Gilda Gray (born Marianna Michalska; October 25, 1895 – December 22, 1959) was a Polish-American dancer and actress who popularized a dance called the "shimmy" which became fashionable in 1920s films and theater productions.

Gray appropriated it as her own, saying that she had accidentally invented the shimmy while dancing at her father-in-law's Cudahy saloon and "shaking her chemise"[3] (or her "shimee", as her Polish accent rendered it).

[5] Gray attributed the origin of the shimmy to the American Indian in an interview published in the July 8, 1919 issue of Variety.

"[6] Her desire to continue her burgeoning career (she used the professional name Mary Gray for a while) and her faltering relationship with her husband prompted her to relocate to Chicago, where she was noticed by a talent agent, Frank Westphal, who took her to New York and introduced her to his wife, singer Sophie Tucker.

She quickly abandoned vaudeville to become a film star, and between 1919 and 1936, Gray made several movies, in all of which she performed her famous shimmy.

[citation needed] Jesse Lasky signed her to a contract with Famous Players–Lasky, which released films through Paramount Pictures.

[7] In 1928, she went to England to star in Piccadilly, a 1929 silent film written for her by Arnold Bennett that appeared in the United States with added sound and effects.

[8] In his July 15, 1929, review, The New York Times critic Mordaunt Hall praised her performance, adding: "Miss Gray seems to have been rediscovered as an actress.

"[8] When the stock market crashed in 1929, Gray lost most of her financial assets, but she managed to get a job dancing at the Palace Theatre in New York City.

[citation needed] On December 22, 1959, died of an apparent heart attack at the home of friends in Hollywood, aged 63.