Grace Bradley

Born: 1913-09-21

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.


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13 Hours by Air

as Trixie La Brey
Released: 1936-04-30

Womanizer and airline pilot Jack Gordon must fly the world's fastest airliner from New York to...

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Wake Up and Live

as Jean Roberts
Released: 1937-08-23

Satire on radio, built around the supposed feud between bandleader Ben Bernie and journalist...

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The Gilded Lily

as Daisy
Released: 1935-01-25

Secretary Marilyn David falls in love with British aristocrat Charles Gray, to the dismay of her...

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The Way to Love

as Sunburned Lady
Released: 1933-10-20

Francois, a cheerful Parisian bohemian, wants more than anything to be a tour guide in his...

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The Cat's-Paw

as Dolores Doce
Released: 1934-08-07

Naive Ezekial Cobb, brought up by his missionary father in China returns to America to seek a...

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Dangerous Waters

as Joan Marlowe
Released: 1936-02-10

While a ship captain is at sea dealing with a mutiny among his crew, his wife is at home having...

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Six of a Kind

as Goldie
Released: 1934-02-09

The Whinneys share expenses for their trip to Hollywood with George and Gracie and their great...

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O.H.M.S.

as Jean Burdett
Released: 1937-01-01

American racketeer Jimmie Dean travels to England, where he assumes the identity of a Canadian...

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Come On, Marines!

as JoJo La Verne
Released: 1934-03-23

"Lucky" Davis, a ladies-man and a devil-may-care U. S. Marine Sergeant, is leading a...

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She Made Her Bed

as Eve Richards
Released: 1934-04-26

"Duke" Gordon (Robert Armstrong), a circus lion-tamer, tries to tames his wife, Laura (Sally...

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Brooklyn Orchid

as Sadie McGuerin
Released: 1942-01-31

Two taxi-fleet operators rescue a girl and she follows them to a mountain resort.

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Sign of the Wolf

as Judy Weston
Released: 1941-03-25

Two German shepherds and their mistress (Grace Bradley) crash-land in Canada by a fox breeder's...

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Romance on the Run

as Lily Lamont
Released: 1938-05-11

A (rather shady?) private detective specializing in recovering highly insured items gets...

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Sitting on the Moon

as Polly Blair
Released: 1936-09-11

A successful songwriter and a struggling singer become involved professionally and romantically...

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Anything Goes

as Bonnie LeTour
Released: 1936-01-24

A young man falls in love with a beautiful blonde. When he sees her being forced onto a luxury...

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Old Man Rhythm

as Marion Beecher
Released: 1935-08-02

Romantic rivalries between father and son enrolled at the same college.

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Two-Fisted

as Marie
Released: 1935-10-03

A fast-talking boxing manager and the somewhat hapless fighter he manages happen to run into a...

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The Big Broadcast of 1938

as Grace Fielding
Released: 1938-02-11

The Bellows family causes comic confusion on an ocean liner, with time out for radio-style...

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Redhead

as Dale Carter
Released: 1934-10-31

A girl marries a playboy from a rich family, expecting a life of comfort and luxury. However,...

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Too Much Harmony

as Verne La Mond
Released: 1933-09-23

A singer is involved with two women in his life, one a "good" girl and one a "bad" one."

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Rose of the Rancho

as Flossie
Released: 1936-01-09

It is California in 1852 that only recently being surrendered by Mexico to the United States and...

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Girl Without a Room

as Nada
Released: 1933-12-08

A Tennessee art school student wins a scholarship to paint in Paris. He is thrilled until he...

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Stolen Harmony

as Jean Loring
Released: 1935-04-20

Band leader Jack Conrad is impressed by prison inmate Ray Ferrera on saxophone. Conrad hires Ray...

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Roaring Timber

as Kay MacKinley
Released: 1937-07-03

Jim Sherwood , toughest logging boss in the timber country, takes on his toughest assignment...

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Don't Turn 'em Loose

as Grace Forbes
Released: 1936-09-18

A conscientious attorney who is a member of the State Parole Board, finds his own son, using an...

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It's All Yours

as Constance Marlowe
Released: 1937-09-01

Jimmy Barnes arrives from Europe to be educated by his multi-millionaire uncle, Edward J. Barnes...

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F-Man

as Evelyn
Released: 1936-05-02

Johnny Dime has aspiration of becoming a "G-Man" , gums up the work of Rogan, an actual...

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The Invisible Killer

as Sue Walker
Released: 1939-11-14

Reporter Sue Walker has too much inside information on the local gambling rackets to suit her...

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Taxi, Mister

as Sadie McGuerin aka O'Brien
Released: 1943-04-16

The owner (William Bendix) of a cab company tries to foil a racketeer.

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Larceny on the Air

as Jean Sterling
Released: 1937-01-11

A doctor working with the Bureau of Pure Foods and Drugs, uses radio broadcasts to expose...

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The Hard-Boiled Canary

as Madie Duvalie
Released: 1941-06-08

A young girl fresh out of reform school who is singing in a burlesque show is offered a...

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The McGuerins from Brooklyn

as Sadie McGuerin
Released: 1942-12-31

Tim McGuerin and Eddie Corbett operates a big taxi-fleet company together and because of a...

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