Trivia of Kathryn Grayson

 Trivia of Kathryn Grayson (9 February 1922 - 17 February 2010)

*At the age of 12, Grayson was discovered singing on the empty stage of the St. Louis Municipal Opera House by a janitor, who introduced her to Frances Marshall of the Chicago Civic Opera, from whom Grayson received voice lessons.

*In 1939, an MGM talent scout saw Grayson performing at a music festival. MGM hoped to find a replacement for Deanna Durbin, who had left the studio for Universal Pictures. For the next 18 months, Grayson took voice, drama and diction lessons and followed a routine of dieting and exercise. Within a year, she had her first screen test. However, studio executives were not satisfied, and she endured a further six months of lessons until she made her first film appearance in 1941's Andy Hardy's Private Secretary as secretary Kathryn Land.

*She was paired on screen with Mario Lanza a few times, such : That Midnight Kiss (1949) and The Toast of New Orleans (1950), but the two never got along due mostly to Lanza's hot temper and alcohol abuse.But when Mario Lanza unexpectedly died of a massive heart attack at the age of 38, Kathryn invited his wife and four children to live with her. They stayed with her for several months until they felt ready to get back on their feet.

*Howard Keel, her co-star in three movies, once described her in an interview as the most beautiful woman in the history of movies.One thing that annoyed Keel about Kathryn was how, when they were dancing, she “moved like a Mack truck.” He later found out it was because Kathryn felt self-conscious dancing close to her male co-stars and was trying to create distance.However Keel and Kathryn had acknowledged that they loved each other, but they decided remaining friends would be best. “We were mad about each other, and there was no way to stop it.I’m amazed we didn’t say to hell with it and go someplace alone together, but that would have hurt too many people.”

*She was good friend of Ava Gardner, her co-star in Show Boat (1951).Kathryn Grayson and Ava Gardner were born in the same year, just 10 months and 2 weeks apart.During the filming of Showboat, Ava Gardener recalled how she and Kathryn would ignore “one of Metro’s cardinal rules,” and between takes “smuggle in enough tequila to send us back home in the best of humor.”

*Throughout the 70s and 80s, Kathryn Grayson gave many concerts, oftentimes with her old friend Howard Keel. On television, she had a recurring role on the hit show, “Murder She Wrote,” starring another longtime friend Angela Lansbury. As she grew older, she began to travel less and started giving private singing lessons out of her home.

*Personally, she didn't like her last movie The Vagabond King (1958), “it should never have been made.”Filmed between December 1954 and February 1955, but not released until September 1956 after spending eighteen months on the shelf, this was a box office failure for Paramount.Kathryn's co star, Oreste Kirkop who also an opera star considered her "merely a singer in movies" and Kathryn considered him to be a "pompous oaf."