Grace Bradley
| Grace Bradley | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
September 21, 1913 Brooklyn, New York, U.S. |
| Died | September 21, 2010 (aged 97) Dana Point, California, U.S. |
| Other names | Grace Bradley Boyd |
| Occupation | Actress, singer, dancer |
| Years active | 1930–1972 |
| Spouse(s) |
William Boyd (m.1937–1972; his death) |
Grace Bradley (September 21, 1913 – September 21, 2010) was an American film actress who was active in Hollywood during the 1930s.
Bradley was born in Brooklyn and was an only child. As a child she took piano lessons and by the age of six she gave her first recital. She attended the Eastman School of Music near Rochester, New York by age 12 after winning a scholarship. Originally she had wanted to become a professional pianist. While in school she took dance lessons and played piano.
She "played the piano, sang and danced, on stage and in nightclubs, from an early age to help support her widowed mother."
Her grandfather had wanted her to be educated in Berlin, Germany so that she could receive more formal education but a Broadway producer discovered her during one of her dance recitals and hired her for a professional show.
On December 22, 1930, she made her Broadway debut at New York's Hammerstein Theatre in Ballyhoo of 1930. Her next stage appearance came one year later at The Music Box Theatre in The Third Little Show. Soon Bradley found herself working in various New York nightclubs and theatres. In MarchAdd 1933, she appeared in Strike Me Pink at the Majestic Theatre. She left the show after deciding to give Hollywood a try.
Although she made one film in 1932, her film career did not gather steam until she starred in the film Too Much Harmony (1933), which provided her "first film credit". She was under contract to Paramount Pictures beginning in 1933, and reportedly took home $150 per week.
An obituary of Bradley noted, "From 1933 to 1943, she appeared in dozens of quickly made second features, often cast as what were termed 'good-time girls,' as distinct from good girls, sometimes with invented ooh-la-la French names."
In the 1930s, she became one of the period's most popular musical stars. Her other screen credits include parts in:
In May 1937, Bradley agreed to a blind date and met Hopalong Cassidy star William Boyd. The two of them hit it off so well that they married in June 1937. The union was happy but childless. In the 1940s Bradley's star began to wane and in 1943 she starred in her last big role in Taxi, Mister. Following this Bradley had officially played out her Paramount contract and she spent the remainder of the 1940s alongside her beloved husband William Boyd and traveled around the country with him helping to promote his cowboy image. She did come out of her publicity trips with Boyd to make one more film appearance, an uncredited cameo role in Tournament of Roses (1954).
...
Wikipedia