Mary Willie Grace Moore (December 5, 1898[1] – January 26, 1947) was an Americanoperaticlyric soprano and actress inmusical theatre and film.[2] She was nicknamed the "Tennessee Nightingale." Her films helped to popularize opera by bringing it to a larger audience. She was nominated for theAcademy Award for Best Actress for her performance inOne Night of Love.
In 1947, Moore died in aplane crash at the age of 48. She published anautobiography in 1944 titledYou're Only Human Once. In 1953, a film about her life was released titledSo This Is Love starringKathryn Grayson.
Moore was born Mary Willie Grace Moore, the daughter of Tessa Jane (née Stokely) and Richard Lawson Moore. She was born in the community of Slabtown (now considered part ofDel Rio) inCocke County, Tennessee. By the time she was two years old, her family had relocated toKnoxville, a move Moore later described as traumatic. She found urban life distasteful at the time.[3] After several years in Knoxville, the family again relocated toJellico, Tennessee, where Moore spent her adolescence. After attending Jellico High School, where she was captain of the girls basketball team (see monument photo in this article), she studied briefly atWard-Belmont College inNashville[4] before moving toWashington, D.C., where she studied at Wilson-Greens School of Music inChevy Chase, Maryland.[4][5] She relocated to New York in 1919 to pursue her singing career and performed there in nightclubs to help pay for singing classes.[6] Moore's first professional singing performance was at The Black Cat Café inGreenwich Village.[3]
Grace Moore's firstBroadway appearance was in 1920 in the musical revueHitchy-Koo, byJerome Kern. She also appeared inSuite Sixteen,Just a Minute,Town Gossip, andUp in the Clouds.[5] In 1922 and 1923 she appeared in the second and third ofIrving Berlin's series of fourMusic BoxRevues. In the 1923 edition she andJohn Steel introduced Berlin's song "What'll I Do". When Moore sang "An Orange Grove in California", orange blossom perfume was wafted through the theater.[7]
In 1932 she appeared on Broadway in the short-livedoperettaThe DuBarry byKarl Millöcker.
After training in France, Moore made her operatic debut at theMetropolitan Opera in New York City on February 7, 1928, singing the role of Mimì inGiacomo Puccini'sLa bohème. She then sang Juliette inRoméo et Juliette, which led to a European tour. She debuted at theOpéra-Comique in Paris on September 29, 1928 as Mimì, which she also performed in a Royal Command Performance atCovent Garden in London on June 6, 1935. During her sixteen seasons with the Metropolitan Opera, she sang in several Italian and French operas as well as the title roles inTosca,Manon, andLouise.Louise was her favorite opera and is widely considered to have been her greatest role. She also sang inCarmen,Faust,Pagliacci,Gianni Schicchi, and others.[5]
In the 1930s and 1940s she gave concert performances throughout the United States and Europe, performing a repertoire of operatic selections and other songs in German, French, Italian, Spanish, and English. DuringWorld War II, she was active in theUSO, entertaining American troops abroad.[8] In 1945 she sang Mimi toNino Martini's Rodolfo inLa bohème for the inaugural performance of theSan Antonio Grand Opera Festival.[9]
She also performed during and after WWII in support of Allied Forces. From the personal memoire of Lt. Gen.John C. H. Lee, on 24 July 1945: "After an early dinner drove in convoy to the Paris Opera House for the gala performance entitled "Pacifique 45" given by the French for the benefit of the families of French war veterans. The program laid particular emphasis on the war in Japan and included the showing of two films - "Fighting Lady" and "Iwo Jima" and the rendition of several songs and the French and American national anthems by Grace Moore. Seated in the box of honor were GeneralAlphonse Juin, the French Minister of InformationJacques Soustelle, and a number of important American and French officers. It seemed to be a great success and was particularly appreciated by the crowd of some 20,000 gathered in the square outside the Opera House."
Attracted toHollywood in the early years oftalking pictures, Moore had her first screen role asJenny Lind in the 1930 filmA Lady's Morals, produced forMGM byIrving Thalberg and directed bySidney Franklin.[10] Later that same year she starred with the Metropolitan Opera singerLawrence Tibbett inNew Moon, also produced by MGM, the first screen version ofSigmund Romberg's operettaThe New Moon.
