Kathryn Grayson died on February 17, 2010 at age 88 at her home in Los Angeles. According to Sally Sherman, her longtime companion and secretary stated she “just went to sleep and didn’t wake up.”
Born as Zelma Kathryn Elisabeth Hedrick, she appeared in 20 films, all but three for MGM – but only one, the 1952 remake of Show Boat, was a big hit. She was backed by outstanding production values and strong performances from Howard Keel and Ava Gardner. Keel became her favourite actor and her choice as co-star in Kiss Me Kate (1953), against the studio’s preference for Laurence Olivier.
Kathryn Grayson always wanted to be an opera star, and spent a modest six weeks every year practising for the Metropolitan Opera debut that never came. Many of her performances in MGM musicals were as divas (usually spoiled), giving her the chance to trill the arias denied her in real life – although she did makes appearances in several operas in the 1960s.
Beverly Sills, the soprano was a friend of Kathryns and she often visited her dressing room between acts.
She was signed by MGM on the basis of a promise. MGM was looking for another Deanna Durbin. Talent scouts and publicists were ordered on pain of dismissal to find “another Deanna Durbin”. Kathryn Grayson, 15 at the time and heard singing at a party, seemed the answer to their prayers, and she was offered a contract even without a screen test.
Though she became an MGM contract artist in 1939, it was two years before her first film. During this time, she was trained in acting techniques and in the difference between singing for the screen and the stage. Her first film was Andy Hardy’s Private Secretary (1941) – a Mickey Rooney vehicle which also featured several other studio starlets, among them Judy Garland, Esther Williams, Lana Turner and Donna Reed.
Her performance did attract favourable notices, but, MGM remained uncertain of her potential and for two years cast her only in supporting roles.
Cast opposite Gene Kelly in Thousands Cheer (1943) and Anchors Aweigh (1945), she displayed a winsome charm; but still the studio had reservations about her popular appeal. So it featured her in self-contained musical numbers in what were in effect glorified revues, designed to exploit a wide range of MGM talent.
Her last three films for MGM all co-stared Howard Keel, and contained her best work. Show Boat, Lovely to Look At (a 1952 remake of Roberta, with music by Jerome Kern) and Kiss Me Kate, the 1953 3-D version of the Cole Porter musical based on The Taming of the Shrew, were well within her vocal range.
She retired from movies and appeared only sporadically on stage and television. She had some success in concert programmes, both solo and with her old singing partner Howard Keel, but a 1960 road tour of Camelot was not well received.
Kathryn Grayson was married twice: first to John Shelton (1940-46) and secondly to the singer Johnnie Johnston (1947-51), with whom she appeared in 1949 at the London Palladium and by whom she had a daughter, Patricia, born in 1948. Both marriages ended in divorce.
