Grace Moore profile picture

Grace Moore

Tennessee Nightingale

About Me

"Analyzing what you haven't got as well as what you have is a necessary ingredient of a career." ". . . Never have I underestimated the importance of my rich friends," admits Grace, "because, they have given me the opportunity . . . to sit in the assembly lines of jeweled women who hold down the golden horseshoes of the concert halls of the world. . . . Economic determination is one thing, the mouth of a gift horse another." "There may be some who will still say it isn't [a great voice]. But I do have a voice that has made people listen, that seemed to make people happy and exhilarated."
I edited my profile with Thomas’ Myspace Editor V3.6 !
I was born on December 5th, 1898 in Del Rio, Tenn. Hollywood made me years younger and so sometimes my bio says 1901. I was inspired by my aunt Laura Stokely to start a career in opera. While studying I met the irrepressible opera star Mary Garden. She took pity on me and let me write to her about my progress. I ran away to New York and did anything I could to pay for my voice lessons. I eventually got a gig at The Black Cat Cafe. I soon after got into a Jerome Kern musical. Other musicals came soon. With some money now I went to Italy to study. As my savings depleted I got a note from Irving Berlin. He wanted me to star in a show Sam Harris was producing at a new theater he had built. I came back and worked for him at his Music Box. It was here that I worked with the wonderful Fanny Brice. My body may have been made for musical theater but my heart longed for opera. I finally made my Met debut as Mimi in La Boheme in the year 1928. Film was now coming into the age of the talkies. Mr Mayer asked me to come to Hollywood and make a movie for him at MGM studios. A LADY'S MORALS: The story of Jenny Lind was my first exposure to celluloid. I then made another with Lawrence Tibbett called NEW MOON. Perhaps because my acting was typically on stage, my movement wasn't right for film. Anyway, MGM let me go. It was a blow to my ego to say the least. After a concert at the Hollywood Bowl I was approached by Harry Cohn of Columbia. I begged Irving Thalberg and Mr Mayer for another chance but the answer was "no". I signed a contract with Columbia and in my first effort for them I was nominated for an Academy Award for best actress! The film was ONE NIGHT OF LOVE. The Society of Arts and Sciences gave me a medal for raising the standard of cinema. I was soon making movies with the likes of Cary Grant, Franchot Tone, Melvyn Douglas and many other top stars. Of course, I always got top billing and this became a bone of contention for my dear friend Maurice Chevalier. We were to do THE MERRY WIDOW together but we both wanted to be the star! He did the picture with Jeanette MacDonald and soon after left America for the next 20 years. I was supposed to be the star of ROSEMARIE also but my concert schedule wouldn't allow it. I continued in radio, film, world concert tours, and of course the Met. I have been presented to 6 Kings, 5 Presidents and Pope Pius XII. I championed 2 great singers Dorothy Kirsten and Yma Sumac. Florenz Ziegfeld named me one of the 10 most beautiful women and they even named a perfume and a color of blue after me. Not bad for a country girl! I have a great love of people and I am working on a cookbook in my home Casa Lauretta. My greatest sadness is that MGM and Columbia have not released my films so that you can enjoy them.

My Interests

Well, I was always interested in singing. I started in church in Jellico, Tennessee. It was all up from there. The New Amsterdam Theater in NYC. The Music Box. The Metropolitan Opera. Many Opera houses worldwide. I also brought my beloved opera to film. My first film was in 1930 for MGM in a film titled A LADY'S MORALS. My last film was LOUISE which I filmed in France, Charpentier worked with me on this.

I'd like to meet:

You! Come walk on my star on Hollywood Blvd. It's across from the Pantages Theater near the subway.

Movies:

A LADY'S MORALS............... 1930.......................NEW MOON 1930 ONE NIGHT OF LOVE......................1934 ...LOVE ME FOREVER ...............1935.............. .......... THE KING STEPS OUT..................1936..... I'll TAKE ROMANCE.... .....1937............ WHEN YOU'RE IN LOVE .....1937.. . ..LOUISE.. 1938

Television:

What's television?

