Grace Moore
Encyclopedia
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
tic soprano
Soprano
A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...
and actress in musical theatre
Musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...
and film. She was nicknamed the "Tennessee Nightingale." Her films helped to popularize opera by bringing it to a larger audience.
Early life
Moore was born Mary Willie Grace Moore to Richard Lawson Moore and Tessa Jane (née Stokely) Moore in the community of Slabtown (now considered part of Del RioDel Rio, Tennessee
Del Rio is an unincorporated community in Cocke County, Tennessee, United States. Although it is not a census-designated place, the ZIP Code Tabulation Area for the ZIP Code that serves Del Rio had a population of 2,138, according to the 2000 census....
) in Cocke County, Tennessee. By the time she was two years old, her family had relocated to Knoxville
Knoxville, Tennessee
Founded in 1786, Knoxville is the third-largest city in the U.S. state of Tennessee, U.S.A., behind Memphis and Nashville, and is the county seat of Knox County. It is the largest city in East Tennessee, and the second-largest city in the Appalachia region...
, a move Moore later described as traumatic, as she found urban life distateful at the time. After several years in Knoxville, the family again relocated to Jellico, Tennessee
Jellico, Tennessee
Jellico is a city in Campbell County, Tennessee, United States. The population was 2,448 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Jellico is located at . The city is situated amidst the Cumberland Mountains in the Elk Creek Valley, which runs perpendicular to the Tennessee-Kentucky state line...
, where Moore spent her adolescence. After high school in Jellico, she studied briefly at Ward-Belmont College
Ward-Belmont College
Ward-Belmont College was a women's college, also known at the time as a "ladies' seminary," located in Nashville, Tennessee on the grounds of the antebellum estate of Adelicia Acklen....
in Nashville
Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...
before moving to Washington, D.C. and New York City to continue her musical training and begin her career. Her first paying job as a singer was at the Black Cat Cafe in Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village, , , , .in New York often simply called "the Village", is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. A large majority of the district is home to upper middle class families...
.
Musical theater
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
appearance was in 1920 in the musical Hitchy-Koo, by Jerome Kern
Jerome Kern
Jerome David Kern was an American composer of musical theatre and popular music. One of the most important American theatre composers of the early 20th century, he wrote more than 700 songs, used in over 100 stage works, including such classics as "Ol' Man River", "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man", "A...
. In 1922 and 1923 she appeared in the second and third of Irving Berlin
Irving Berlin
Irving Berlin was an American composer and lyricist of Jewish heritage, widely considered one of the greatest songwriters in American history.His first hit song, "Alexander's Ragtime Band", became world famous...
's series of four Music Box
Music Box Theatre
The Music Box Theater is a Broadway theatre located at 239 West 45th Street in midtown-Manhattan.The once most aptly named theater on Broadway, the intimate Music Box was designed by architect C. Howard Crane and constructed by composer Irving Berlin and producer Sam H. Harris specifically to...
Revue
Revue
A revue is a type of multi-act popular theatrical entertainment that combines music, dance and sketches. The revue has its roots in 19th century American popular entertainment and melodrama but grew into a substantial cultural presence of its own during its golden years from 1916 to 1932...
s. In the 1923 edition she and John Steel
John Steel (singer)
John W. Steel was an American tenor. He was featured in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1919 and 1920 and Irving Berlin's Music Box Revues of 1922 and 1923.-Early life:...
introduced Berlin's song "What'll I Do
What'll I Do
"What'll I Do" is the name of a song written by Irving Berlin in 1923. It was introduced by singers Grace Moore and John Steel late in the run of Berlin's third Music Box Revue and also was included in the following year's edition...
". When Moore sang "An Orange Grove in California", orange blossom perfume was wafted through the theater.
In 1932 she appeared on Broadway in the short-lived operetta
Operetta
Operetta is a genre of light opera, light in terms both of music and subject matter. It is also closely related, in English-language works, to forms of musical theatre.-Origins:...
The DuBarry by Karl Millöcker
Karl Millöcker
Carl Joseph Millöcker , was an Austrian composer of operettas and a conductor.He was born in Vienna, where he studied the flute at the Vienna Conservatory. While holding various conducting posts in the city, he began to compose operettas...
.
Opera
After training in France, Moore made her operatic debut at the Metropolitan OperaMetropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
in New York City on February 7, 1928, singing the role of Mimì in Giacomo Puccini
Giacomo Puccini
Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini was an Italian composer whose operas, including La bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, and Turandot, are among the most frequently performed in the standard repertoire...
's La bohème
La bohème
La bohème is an opera in four acts,Puccini called the divisions quadro, a tableau or "image", rather than atto . by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, based on Scènes de la vie de bohème by Henri Murger...
