From Wikipedia
Grace Moore (December 5, 1898 – January 26, 1947) was an
American operatic soprano and actress in musical theatre and film. She was
nicknamed the "Tennessee Nightingale." Her films helped to popularize
opera by bringing it to a larger audience.
Attracted to Hollywood in the early years of talking
pictures, Moore's first screen role was as Jenny Lind in the 1930 film A Lady's
Morals, produced for MGM by Irving Thalberg and directed by Sidney Franklin.
Later that same year she starred with the Metropolitan Opera singer Lawrence
Tibbett in New Moon, also produced by MGM, the first screen version of Sigmund
Romberg's operetta The New Moon.
After a hiatus of several years, Moore returned to Hollywood
under contract to Columbia Pictures, for whom she made six films. In the 1934
film One 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 the Academy
Award for Best Actress in 1935.
By this time, she was so popular that MGM was able to insist
on equal billing for Moore in a projected film with Maurice Chevalier, who had
always enjoyed solo star billing up till then. Chevalier felt so deeply about
this blow to his status that he quit Hollywood and the film was never made.
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's "Minnie the
Moocher", complete with gestures and "hi-de-ho's", but with the
lyrics slightly altered to conform with Hollywood sensibilities.[10] Also, she
performed the popular Madama Butterfly duet "Vogliatemi bene" with
American tenor Frank Forest in the 1937 film I'll Take Romance.
The last film that Moore made was Louise (1939), an abridged
version of Gustave 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 the libretto, coaching Moore,
and advising director Abel Gance. This production also featured two renowned
French singers: dramatic tenor Georges Thill and basse cantante André Pernet.
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 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 of Tennessee, 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 in 1939.
Grace Moore died in a plane crash near Copenhagen's airport
on January 26, 1947, at the age of 48.
Moore's life story was made into a movie, So This Is Love
(1953), starring North Carolina-born singer Kathryn Grayson.