Books:

YOU'RE ONLY HUMAN ONCE written by me

Heroes:

Enrico Caruso
Geraldine FarrarTito Schipa Mary Garden Lawrence TibbettLillian Russell MGM, one of the most prominent studios in the closing days of the silent era, had been getting stiff competition from Paramount. They responded by hiring away Paramount talent, including Miss MacDonald, Chevalier, and Lubitsch. Chevalier was an established international star and as such was not rushed into a second-rate vehicle as Miss MacDonald had been. ON THE MERRY WIDOW...MGM had always planned The Merry Widow as a major musical film, and now, finally, all legal obstacles were cleared away. For the title role, Chevalier wanted Grace Moore. She was probably the only woman in history to accomplish a musical career “backward”—from music hall to true eminence in grand opera (a feat Miss MacDonald would later try to repeat). Miss Moore’s increased stature in the music world plus her blonde beauty and elegant carriage made her an ideal “prestige” candidate for the world-famous role of the Widow.Born in Tennessee in 1901, she had appeared in several musical comedies as well as several editions of The Music Box Revue (1923 and 1924) on Broadway. There she attracted the attention of Otto Kahn, Chairman of the Board of the Metropolitan Opera, who helped to finance a year’s study for her in Europe. She made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera in 1928 as Mimi in La Bohéme. Irving Thalberg, always seeking “quality” performers for MGM, wanted a genuine prima donna from the Met. Miss Moore was more attractive than most, and the voice that introduced “What’ll I Do” and “All Alone” in The Music Box Revue of 1924 did have appeal. She made her screen debut in a fictionalized Jenny Lind biography, A Lady’s Morals (1930). Although she sang two arias from the Lind repertoire, “Casta Diva” from Norma and “Chacun le Sait” from La Fille du Regiment, with great competence, the film was a disaster.As a second film, she and Lawrence Tibbett were costarred in a bizarre version of New Moon (1930) with a contemporary Russian setting and shorn of much of its original score. Thus ended Miss Moore’s early Hollywood career. Three years later, considerably slimmed down and with a Broadway musical success (Millocker’s The DuBarry) behind her, she returned to Hollywood and once again interested the movie moguls. She wanted most of all to do The Merry Widow, which was about to go into production at MGM. Chevalier approved, but Thalberg remembered the early fiascoes.Miss Moore’s very revealing autobiography, You’re Only Human Once, describes how she spent an afternoon trying to persuade Irving Thalberg, even offering to do the role for nothing. “Finally Thalberg told me bluntly that Lubitsch didn’t want me, didn’t believe in me, was sold on another girl...Thalberg tried to ease the blow by offering me an option on a future picture....Well, they should have believed me. The Merry Widow was a flop.”Chevalier’s version of the incident was that billing presented an insoluble problem. He wanted no more than star billing in his first MGM picture, and Miss Moore would take no less. We can appreciate Chevalier’s refusal to surrender status. (As Spencer Tracy said when asked why he always insisted on billing over his female costar: “This isn’t a lifeboat. It’s a Goddamn movie.”)We can also see from our vantage point how Chevalier’s continued insistence on noncompeti­tive costars frequently led to weak pictures, a hubris he shared with Mae West. He was very reluctant to “team” again with Miss MacDonald, fearing the loss of identity that, ironically, would befall Miss MacDonald when she latter teamed with Nelson Eddy.So Grace Moore signed with Columbia Studios and made One Night of Love, a box office hit and an Oscar nominee. This film almost single-handedly made opera acceptable in general entertainment pictures. At a time when even the most successful films seldom played more than one week first-run engagements in a metropolitan city, One Night of Love played the same theatres for months.At the Los Angeles premiere, Moore, never one to be modest, told Thalberg: “I bet this will top The Merry Widow.” He replied, “Try and top [this film] yourself.” She made four more Hollywood films and a French version of the opera, Louise, but she never did top One Night of Love. However, from the release of the film in September 1934, until Naughty Marietta came out six months later, Grace Moore had scored the biggest success of any film singer and was probably the best-known and most popular singer of serious music in the world. It was a type of mass fame not to be known again by an opera singer until 1951 when Mario Lanza made The Great Caruso.

My Blog

Did I ever tell you about?

This may seem far fetched but believe me it actually happened and it happened to me. Anyone that knows me knows that I am a very stubborn sort. Perhaps it's my Irish nature or perhaps I'm just an orne...
Posted by Grace Moore on Sat, 22 Jul 2006 01:41:00 PST

My start on Broadway

As many of you may know I ran away from my school in Tennessee and went straight to New York City to become an opera star. Little did I know the circuitous route by which I would be traveling for the ...
Posted by Grace Moore on Mon, 17 Jul 2006 04:09:00 PST

My early encounter with politics.

With the day of our independence coming up I was thinking back to my youth and how I loved our grand times in the country.   As many of you know I love cooking. My mother cooked too and wa...
Posted by Grace Moore on Mon, 03 Jul 2006 01:08:00 PST

Thanks to Kathryn Grayson

I very much appreciate Miss Kathryn Grayson for doing such a lovely job on a film about my early career. It is entitled "So This Is Love". Bless you Kathryn. Much love, Grace Moore...
Posted by Grace Moore on Sat, 20 May 2006 02:17:00 PST