Grace Moore

GRACE MOORE d1947. American operatic soprano and actress nicknamed "The Tennessee Nightingale" in film and musical theatre ; her  films helped to popularize opera by bringing it to a larger audience. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for the 1934 film One Night Of Love, in which she portrayed a small-town girl who aspires to sing opera. At 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. In 1937 a memorable highlight of "When Youre in Love" was a comic scene in which she donned a flannel shirt and trousers and joined a 5-man band for a flamboyant rendition of Cab Calloways Minnie The Moocher. She also performed the popular Madama Butterfly duet "Vogliatemi bene" with American tenor Frank Forest in the 1937 film I'll Take Romance. Her last film was Louise (1939). Grace Moore died in a plane crash aged just 48 near the Copenhagen Denmark airport on January 26th1947. Among the other plane crash victims was Prince Gustaf Adolf of Sweden, who was at the time second in line to the Swedish throne.