Grace Bradley
A petite and extremely lovely blonde "B" film actress who eventually deserted her career in favor of standing by her man (cowboy icon William Boyd, aka, "Hopalong Cassidy"), Grace Bradley spent the rest of her life in his shadow and devoting herself to her husband's career. Bill's Hoppy was the longest span of any fictional character played by the same actor. Following his death in 1972, she spent a good deal of her time keeping his good name and image in tact. Grace initially studied to be a concert pianist, playing Carngie Hall at age 15. She also took advantage of her budding loveliness by modeling full time and taking singing/dancing lessons on the sly. She went on to act, sing, and dance on the Broadway stage in the musicals "Strike Me Pink" and "The Little Show". While performing at the Paradise nightclub in Manhattan in 1933, the dancer was "discovered" and signed by a Paramount Pictures director. Heading west, she often came off as an assertive "bad girl" or femme-fatale at Paramount with such fun, party-girl names as Goldie, Trixie, Flossie, Lily and Sadie. Her first full-length movie was as a second lead in the Bing Crosby/Jack Oakie musical comedy Too Much Harmony (1933), in which she sang and danced to the feisty tune "Cradle Me With a Hotcha Lullaby". She subsequently appeared in the W.C. Fields classic Six of a Kind (1934); the Richard Arlen pictures Come On, Marines! (1934) and She Made Her Bed (1934); the Claudette Colbert/Fred MacMurray comedy The Gilded Lily (1935), and had the female lead opposite Bruce Cabot in Redhead (1934). Appearing secondary in the Bing Crosby/Ethel Merman version of Anything Goes (1936), her musical talents were tapped into with the films The Cat's-Paw (1934), Stolen Harmony (1935), Old Man Rhythm (1935), Sitting on the Moon (1936) and Wake Up and Live (1937). Elsewhere, various "B" male co-stars would include Wallace Ford, Lee Tracy, Jack Haley, John Boles, Robert Livingston, Jack Holt and Robert Armstrong. In 1937, Grace happened to cross paths with Bill Boyd, who became her "Prince Charming on a big white horse". She had a long-time school-girl crush on Boyd and was instantly smitten upon their first meeting. He was 42 and she 23. He asked her to marry him within a few days and they were married three weeks later on June 5th. Boyd had already been married four times, none lasting longer than six years. Grace would become the fifth (and last) Mrs. William Boyd in a marriage that lasted 35 years. The couple had no children together; Bill had one child from his third marriage. William Lawrence Boyd retired from show business in 1953 quite wealthy. Suffering from Parkinson's disease, he died of heart failure in Laguna Beach in 1972 at age 77. Grace went on to spend the last decades of her life devoting herself to volunteer work at the Laguna Beach hospital where her husband lived out his final days. She later withstood legal battles that stemmed from copyright infringements, but enjoyed appearing occasionally at Hopalong Cassidy tributes. The definitive biography Hopalong Cassidy - An American Legend was co-authored by Grace and Michael Cochran in 2008. Grace Bradley Boyd died, 21 September 2010, Dana Point, California. of complications from old age at age 97 on her birthday; and she was interred next to her husband at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Clendale, California.
13 Hours by Air
as Trixie La BreyWomanizer and airline pilot Jack Gordon must fly the world's fastest airliner from New York to...
Movie pageWake Up and Live
as Jean RobertsSatire on radio, built around the supposed feud between bandleader Ben Bernie and journalist...
Movie pageThe Gilded Lily
as DaisySecretary Marilyn David falls in love with British aristocrat Charles Gray, to the dismay of her...
Movie pageThe Way to Love
as Sunburned LadyFrancois, a cheerful Parisian bohemian, wants more than anything to be a tour guide in his...
Movie pageThe Cat's-Paw
as Dolores DoceNaive Ezekial Cobb, brought up by his missionary father in China returns to America to seek a...
Movie pageDangerous Waters
as Joan MarloweWhile a ship captain is at sea dealing with a mutiny among his crew, his wife is at home having...
Movie pageSix of a Kind
as GoldieThe Whinneys share expenses for their trip to Hollywood with George and Gracie and their great...
Movie pageO.H.M.S.
as Jean BurdettAmerican racketeer Jimmie Dean travels to England, where he assumes the identity of a Canadian...
Movie pageCome On, Marines!
as JoJo La Verne"Lucky" Davis, a ladies-man and a devil-may-care U. S. Marine Sergeant, is leading a...
Movie pageShe Made Her Bed
as Eve Richards"Duke" Gordon (Robert Armstrong), a circus lion-tamer, tries to tames his wife, Laura (Sally...
Movie pageBrooklyn Orchid
as Sadie McGuerinTwo taxi-fleet operators rescue a girl and she follows them to a mountain resort.
Movie pageSign of the Wolf
as Judy WestonTwo German shepherds and their mistress (Grace Bradley) crash-land in Canada by a fox breeder's...
Movie pageRomance on the Run
as Lily LamontA (rather shady?) private detective specializing in recovering highly insured items gets...
Movie pageSitting on the Moon
as Polly BlairA successful songwriter and a struggling singer become involved professionally and romantically...
Movie pageAnything Goes
as Bonnie LeTourA young man falls in love with a beautiful blonde. When he sees her being forced onto a luxury...
Movie pageOld Man Rhythm
as Marion BeecherRomantic rivalries between father and son enrolled at the same college.
Movie pageTwo-Fisted
as MarieA fast-talking boxing manager and the somewhat hapless fighter he manages happen to run into a...
Movie pageThe Big Broadcast of 1938
as Grace FieldingThe Bellows family causes comic confusion on an ocean liner, with time out for radio-style...
Movie pageRedhead
as Dale CarterA girl marries a playboy from a rich family, expecting a life of comfort and luxury. However,...
Movie pageToo Much Harmony
as Verne La MondA singer is involved with two women in his life, one a "good" girl and one a "bad" one."
Movie pageRose of the Rancho
as FlossieIt is California in 1852 that only recently being surrendered by Mexico to the United States and...
Movie pageGirl Without a Room
as NadaA Tennessee art school student wins a scholarship to paint in Paris. He is thrilled until he...
Movie pageStolen Harmony
as Jean LoringBand leader Jack Conrad is impressed by prison inmate Ray Ferrera on saxophone. Conrad hires Ray...
Movie pageRoaring Timber
as Kay MacKinleyJim Sherwood , toughest logging boss in the timber country, takes on his toughest assignment...
Movie pageDon't Turn 'em Loose
as Grace ForbesA conscientious attorney who is a member of the State Parole Board, finds his own son, using an...
Movie pageIt's All Yours
as Constance MarloweJimmy Barnes arrives from Europe to be educated by his multi-millionaire uncle, Edward J. Barnes...
Movie pageF-Man
as EvelynJohnny Dime has aspiration of becoming a "G-Man" , gums up the work of Rogan, an actual...
Movie pageThe Invisible Killer
as Sue WalkerReporter Sue Walker has too much inside information on the local gambling rackets to suit her...
Movie pageTaxi, Mister
as Sadie McGuerin aka O'BrienThe owner (William Bendix) of a cab company tries to foil a racketeer.
Movie pageLarceny on the Air
as Jean SterlingA doctor working with the Bureau of Pure Foods and Drugs, uses radio broadcasts to expose...
Movie pageThe Hard-Boiled Canary
as Madie DuvalieA young girl fresh out of reform school who is singing in a burlesque show is offered a...
Movie pageThe McGuerins from Brooklyn
as Sadie McGuerinTim McGuerin and Eddie Corbett operates a big taxi-fleet company together and because of a...
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