Born in Cocke County (in Slabtown) and christened Mary Willie Grace Moore, Grace Moore spent her youth in Jellico. She attended Ward-Belmont College briefly and then continued her musical training in Washington and New York. A soprano who became known as the “Tennessee Nightingale,” she made her Broadway debut in 1920 in the musical Hitchy Koo, by Jerome Kern. She made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Mimi in La Boheme in 1928. She made her cinema debut in A Lady’s Morals (based on the life of Jenny Lind) in 1930 and achieved international fame with One Night of Love (1934). She was married to Spanish screen actor Valentin Parera. She sang for 16 seasons with the Metropolitan Opera.
In 1937 she gave a concert at UT, in Alumni Memorial Building, which was the initiating concert of the University Concerts series. Although not a UT alumna, her brothers Jim, Dick, and Martin were alumni, and she was entertained by their fraternity, Phi Gamma Delta, when she was on campus for her concert. Then at the height of her musical career, she packed the auditorium and even added the “Alma Mater” (at the request of the All Students Club and the YMCA) as the next-to-last number on the program.
She was killed in an airplane crash leaving Copenhagen on January 26, 1947, after singing for American troops. The 1947 All Sing Finale was dedicated to her. She left her scores, books, letters, and personal memorabilia to Ward-Belmont. Her parents gave UT over four hundred items of personal effects acquired by Moore during her career, and the Grace Moore Gallery in the Audigier Gallery was opened by UT President C. E. Brehm in March 1949. The collection was subsequently divided between the McClung Museum and UT Libraries’ Special Collections, with substantial parts of the museum’s collection later being placed on permanent loan with the Tennessee State Museum.
The movie So This is Love, the story of Moore’s life, starred Kathryn Grayson in the role of Grace Moore. The movie had its world premiere in Knoxville at the Tennessee Theatre (although it had been released two weeks earlier), which was a benefit for the Grace Moore Scholarship Fund. The event involved not only the showing of the film, but a three-day series of events and dedications. Knoxville named its first highway cloverleaf for her, and UT named a set of steps leading into Alumni Memorial Building for her. The first four Grace Moore scholars were in attendance and were introduced on stage. In 1976 Moore received national bicentennial-year recognition as an Outstanding Tennessee Musician. She was honored by the dedication of a commemorative plaque in the UT Music Building Auditorium lobby as part of the Bicentennial Parade of American Music.