Grace Moore
Grace Moore
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.
