In the 1953 musical biopic So This Is Love, Kathryn Grayson portrays real-life American opera star Grace Moore whose untimely death in a 1947 plane crash tragically cut short a luminous singing career. The film traces Moore's early life as a musical prodigy in Tennessee and subsequent triumph in her debut as Mimi in La Boheme at the New York Metropolitan Opera House. Based on Grace Moore's 1945 autobiography You're Only Human Once, So This Is Love is a highly entertaining film filled with exuberant music and Kathryn Grayson at the peak of her talent and beauty.

Grayson was also at the height of her popularity when she made So This Is Love. While she was beloved by audiences, she also had a reputation for being difficult to work with according to Merv Griffin, who co-starred in the film as Grace Moore's suitor Buddy Nash. "I would need all the encouragement I could get, word around the studio being Kathryn Grayson was a terror to work with," said Griffin in his 1980 autobiography Merv. "She was supposed to fight constantly with her leading men, forcing their faces out of scenes, giving them acting lessons and generally wreaking havoc on the set," said Griffin. "When I ran into her ex-husband, Johnny Johnston, on the lot and told him I was in the new film with Kathryn, he shook his head. 'You're in for a lot of trouble, pal. Good luck.'"

Despite his trepidation, Griffin's inevitable meeting with Grayson was not what he expected. "When I first met Kathryn I must have looked like a boxer sizing up an opponent," said Griffin. "But from day one she popped all my preconceptions by being the most charming, helpful person I'd met in the business. Perhaps she sensed I was a fish out of water on a movie set because she patiently guided me through scene after scene. Once she stopped a scene in midtake just to explain, 'How will you ever be a star, Merv? You keep turning your face away from the camera and losing your key light. Now make sure to talk to me from this angle...so your face will be on the screen, for heaven's sake.' I didn't seem to know where the camera was or where the 'key light' was coming from; I just knew how to find the commissary. But Kathryn slowly taught me the bare essentials of film acting."

When it came time to kiss Grayson in front of the cameras, Griffin got more than he bargained for. "I can be very romantic in the privacy of my own home," said Griffin, "but the idea of playing a love scene in front of a camera crew petrified me. So what does the picture's publicist do for the first day of kissing scenes? He invited a college football team from Texas, in town for the Rose Bowl, to watch us film, without saying a word to me. We were on the set rehearsing a tender love scene in which I whisper a few endearments in Kathryn's ear, then kiss her passionately, and as I'm getting my courage up for the first take I see a mob of large men slowly surround the set. The crew accepted it as normal procedure, so I tried to take it in stride...Sweat rolled down my forehead and onto Kathryn's nose; the makeup man stood by with lots of cotton swabs to use between takes. And there were lots of takes. I kept kissing her head-on, my nose leaving a dent in her face. Director Gordon Douglas quietly prodded me: 'Merv, you're putting your nose in her eye. Turn your head, exaggerate it.' She tried to help me but I was having a terrible time transporting myself from being Merv Griffin to being Buddy Nash, master kisser. After ten takes the football players started mumbling. 'What's the matter with this guy?' 'Give me five seconds and I'll show her a kiss.' 'He's gettin' paid for this, jeez.'...I eventually managed to make it through the kissing scenes, and they actually received quite a bit of attention when the picture was released; in one of the scenes our mouths were open when we kissed, and believe it or not, in 1954 that raised a few eyebrows."

Warner Bros. sent Kathryn Grayson and Merv Griffin on a multi-city tour to promote So This Is Love upon its release, beginning in Grace Moore's home town of Knoxville, Tennessee. The publicity tour along with many positive reviews helped make the film a solid hit and kept Grayson at the top of the musical star pantheon of her day.

Songs in So This Is Love include "The Kiss Waltz," "Remember," "I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate," and "Time on My Hands."

Producer: Henry Blanke
Director: Gordon Douglas
Screenplay: John Monks, Jr.
Cinematography: Robert Burks
Art Direction: Edward Carrere
Music: Max Steiner
Film Editing: Folmar Blangsted
Cast: Kathryn Grayson (Grace Moore), Merv Griffin (Buddy Nash), Joan Weldon (Ruth Obre), Walter Abel (Col. James Moore), Rosemary DeCamp (Aunt Laura Stokley), Jeff Donnell (Henrietta Van Dyke), Douglas Dick (Bryan Curtis), Ann Doran (Mrs. Moore), Margaret Field (Edna Wallace), Mabel Albertson (Mary Garden), Fortunio Bonanova (Dr. Marafioti), Marie Windsor (Marilyn Montgomery).
C-101m.

by Andrea Passafiume