Grace Bradley

Grace Bradley was an American actress and entertainer born on September 21, 1913, in Brooklyn, New York. The only child of her mother, she began studying piano at a young age and gave her first recital at six. At twelve, she earned a scholarship to the Eastman School of Music near Rochester, New York, where she had originally intended to pursue a career as a professional pianist. Alongside her piano studies she also trained in dance, and from an early age she performed in nightclubs and on stage, singing, dancing, and playing piano to help support her widowed mother. Her grandfather had hoped she would travel to Berlin for a more formal musical education, but a Broadway producer who attended one of her dance recitals hired her for a professional production before those plans could materialize.

Bradley made her Broadway debut on December 22, 1930, at New York's Hammerstein Theatre in Ballyhoo of 1930. Her next stage appearance followed a year later at the Music Box Theater in The Third Little Show. She subsequently performed in various New York nightclubs and theatres before appearing in Strike Me Pink at the Majestic Theater in March 1933. She departed that production to pursue opportunities in Hollywood, a decision that would define the next decade of her professional life. Her Broadway credits also include the musical Ballyhoo of 1932.

Although Bradley appeared in one film in 1932, her screen career gained momentum with Too Much Harmony in 1933, which she identified as her first significant film credit. That same year she signed a contract with Paramount Pictures, earning a reported $150 per week. From 1933 to 1943 she appeared in a large number of quickly produced second features, frequently cast in roles described as "good-time girls," often with invented French names. Among her notable screen appearances during this period were Six of a Kind (1934), The Gilded Lily (1935), Anything Goes (1936), Thirteen Hours by Air (1936), The Big Broadcast of 1938, and the Brooklyn-set comedies The McGuerins from Brooklyn (1943) and its companion film Brooklyn Orchid (1942), in which she played Sadie McGuerin. Her final major role under her Paramount contract came in Taxi, Mister (1943). She made one additional screen appearance, an uncredited cameo in Tournament of Roses (1954).

In May 1937, Bradley was set up on a blind date with William Boyd, the actor known for portraying Hopalong Cassidy. The two married the following month. The marriage was happy, though the couple had no children. As Bradley's film career slowed in the 1940s, she spent much of the decade traveling with Boyd as he promoted his cowboy persona across the country. After Boyd's death on September 12, 1972, Bradley withdrew from the entertainment world, though she continued efforts to preserve her husband's legacy and spent years pursuing legal rights to his 66 Hopalong Cassidy films. She devoted considerable time to volunteer work at the Laguna Beach Hospital, where Boyd had spent his final days.

Grace Bradley Boyd died on September 21, 2010, her 97th birthday. Private services were held two days later at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California, where she was interred alongside her husband in the Great Mausoleum, Sanctuary of Sacred Promise.