. She debuted at the Opéra-Comique
Opéra-Comique
The Opéra-Comique is a Parisian opera company, which was founded around 1714 by some of the popular theatres of the Parisian fairs. In 1762 the company was merged with, and for a time took the name of its chief rival the Comédie-Italienne at the Hôtel de Bourgogne, and was also called the...
in Paris on September 29, 1928 in the same role, which she also performed in a Royal Command Performance at Covent Garden
Covent Garden
Covent Garden is a district in London on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St. Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit and vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist site, and the Royal Opera House, which is also known as...
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 in Tosca
Tosca
Tosca is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It premiered at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on 14 January 1900...
, Manon
Manon
Manon is an opéra comique in five acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Henri Meilhac and Philippe Gille, based on the 1731 novel L’histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut by the Abbé Prévost...
, and Louise
Louise (opera)
Louise is an opera in four acts by Gustave Charpentier to an original French libretto by the composer, with some contributions by Saint-Pol-Roux, a symbolist poet and inspiration of the surrealists....
. Louise was her favorite opera and is widely considered to have been her greatest role.
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. During World War II she was active in the USO, entertaining American troops abroad.
Film
Attracted to Hollywood in the early years of talking picturesSound film
A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades would pass before sound motion pictures were made commercially...
, Moore's first screen role was as Jenny Lind
Jenny Lind
Johanna Maria Lind , better known as Jenny Lind, was a Swedish opera singer, often known as the "Swedish Nightingale". One of the most highly regarded singers of the 19th century, she is known for her performances in soprano roles in opera in Sweden and across Europe, and for an extraordinarily...
in the 1930 film A Lady's Morals
A Lady's Morals
A Lady's Morals is a 1930 film offering a highly fictionalized account of singer Jenny Lind. The movie features Grace Moore as Lind, Reginald Denny as a lover, and Wallace Beery as P. T. Barnum; Beery would play Barnum again four years later in The Mighty Barnum...
, produced for MGM
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...
by Irving Thalberg
Irving Thalberg
Irving Grant Thalberg was an American film producer during the early years of motion pictures. He was called "The Boy Wonder" for his youth and his extraordinary ability to select the right scripts, choose the right actors, gather the best production staff and make very profitable films.-Life and...
and directed by Sidney Franklin
Sidney Franklin (director)
Sidney Franklin was an American film director and producer. His brother Chester Franklin also became a director during the silent film era best known for helming the early Technicolor film Toll of the Sea....
. Later that same year she starred with the Metropolitan Opera singer Lawrence Tibbett
Lawrence Tibbett
Lawrence Mervil Tibbett was a great American opera singer and recording artist who also performed as a film actor and radio personality. A baritone, he sang with the New York Metropolitan Opera company more than 600 times from 1923 to 1950...
in New Moon
New Moon (1930 film)
New Moon is the name of two different film versions of the operetta The New Moon with music by Sigmund Romberg and book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II and others. The original stage version premiered on Broadway in 1928...
, also produced by MGM, the first screen version of Sigmund Romberg
Sigmund Romberg
Sigmund Romberg was a Hungarian-born American composer, best known for his operettas.-Biography:Romberg was born as Siegmund Rosenberg to a Jewish family in Gross-Kanizsa during the Austro-Hungarian kaiserlich und königlich monarchy period...
's operetta The New Moon
The New Moon
The New Moon is the name of an operetta with music by Sigmund Romberg and book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, Frank Mandel, and Laurence Schwab. The show was the third and last in a string of Broadway hits for Romberg written in the style of Viennese operetta...
.
After a hiatus of several years, Moore returned to Hollywood under contract to Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...
, for whom she made six films. In the 1934 film One Night of Love
One Night of Love
One Night of Love is a 1934 romantic musical film set in the opera world, starring Grace Moore and Tullio Carminati. It was written by James Gow, S.K. Lauren and Edmund H. North, from the story, Don't Fall in Love, by Charles Beahan and Dorothy Speare...
, her first film for Columbia, she portrayed a small-town girl who aspires to sing opera. For that role she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress
Academy Award for Best Actress
Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...
in 1935. She played similar roles in several other films. A memorable highlight of When 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 of Cab Calloway
Cab Calloway
Cabell "Cab" Calloway III was an American jazz singer and bandleader. He was strongly associated with the Cotton Club in Harlem, New York City where he was a regular performer....
's "Minnie the Moocher
Minnie the Moocher
"Minnie the Moocher" is a jazz song first recorded in 1931 by Cab Calloway and His Orchestra, selling over 1 million copies. "Minnie the Moocher" is most famous for its nonsensical ad libbed lyrics . In performances, Calloway would have the audience participate by repeating each scat phrase in a...