After a hiatus of several years, Moore returned to Hollywood under contract toColumbia Pictures, for whom she made six films. In the 1934 filmOne Night of Love, her first film for Columbia, she portrayed a small-town girl who aspires to sing opera. For that role she was nominated for theAcademy Award for Best Actress in 1935. She starred in 1936 asEmpress Elisabeth of Austria inJosef von Sternberg's productionThe King Steps Out.
By this time, she was so popular that MGM was able to insist on equal billing for Moore in a projected film withMaurice Chevalier, who had always enjoyed solo star billing up until then. Chevalier felt so deeply about this blow to his status that he quit Hollywood and the film was never made.[11]
A memorable highlight ofWhen You're in Love (1937) was a comic scene in which Moore donned flannel shirt and trousers and joined a 5-man band for a flamboyant rendition ofCab Calloway's "Minnie the Moocher", complete with gestures and "hi-de-ho's", but with the lyrics slightly altered to conform with Hollywood sensibilities.[12] Also, she performed the popularMadama Butterfly duet "Vogliatemi bene" with American tenorFrank Forest in the 1937 filmI'll Take Romance.
The last film that Moore made wasLouise (1939), an abridged version ofGustave Charpentier's opera of the same name, with spoken dialog in place of some of the original opera's music. The composer participated in the production, authorizing the cuts and changes to thelibretto, coaching Moore, and advising directorAbel Gance. This production also featured two renowned French singers: dramatic tenorGeorges Thill and basse cantanteAndré Pernet.[13]
She was widely criticized in December 1938 when shecurtsied to theDuchess of Windsor, inCannes. Upon her return to the United States after six months and ten days in Europe ("to save money in income tax"), Moore defended her curtsy, saying:
She would have been a royal duchess long ago if she had not been an American. After all, she gave happiness and the courage of her convictions to one man, which is more than most women can do. She deserves a curtsy for that alone.[14]
According toJoe Laurie Jr., vaudeville performer and historian, Grace Moore would not perform on vaudeville bills that included black performers.[15]
However, this is at odds with some comments by Moore herself in her autobiography.
"All along I felt that all people were born to equal opportunity because that is the way my mother and father lived their lives. And I don't mean opportunity handed out on a silver platter, but opportunity that was there without social or racial strings for anyone who had the initiative to reach and hold."[16]
She also mentions being baptised in a creek at an African American Baptist church ceremony at Newcomb, Tennessee during her adolescence;[17] and that the popular African American vocal and piano duo of Turner Layton and Clarence Johnstone (ieLayton & Johnstone) performed at parties in her own flat in New York along with other showbiz connections during her early days of stardom.[18]
Furthermore, the alleged incident quoted by Joe Laurie Jr.[19] about Loew's Capitol Theatre on Broadway, New York allegedly calling off a booking for Grace Moore, due to her supposed response toMary Garden sharing a bill there with theMills Brothers, does not appear to be entirely correct. Theatre listings in the New York Times show that Mary Garden and the Mills Brothers appeared at the Capitol on 6 nights from 27th January to 1st February 1933. On those dates Grace Moore was already fully committed to a long-running stage show called 'The Dubarry' at another theatre in New York, which ran from 22nd November 1932 to 3rd February 1933, after which the production was scheduled to go on tour. A few weeks later on 31st March 1933 Grace Moore did start a 2 week booking at Loew's Capitol Theatre in New York.
In 1935 Moore received the gold medal award of the Society of Arts and Sciences for "conspicuous achievement in raising the standard of cinema entertainment." In 1936 KingChristian X of Denmark awarded her his country's medal of 'Ingenito et Arti.' In 1937, she was commissioned as a colonel (an honorary position) on the staff of the governor ofTennessee, and was also made a life member of the Tennessee State Society of Washington, D.C. She was decorated as a chevalier of the FrenchLégion d'honneur in 1939.[8] Moore was also a member of thePeabody AwardsBoard of Jurors from 1940 to 1942.[20] She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6274 Hollywood Blvd, Hollywood, Los Angeles, CA.
Moore marriedValentín Parera, a Spanish movie actor, in Cannes, on July 15, 1931. They had 2 children. During the 1930s they maintained homes inHollywood,Cannes, andConnecticut.[21]
Grace Moore died at the age of 48, along with 21 other people, including PrinceGustaf Adolf of Sweden, ina plane crash nearCopenhagen Airport on January 26, 1947. Moore is buried in Forest Hills Cemetery inChattanooga.[22]
