Grace Moore - Ultimate Hollywood Hostess?

Grace Moore, who held honors in musical comedy and opera, was naturally noticed by Hollywood. She came out to Hollywood with cars full of secretaries, cats, maids, dogs, handboxes and singing teachers (Hollywood Undressed, Page 157). Not exactly sure what handboxes are. I found everything from tools to blood collectors to luggage that were called handboxes. I'm hoping it's luggage :) If anyone knows, please share with us. Grace went everywhere with her handmaids and secretaries.

According to Madame Sylvia, our Masseuse to the Stars, she wanted to upstage Gloria Swanson as most popular hostess. Surprise, surprise Gloria Swanson did not get along with Grace Moore. Could it be because Gene Markey passed up an evening of charades at Gloria's house in order to take Grace flowers?

Up next - Gorgeous Grace and Vivienne Segal fight on the slab

Gloria Swanson is top dog

In 1929, Madame Sylvia was under contract to Pathe. She was in charge of taking care of Gloria Swanson, Ina Claire, Grace Moore, and Constance Bennett.. Under her Pathe contract, Gloria got first dibs on Sylvia's services - everyone else had to work around it. During this time, Ina Claire's old beau, Gene Markey, started seeing Gloria Swanson in order to make Ina mad. Instead of Ina Claire becoming mad at Gloria, she became mad at Sylvia and stopped seeing her.


For info on Ina Claire, check out:
http://flapperdays.blogspot.com/2009/11/basil-rathbones-masquerade-leads-to-ina.html
http://flapperdays.blogspot.com/2009/11/ina-claire-and-alice-white-catfight.html

On a side note, Sylvia gave a pretty disgusting overview of the Hollywood hierarchy she observed while working at Pathe in Hollywood Undressed:

"In Hollywood you can high-hat some, and you can't high-hat others. On the lot you can high-hat writers, dialogue directors, the man who takes orders for custom-made shirts, people who act in Westerns, and Spaniards" (Hollywood Undressed, Page 105).

I'm not sure if that says more about Madame Sylvia, or the times in which she lived.

Up next, Carmel Myers gets on the wrong side of Gloria Swanson.