1940s In 1940, 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, participating in three musical numbers. Two further films were planned for Grayson in 1941:
White House Girl, which was later produced in 1948 with Durbin, and
Very Warm for May, from the
Jerome Kern and
Oscar Hammerstein musical of the same name. The film eventually was produced in 1944 as
Broadway Rhythm. Grayson appeared in three films in 1942:
The Vanishing Virginian,
Rio Rita and
Seven Sweethearts. In the first, Grayson plays the teenage daughter, Rebecca, of the eccentric Yancey family from
Lynchburg, Virginia. Set in 1913, the film was based on Rebecca Yancey Williams's own family. Grayson co-starred in
Rio Rita with
Abbott and Costello. Grayson portrayed the title character, Rita Winslow. The film was originally meant to be an adaptation of the 1927 Broadway musical; however, only two songs were retained for the film, the title song, and "The Ranger Song", which was performed by Grayson. Co-starring
Van Heflin,
Seven Sweethearts cast Grayson as the youngest of seven daughters from
Holland,
Michigan, who is hired by reporter-photographer Heflin to serve as a model and secretary while he covers the town's
tulip festival, and with whom he falls in love. In 1943, Grayson appeared in the film
Thousands Cheer, (originally titled
Private Miss Jones), along with
Gene Kelly,
Mickey Rooney,
Eleanor Powell,
June Allyson and others. The film was intended as a morale booster for American troops and their families. Grayson starred as the singing daughter of an Army commander. It was announced in 1942 that Grayson would appear in
An American Symphony with
Judy Garland. Garland was replaced by
June Allyson, and the film was retitled as "
Two Sisters from Boston" and released in 1946. Grayson did not appear in any films for nearly two years (from 1943 to 1945), but instead worked at entertaining troops during the war and performing on radio programs. Notably, it is reported that she would only perform under the condition that the audience was integrated, as troops were segregated at the time. She returned to films in
Anchors Aweigh, a musical romantic-comedy set in Los Angeles and co-starring Kelly and
Frank Sinatra.
Anchors Aweigh was the fifth-highest grossing film of 1945, earning over $4.779 million. This was followed by
Two Sisters from Boston and guest appearances in
Ziegfeld Follies and
Till the Clouds Roll By. Her performance in
Till the Clouds Roll By included "
Make Believe" in a capsule version of the musical
Show Boat, which would be
remade five years later, with Grayson in the starring role. MGM re-paired Grayson and Sinatra for two movies in 1947 and 1948,
It Happened in Brooklyn and
The Kissing Bandit. Both films performed poorly at the box office, and audiences thought the plots absurd. After the setbacks of
Brooklyn and
Bandit, Grayson was partnered with tenor
Mario Lanza in
That Midnight Kiss in 1949.
1950s in
The Toast of New Orleans In 1950, Grayson was once again partnered with Lanza, and portrayed an opera singer in
The Toast of New Orleans, and performed the Academy-Award-nominated song "
Be My Love". While shooting the
Madama Butterfly scene in the film, Lanza kept attempting to
french kiss Grayson, which Grayson claimed was made even worse by the fact that Lanza would constantly eat garlic before shooting. Grayson went to costume designer
Helen Rose, who sewed pieces of brass into Grayson's gloves. Any time Lanza attempted to french kiss her after that, she hit him with the brass-filled glove. For the premiere of the film in
New Orleans, she was a guest at an auction selling the film's costumes. Grayson replaced
June Allyson in the role of Ina Massine in 1951's
Grounds for Marriage. She portrayed an opera singer with
laryngitis, alongside
Van Johnson who played her doctor and love interest. This was also her first non-singing role at MGM. Grayson's musical performances do appear in the film, but in the form of recordings. Grayson was next cast as Magnolia Hawks in the
1951 remake of the 1927
Hammerstein and
Kern musical,
Show Boat.
Show Boat was the third-highest-grossing film of 1951, earning over $5.533 million. Grayson teamed again with Keel in the 1952
Technicolor musical
Lovely to Look At, a remake of the 1935
Astaire and
Rogers film
Roberta. She was released to the Warner Brothers studio in January 1953, with the stipulation that she return to MGM for one more film. She returned to co-star for a third time with Howard Keel in her most acclaimed role, as Lilli Vanessi/Katharina in
Kiss Me Kate, released in November 1953. The film was lavishly produced (the only musical other than
Those Redheads from Seattle (1953) to be filmed in 3-D), with songs by
Cole Porter, choreography by
Hermes Pan, and musical direction by
André Previn.
Warner Bros While on loan to
Warner Bros, her first musical release was
The Desert Song, May 1953, alongside
Gordon MacRae. She was asked to perform
La Bohème at the Central City Opera House in
Central City, Colorado, but due to her filming obligations for
The Desert Song, she had to turn it down. Warner Bros. starred her in a second musical that year,
So This Is Love. Grayson appeared on television occasionally, having guest starred in the
CBS anthology series,
General Electric Theater in the episode,
Shadow on the Heart, with
John Ericson, and on
Playhouse 90 in the title role of the "Lone Woman", with
Raymond Burr and
Scott Brady in the historical roles of the brothers
Charles and
William Bent, respectively. In the 1980s, Grayson guest starred in three episodes as recurring character Ideal Molloy on
Murder, She Wrote. ==Stage career==