GRACE MOORE

Grace Moore was a major New York opera star starting in 1928 (she was called "The Tennessee Nightingale") who was hired by MGM in 1930 to star in a biography of Jenny Lind called "A Lady's Morals", and there was a French language version as well, where she played the lead, but all the other cast were French people. But neither version was a big hit, and she made one other movie for MGM, and then she returned to the opera. But in 1934, Columbia hired her to make another movie, One Night Of Love (nominated for the Best Actress Academy Award for this film), and this was much better received, and she appeared in five more Columbia movies, including "The King Steps Out", directed by Josef von Sternberg, who had moved to Columbia after making his very successful Marlene Dietrich movies for Paramount. Grace Moore was killed in a plane crash in 1947 at the age of 48, and a biography of her life was made in 1953, "So This is Love", with Kathryn Grayson playing Grace Moore!