", complete with gestures and "hi-de-ho's", but with the lyrics slightly altered to conform with Hollywood sensibilities. Also, she performed the popular Madama Butterfly
Madama Butterfly
Madama Butterfly is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, with an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. Puccini based his opera in part on the short story "Madame Butterfly" by John Luther Long, which was dramatized by David Belasco...
duet "Vogliatemi bene" with American tenor Frank Forest
Frank Forest
Frank Forest was an American operatic tenor and actor who enjoyed success in the 1930s and 40s.-Biography:Frank Forest was born Frank Hayek in St. Paul, Minnesota on October 17, 1896. He studied pianoforte and singing and at twelve was singing as a soloist in a church choir. At seventeen he taught...
in the 1937 film I'll Take Romance.
The last film that Moore made was Louise (1939), an abridged version of Gustave Charpentier
Gustave Charpentier
Gustave Charpentier, , born in Dieuze, Moselle on 25 June 1860, died Paris, 18 February 1956) was a French composer, best known for his opera Louise.-Life and career:...
'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 the libretto
Libretto
A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...
, coaching Moore, and advising director Abel Gance
Abel Gance
Abel Gance was a French film director and producer, writer and actor. He is best known for three major silent films: J'accuse , La Roue , and the monumental Napoléon .-Early life:...
. This production also featured two renowned French singers: dramatic tenor Georges Thill
Georges Thill
Georges Thill was a French opera singer, often considered to be his country's greatest lyric-dramatic tenor...
and basse cantante André Pernet
André Pernet
André Pernet was a French bass-baritone opera performer.After serving as a military officer in World War I, Pernet studied at the Paris Conservatory before making his operatic debut in Massenet's Hérodiade at Nice, in 1921. He sang at the Paris Opéra beginning in 1928...
.
Controversies
She was widely criticized in December 1938 when she curtsiedCurtsey
A curtsey is a traditional gesture of greeting, in which a girl or woman bends her knees while bowing her head. It is the female equivalent of male bowing in Western cultures...
to the Duchess of Windsor, in Cannes
Cannes
Cannes is one of the best-known cities of the French Riviera, a busy tourist destination and host of the annual Cannes Film Festival. It is a Commune of France in the Alpes-Maritimes department....
. Upon her return to the United States after six months and ten days in Europe ("to save money in income tax"), Moore defended her curtsey, 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 his convictions to one man, which is more than most women can do. She deserves a curtsy for that alone.
According to Joe Laurie, Jr.
Joe Laurie, Jr.
Joe Laurie, Jr. was a vaudeville monologist who later performed on Broadway....
, vaudeville performer and historian, Grace Moore would not perform on vaudeville bills that had black performers.
Honors
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 King Christian X of DenmarkChristian X of Denmark
Christian X was King of Denmark from 1912 to 1947 and the only King of Iceland between 1918 and 1944....
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 of Tennessee
Tennessee
Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...
, and was also made a life member of the Tennessee State Society of Washington, D.C. She was decorated as a chevalier of the French Légion d'honneur
Légion d'honneur
The Legion of Honour, or in full the National Order of the Legion of Honour is a French order established by Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of the Consulat which succeeded to the First Republic, on 19 May 1802...
in 1939.
Personal life
Moore married Valentín PareraValentín Parera
Valentín Parera was a Spanish actor who appeared in both silent and sound films in the 1920s and 1930s. He was married to the American singer and actress Grace Moore from 1931 until her death in a 1947 plane crash.-Filmography:...
, a Spanish movie actor, in Cannes, on July 15, 1931. They had no children. During the 1930s they maintained homes in Hollywood, Cannes, and Connecticut
Connecticut
Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...
.
Moore published an autobiography
Autobiography
An autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.-Origin of the term:...
, You're Only Human Once, in 1944.
Death
Grace Moore died in a plane crash near the CopenhagenCopenhagen
Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...
, Denmark airport on January 26, 1947, at the age of 48. Among the other plane crash victims was Prince Gustaf Adolf
Prince Gustaf Adolf, Duke of Västerbotten
Prince Gustaf Adolf Oscar Fredrik Arthur Edmund, Duke of Västerbotten was Duke of West Bothnia and the eldest son of Gustaf VI Adolf of Sweden and his first wife Princess Margaret of Connaught...
of Sweden, who was at the time second in line to the Swedish throne and who was the father of the present King of Sweden, King Carl XVI Gustaf
Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden
Carl XVI Gustaf is the reigning King of Sweden since 15 September 1973, succeeding his grandfather King Gustaf VI Adolf because his father had predeceased him...
