25 Facts About Betsy Drake

Betsy Drake was an American actress, writer, and psychotherapist.

Betsy Drake was the third wife of actor Cary Grant.

Betsy Drake, the eldest child of two American expatriates, was born in Paris.

Betsy Drake grew up in Chicago; Westport, Connecticut; Washington, DC; Virginia; North Carolina; and New York City.

Betsy Drake went to 12 different schools, both private and public, before concentrating on theater and acting at National Park Seminary.

Betsy Drake began looking for work as an actress in New York City, supporting herself by working as a Conover model.

Betsy Drake met the playwright Horton Foote, who offered her a job as an understudy in his play Only the Heart, which enabled her to join the Actors' Equity Association and thus become a professional actress.

Betsy Drake hated Hollywood and managed to be released from the contract by declaring herself insane.

Betsy Drake returned to New York City and, in 1947, read for the director Elia Kazan for the lead role in the London company of the play Deep Are the Roots.

Later that year, Betsy Drake was selected by Kazan as one of the founding members of the Actors Studio.

At the insistence of Grant, Betsy Drake was signed to a film contract by RKO Pictures and David Selznick, where she appeared, opposite Grant, in her first film, the romantic comedy Every Girl Should Be Married.

Betsy Drake took up causes including the plight of homeless children in Los Angeles.

Betsy Drake wrote the original script for the film Houseboat under a pseudonym, basing it on an unpublished story she had written.

Betsy Drake subsequently gave up acting and pursued other career interests.

Betsy Drake earned a Master of Education degree from Harvard University and became a children's therapist.

Betsy Drake was a director of psychodrama at the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute, worked at Cedars-Sinai Hospital, and maintained a private therapy practice.

Betsy Drake taught at UCLA, Pepperdine University, and presented research at the 52nd Annual Meeting American Orthopsychiatric Association in 1975.

In July 1956, Betsy Drake survived the sinking of the Italian ocean liner SS Andrea Doria.

Betsy Drake boarded it along with dozens of other wealthy travelers and tourists, at Gibraltar, which was one of many stops the ship made between her home port of Genoa and her final destination of New York City.

Betsy Drake sailed as a first-class passenger, occupying a single cabin on the ship's boat deck.

Betsy Drake was among more than 1600 people rescued from the ship by the famed French passenger liner SS Ile de France.

Grant and Betsy Drake separated in 1958, remaining friends, and divorced in 1962.

Later, Betsy Drake took LSD as a way of recovering from the trauma of divorce.

Betsy Drake did not have children with Grant and did not remarry.

Betsy Drake spent the latter part of her life in London, where she died, aged 92 on October 27,2015.