Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1938)

WHO SAID BY IDA ZEITLIN SEVERAL months ago in this very magazine there was published an article which stated that Grace Moore was desperately worried and haunted by the fear that she would become voiceless. Having listened to her radio broadcast the week before reading the article and having heard the golden notes of hers that came pouring out as honey-smooth and pure and true as I have ever heard, this sounded cockeyed to me, and in the weeks that have passed the whole story has seemed more absurd. So, recently, I went to Grace Moore herself to ask her how such stories could ever come about. After all, as I had listened in on subsequent Saturdays her singing had not only a supreme pitch of technical perfection, but it was rich with feeling, warm with intimacy, so that when she finished with her gracious "My love to you all" you felt you had been listening not to an artist alone but to a friend who had sung to you. It has since been proven beyond any shadow of a doubt that the original story was based on a rumor which was completely without any basis in fact — one of those stories that are borne by nothing out of nowhere, take wings to themselves, and gain, for a while, artificial lives of their own. I thought it needed squelching. Anyone with ears to hear could, of course, do the squelching for himself. But since it had taken form in words, I felt that it ought to be killed in the same way, and that Miss Moore was the person who could best supply me with the means. She had just finished recording the songs for her new Columbia picture, "I'll Take Romance"— songs which will prove to picture fans what the air waves have already proven to radio fans — that they are in no danger of losing the joy of her singing, that her voice is riper, fuller, more dramatic than it has ever been. "How do these stories start?" she cried, her blue eyes clouded. "I can't understand it. First thing I knew, letters came pouring in to me and my managers, wanting to know if there was any truth in it. I'd have liked to sit down and answer them all myself. But you can't answer a flood. I'd have liked An upbringing in the Tennessee hills and a memorable trip to Europe played a part in moulding Grace Moore's voice and life. Right, the star with Stuart Erwin in "I'll Take Romance" to climb up to the top of the world and shout, 'no.' But I didn't know where to look for the top of the world," she laughed through her distress. "That's the trouble with rumors. You can't fight them. They're so insidious. All I could do was sing which, after all, was the best answer, I suppose." I HE baseless rumor seemed to have started when Miss Moore, after making her last picture, canceled a number of concert engagements in order to recover fully from an attack Qf the flu contracted while she was in the midst of production. She flung her hands out in a little gesture of helplessness. "But singers cancel engagements right and left when they have good cause. They don't wait till they've lost their voices — what fools they'd be! — they do it to protect their voices. "I had the flu, just the plain, simple little influenza germ, like anybody else, that can make you so miserable you don't want to talk, let alone sing. But I was making a picture and, flu or no flu, I had to go on making it. I finished it with a temperature of 103. Of course, I was hoarse. Of course, I was worn out. Of course, I had to cancel my concert engagements. Assume a lost voice with every broken date, and there wouldn't be any voices left in the world." Yes, Grace Moore did lose her voice once. She'd told the story herself as a warning to young singers. "I not only couldn't sing. For six months I wasn't allowed to open my mouth for so much as a whisper. That's per( Continued on page 85) 24