Motion Picture Classic (Jul-Dec 1930)

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Now Hollywood Has Grac Swanson and Ronald Colman. She doesn't know whether she will remain indefinitely or not. And she won't know until her first picture, "Jenny Lind," is made and seen. If she doesn't like what she sees, there will be an end to it. And not all the king's horses nor all the king's Mayers will prevail one jot or one tittle. Ten minutes with Grace Moore can teach you that. It is stated pretty definitely that she is to be teamed with Lawrence Tibbett. There will be a pair! Stormy, lusty, with fever and cold courage in their souls. It is difficult to believe that Grace Moore is just one of us gals. An American girl born in the unpretentious town of Jellico, Tennessee. The mere fact that she was born where and what she was, and that in so short a space of time has become what she is, is a dramatic story in itself. Melodramatic, really. Where She Found Her Voice ~ GRACE began to sing in the church choir at home. Like her fellow Grand Opper, Mary Lewis, she aspired to sing to the heathen Chinee. She craved to be a missionary and bring light to the pig -tailed brethren. Looking at Miss Moore, one inclines to believe that she would have been more likely to bring them another revolution. For she has honey-colored hair and amber skin, a seductive mouth and brilliantly blue eyes. The form of an earlier goddess and a radiation of danger about her. She is rendering unto Caesar to the extent of diet and Swedish (^Continued from page 65) "Up in the Clouds." And making a hit. The producer of the play thought he heard things of greater dimension in Miss Moore's voice. He sent her to see Dr. P. Mario Marifioti. Dr. Marifioti would have none of her. Probably she looked entirely massage. After Miss Moore had lifted the souls of the Jellicoites by her hymns, she began to realize the limits of the little home-town. Her vasty wings began to grow and beat the confining air. That enormous impatience with thmgs as they are stirred in her and was born. She went to study music at the Ward-Belmont College in Nashville, Tenn. And under the auspices of the college she made her first public appearance at the National Theater in Washington, D. C, where she shared the program with Martinelli. Musical critics were facetious and spoke of "the Lion and the Mouse." But hand-in-glove with their humor ran a note of genuine praise. And Miss Moore, her wings again beating too heavily upon her environment, ran away to New York. She had to run, because her family frowned upon her aspirations. They might have accepted grand opera, but neither Miss Moore nor her farnily looked so high or so far at that time. In New York, for a year, Grace Moore ate humble pie and was hungry. She knew no one. She tried to know no one. She had borrowed money to live on and she lived on it — just. Grace Moore is not the type to blush unseen for very long. New York was no exception. She always went about alone. She frequented small cafes where the great and near-great of the musical world convened. She sat apart and reverenced them — and smiled. And the smile penetrated the callous cuticle of the so-called inhumane city and Grace, before she was quite aware of events, was singing in the musical comedy, Standing for no nonsense: it is fairly obvious Mary Duncan is not under illusions or much of thing else, as a haremite in "Kismet" too decorative to fill the shoes of a Tetrazzini. Miss Moore accepted his brusque dismissal by the announcement that she would sit in his studio until he took her as his pupil. She sat for three days. In order to get rid of that immobile presence. Dr. Marifioti took her on, and to-day, in Hollywood, still teaching her, he admits that he is proud of it. Up Above the Clouds GRACE MOORE made her first really big hit in the Music Box Revues of 1923, 1924 and 1925. She also appeared in "Hitchy-Koo" and other musical comedies, and oh the concert platform. She had reached a spectacular spot. She was a Name. She was making money. She was comfortable. She had everything. Ambition, in most of us, would have been appeased, would have curled up by so luxurious a fire and gone happily to sleep. But the ambition of Grace Moore is a hard and voracious thing. If there are higher heavens to reach, though the way should be through Hell, she would try for the heavens. Officials of the Metropolitan suggested that she abandon her career in its high hey-day, study for a year, at the end of which time, she might — or might not — be admitted to the Met. Here was a Heaven to try for! Here was a call to arms! Miss Moore turned her back on Broadway and the lights, and settled down to a year of intensive and unremunerative work. She made the Met. In 1928. As Min in " La Boheme." During the following two years, her greatl est personal triumphs were as Juliette iii "Romeo et Juliette," as Marguerite vX "Faust," and the sensational Manon aJ the first performance of the Met] ropolitan this past season. Follow ing the 1929 season, Miss Moor made a European tour. Sh< appeared at the Paris Opera andl the Opera Comique, and at the! Cannes and Monte Carlo Opera! houses. I And now, now she is in Holly-j wood. I There is courage in this girl fronu Jellico. Courage and storm anS fever and no fear. | Her Private Public Opinion j GRACE MOORE very eml phatically disagrees with Gery aldine Farrar's pronouncement tlud opera is a dying form. ^ The amber-hued and trenchant , lady said, "The various statements about grand opera dying have been made by artists who are doing their last mile. They are the oldfashioned performers, who cannot keep step with the spirit of to-day. The public is not as tdlerant as it once was. The demands are greater, the sacrifices harder. But, so long as there are beautiful voices in the world, opera, old or new, will live." Grace Moore loves the opera. She loves the people of the opera. She loves the exactitudes, the sacrifices, the stern and unrelenting demands. At her luncheon table, the day we talked, were Giovanni Martino, the basso from the Metropolitan, young Martini, the tenor, that and a distinguished conductor any (from Chicago, I believe). She says the people of the opera are more fun to be with than any other group of people in the world. "They work harder, they play harder, they love harder, they live harder." "Opera," Miss Moore continued, "is an exacting master. You cannot serve, two gods, when one of them is opera. You live a life of perpetual self-sacrifice. In small ways and in great. You cannot smoke. You cannot play tennis or go in for strenuous athletics. You cannot talk too much, no matter how much you may enjoy chatting into the small hours, for talk is more exhausting for the voice than singing. Marriage is all but impossible for the dedicate devotee. Love is too exciting. A career should not come before the man you love and marry, and if you put the man before the career you are lost. "There are tremendous compensations, of course. Opera is a rather more-thanliberal education. You must know the languages. You must know history, racial and musical. You have contacts with the finest and most interesting people in the world, in all walks. You know Europe and Europeans. You are everywhere received . . .." There is something about an opera singer . . .Jenny Lind and Jeritza, Melba and Bori . . .mysterious names, names to conjure with. Grand names. Grace Moore may be loved or she may be hated. There could be no temperate middle ground. She is an intemperate personality. She is trenchant. She is aggressive. She makes herself felt, as well as heard and seen. 82