later years were sharp and unromantic about the marriages and the career both. She wasn't performing nostalgia, which is probably why the mythology never quite stuck.
Side Notes
Three marriages, three exits: Mickey Rooney in 1942 when he was still one of Hollywood's biggest names, Artie Shaw in 1945 (who eventually tallied eight wives in total, so the tenure was brief on both ends), and Frank Sinatra in 1951. The Frank Sinatra years lasted six years and generated enough documented volatility to fill a tabloid archive. Less covered: she moved to Spain in 1955, became fluent in Spanish, and didn't leave until tax trouble pushed her to London in 1968. She spent more of her adult life as an expatriate than as a Hollywood fixture.
Final Chapter
A 1986 stroke left her partially paralyzed on her left side. Frank Sinatra paid for a medically-staffed private plane that flew her to a specialist in the United States, and she returned to London afterward. Over 3,000 people filed past her coffin at the Underwood Funeral Home in Smithfield, North Carolina before she was buried on January 29. Gregory Peck, a longtime friend, took in both her housekeeper and her dog after her death.