. Moore is buried in Forest Hills Cemetery in Chattanooga, Tennessee
Chattanooga, Tennessee
Chattanooga is the fourth-largest city in the US state of Tennessee , with a population of 169,887. It is the seat of Hamilton County...
.
Moore's life story was made into a movie, So This Is Love, in 1953, starring North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
-born singer Kathryn Grayson
Kathryn Grayson
Kathryn Grayson was an American actress and operatic soprano singer.From the age of twelve, Grayson trained as an opera singer. She was under contract to MGM by the early 1940s, soon establishing a career principally through her work in musicals...
. A collection of her papers is housed at the University of Tennessee
University of Tennessee
The University of Tennessee is a public land-grant university headquartered at Knoxville, Tennessee, United States...
in Knoxville
Knoxville, Tennessee
Founded in 1786, Knoxville is the third-largest city in the U.S. state of Tennessee, U.S.A., behind Memphis and Nashville, and is the county seat of Knox County. It is the largest city in East Tennessee, and the second-largest city in the Appalachia region...
.
Filmography
- A Lady's MoralsA Lady's MoralsA Lady's Morals is a 1930 film offering a highly fictionalized account of singer Jenny Lind. The movie features Grace Moore as Lind, Reginald Denny as a lover, and Wallace Beery as P. T. Barnum; Beery would play Barnum again four years later in The Mighty Barnum...
(1930; later released under the title Jenny Lind in the United Kingdom and in a French-language version) - New MoonNew Moon (1930 film)New Moon is the name of two different film versions of the operetta The New Moon with music by Sigmund Romberg and book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II and others. The original stage version premiered on Broadway in 1928...
(1930) - One Night of LoveOne Night of LoveOne Night of Love is a 1934 romantic musical film set in the opera world, starring Grace Moore and Tullio Carminati. It was written by James Gow, S.K. Lauren and Edmund H. North, from the story, Don't Fall in Love, by Charles Beahan and Dorothy Speare...
(1934) - Love Me ForeverLove Me ForeverLove Me Forever is a 1935 American drama film directed by Victor Schertzinger. The film was nominated for an Academy Award in the category Sound Recording .-Cast:* Grace Moore as Margaret Howard* Leo Carrillo as Steve Corelli...
(1935) - The King Steps Out (1936)
- When You're in LoveWhen You're in Love (film)When You're in Love is a 1937 musical film starring Grace Moore, Cary Grant, and Thomas Mitchell. Moore sings "Minnie the Moocher" in one scene. She also sings the wonderful Ernesto Lecuono classic "Siboney" drooled over by Cary Grant. The movie was directed by Robert Riskin...
(1937) - I'll Take Romance (1937)
- LouiseLouise (film)Louise is a 1939 French musical film directed by Abel Gance. It was screened out of competition at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival. It is based on the opera of the same name by Gustave Charpentier.-Cast:* Grace Moore - Louise* Georges Thill - Julien...
(1939)
Sources
- Binnicker, Charles M. "Grace Moore" entry in Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture
- Kenrick, John. Who's Who in Musicals
- New World Records, Follies, Scandals & Other Diversions: From Ziegfeld to the Shuberts, New World NW 215, liner notes
- New World Records, The Vintage Irving Berlin, New World NW 238, liner notes
- Siler, James Hayden. The History of Jellico. Unpublished manuscript, 1938.
Further reading
- Farrar, Rowena Rutherford. Grace Moore and Her Many Worlds. New York: Cornwall Books, 1982. ISBN 0-8453-4723-3
- James, Janet Wilson. "Moore, Grace." In: Notable American Women. Vol. III. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1971.
- Moore, Grace. You're Only Human Once. 1977 (c. 1944). ISBN 0-405-09698-4
- Rasponi, Lanfranco. The Last Prima Donnas. Alfred A Knopf, 1982. ISBN 0-394-52153-6
- Parish, James Robert, and Michael R. Pitts. Hollywood Songsters. New York: Garland Publishing, 1991. ISBN 0-415-94334-5
External links
- GraceMoore.net
- Grace Moore Concert Gown Biography and image of a concert gown that belonged to Moore, from Frank H. McClung MuseumFrank H. McClung MuseumThe Frank H. McClung Museum is a general museum located on the campus of the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. Built in 1963, exhibits focus on natural history, archeology, anthropology, decorative arts, and local history...
collection. - The Grace Moore Papers Describes the collection of her papers at the University of Tennessee Libraries.
- The Grace Moore Glove Gallery A collection of images of Moore, including movie stills and advertisements.