Wife Janet Gaynor
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Paul Gregory (August 27, 1920 – December 25, 2015) was an American film, theatre and television producer.
He was the third husband of Janet Gaynor;
Gaynor was married three times and had one child. All her husband were
apparently homosexual.
Paul Gregory was born James Burton Lenhart, the son of a butcher, in Waukee, Iowa, and graduated from Lincoln High School in Des Moines, Iowa in 1938.
Gregory went to Hollywood where he worked as an assistant for clients like Horace Heidt and Carmen Cavallaro. He became friends with actor Charles Laughton and organized a successful lecture tour which Laughton made through the United States between 1949 and 1950.[2] They earned $200,000 during this reading tour, the money worked as the basis for other projects. Gregory afterwards produced 17 Broadway plays during the 1950s and 1960s, among them The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial, The Marriage Go-Around and Lord Pengo.[1] Gregory read the novel The Night of the Hunter by Davis Grubb and bought the film rights of Grubb's book. He then produced the thriller The Night of the Hunter (1955), directed by Laughton. While not a success in the 1950s, the film is today considered by many film critics as a masterpiece in whose making Gregory played an important role.[3] His second and last movie as a producer was The Naked and the Dead (1958). As a television producer, he won an Emmy Award in 1955 for Best Television Adaptation for his television adaption of The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial. Gregory was also responsible for starting the acting career of his friend James Garner. He gave Garner his first acting role in his production of The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial.[4]
In 1964, Paul Gregory married former film star Janet Gaynor. Afterwards, he gradually retired from show business and raised cows, hogs, and pigeons at the large ranch of his wife, the Singing Trees Ranch. Situated nine miles north and east of Palm Springs, and nestled in the foothills on 100-plus acres of naturally hot mineral water land, the original homestead was built in 1881 by Jeremiah Emile Joseph Swedingham and his family. The original well on the ranch was a water stop for the Pony Express on its route from Indio to Banning and Beaumont. When Southern Pacific Railroad was building its spur line in the Coachella Valley with imported Chinese labor, the water stop was moved to the bustling town of Garnet. The first building constructed on the property was a chicken house made of railroad ties. It still stands, converted now to two master bedrooms with a huge double bathroom, finished in marble and plank. “We wanted a chic shed,” said Gregory, “and that’s what we’ve got!” From the bedroom it is a short stroll along handsome brick terraces to the swimming pool circled with white latticework and the geothermally heated jacuzzi. Water on the ranch comes out of the ground at 95 degrees Fahrenheit, and is reported to have the same curative properties found in the world-famous spas of Europe, such as Evian, Vichy and Baden-Baden. The ranch mantains a “designated well," which, because of its longevity and reliability, is checked on a regular basis by Riverside County to monitor the water table in the area, the temperature, and the continuing high quality of the mineral properties. The original homestead is a combination of a sitting room, dining area, guest bedroom and kitchen. The main living room is set midway between the old homestead house and the bedroom wing. Called “The Gallery” by Town and Country Magazine in its in-depth story on the ranch, it resembles a football field furnished by Sotheby’s. Everything in the Gallery is overscale. The room itself is 20 by 40 feet, has 11 foot ceilings, extra-sized furniture (including a 20-foot long couch), and a museum of art treasures culled from a lifetime of world travel. Discreetly, and with Gregory’s taste, the first Academy Award ever given sat quietly in a corner, on a bookshelf. The gracious living compound is entirely concealed behind a semi-circle of Biblical Tamarisk trees, towering 60 feet high above the desert floor. The ranch buildings sit one-half mile back from the road along a private drive. Various barns and outbuildings house rural reminders of the Gregory’s many interests and enterprises. They raised prize Marseilles Mondane squab, prize Holstein hogs, and the ranch had been an exclusive feed lot for prime beef. The Historical Society of Riverside County requested the Gregorys to permit the ranch to be named an historical monument because of its lengthy and well-documented history, as well as for its character. One of the world’s most respected arbiters of style and class, Cecil Beaton, used to call Singing Trees Ranch “a valentine.” Over its long career, the ranch has played host to many legendary stars of the movies. Katherine Hepburn, William Powell, Dame Judith Anderson, Merle Oberon, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks Sr. were among the many personalities who got away from it all at Singing Trees Ranch. Another frequent visitor, Greta Garbo, is reported to have said, “when I want to be alone, I want to be alone HERE!”
Paul Gregory and Gaynor were involved in a very serious car accident in 1982; two years later Gaynor died as a result of her injuries in this accident. In 1998, Gregory married art gallerist Kathryn Obergfel, who died three years later. Paul Gregory lived in his retirement in Desert Hot Springs, just north of Palm Springs, California.[2] Gregory died in December 2015 at the age of 95 from a self-inflicted gunshot. A friend stated that Gregory "died the way he wanted" and that he was depressed about his failing physical health and that he had overlived most of his friends.[5] His death was only reported in November 2016.
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