Want to know the best Kathryn Grayson movies? How about the worst Kathryn Grayson movies? Curious about Kathryn Grayson box office grosses or which Kathryn Grayson movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Kathryn Grayson movie got the best reviews from critics and audiences and which got the worst reviews? Well you have come to the right place….because we have all of that information.
Kathryn Grayson (1922-2010) was an American actress and soprano who appeared in many successful MGM musicals in the 1940 and 1950s. Her IMDb page shows 26 acting credits from 1941-1989. This page will rank 20 Kathryn Grayson movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. Grayson’s 5 television roles and her one uncredited role were not included in these rankings. This page comes from a request by Flora.
Kathryn Grayson Movies Can Be Ranked 6 Ways In This Table
The really cool thing about this table is that it is “user-sortable”. Rank the movies anyway you want.
- Sort Kathryn Grayson movies by co-stars of her movies
- Sort Kathryn Grayson movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
- Sort Kathryn Grayson movies by domestic yearly box office rank
- Sort Kathryn Grayson movies by how they were received by critics and audiences. 60% rating or higher should indicate a good movie.
- Sort by how many Oscar® nominations and how many Oscar® wins each Kathryn Grayson movie received.
- Sort Kathryn Grayson movies by Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score. UMR Score puts box office, reviews and awards into a mathematical equation and gives each movie a score.
- Use the sort and search button to make this a very interactive page. For example type in “Gene Kelly” to see her 3 movies she made with Kelly
Stats and Possibly Interesting Things From The Above Kathryn Grayson Table
- Ten Kathryn Grayson movies crossed the magical $100 million domestic gross mark. That is a percentage of 50.00% of her movies listed. Till The Clouds Roll By (1946) was her biggest box office hit….but just barely over 1945’s Anchors Aweigh.
- An average Kathryn Grayson movie grosses $141.40 million in adjusted box office gross.
- Using RottenTomatoes.com’s 60% fresh meter. 12 Kathryn Grayson movies are rated as good movies…or 60.00% of her movies. Kiss Me, Kate (1953) was her highest rated movie while The Vagabound King (1956) was her lowest rated movie.
- Five Kathryn Grayson movies received at least one Oscar® nomination in any category…..or 25.00% of her movies.
- One Kathryn Grayson movies won at least one Oscar® in any category…..or 5.00% of her movies.
- An average Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score is 40.00. 13 Kathryn Grayson movies scored higher than that average….or 65.00% of her movies. Anchors Aweigh (1945) got the the highest UMR Score while The Kissing Bandit (1948) got the lowest UMR Score.
Possibly Interesting Facts About Kathryn Grayson
1. Zelma Kathryn Elisabeth Hedrick was born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina in 1921. She got her screen name from the ‘Kathryn” in her name and the maiden name “Grayson” of her mother.
2. Kathryn Grayson was spotted by a MGM talent scout at a music festival. MGM in hopes of finding another Deanna Durbin (ever heard of this one Bob?) signed her to a movie contract. Durbin had recently left MGM for Universal.
3. Kathryn Grayson’s nickname was “Graysie”.
4. Kathryn Grayson and Mario Lanza made two movies together. They did not get along during the filming of those two movies….and yet….Kathryn did take his wife Betty and the children into her home, for a time, after Mario’s untimely death.
5. Kathryn Grayson’s average of $141.40 million adjusted domestic box office average per movie is the 10th average for actresses in our database (mininum 19 movies)
6. Kathryn Grayson was married two times and had 1 child. She was also engaged to Howard Hughes.
7. For the the famous spanking scene in 1953’s Kiss Me Kate, Kathryn Grayson and costume designer Helen Rose played a joke on Howard Keel – Rose put a wooden board under Grayson’s costume.
8. Kathryn Grayson’s movies grossed $2.82 billion in adjusted domestic box office. They grossed $4.30 billion adjusted worldwide box office. We were able to locate worldwide grosses on 95% of her movies.
Check out Kathryn Grayson‘s career compared to current and classic actors. Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time.
Not enough stats for you?….Then check out 19 Kathryn Grayson worldwide adjusted grosses
- Anchors Aweigh (1945) $529.30 million in adjusted worldwide box office
- Andy Hardy’s Private Secretary (1941) $233.20 million in adjusted worldwide box office
- Desert Song, The (1953) $96.80 million in adjusted worldwide box office
- Grounds For Marriage (1951) $76.80 million in adjusted worldwide box office
- It Happened in Brooklyn (1947) $163.60 million in adjusted worldwide box office
- Kiss Me, Kate (1953) $132.60 million in adjusted worldwide box office
- Kissing Bandit, The (1948) $76.70 million in adjusted worldwide box office
- Lovely To Look At (1952) $160.50 million in adjusted worldwide box office
- Rio Rita (1942) $267.00 million in adjusted worldwide box office
- Seven Sweethearts (1942) $140.00 million in adjusted worldwide box office
- Show Boat (1951) $367.00 million in adjusted worldwide box office
- So This Is Love (1953) $98.50 million in adjusted worldwide box office
- That Midnight Kiss (1949) $173.10 million in adjusted worldwide box office
- Thousands Cheer (1943) $472.20 million in adjusted worldwide box office
- Till The Clouds Roll By (1946) $439.00 million in adjusted worldwide box office
- Toast of New Orleans, The (1950) $162.80 million in adjusted worldwide box office
- Two Sisters From Boston (1946) $290.00 million in adjusted worldwide box office
- Vanishing Virginian, The (1942) $74.90 million in adjusted worldwide box office
- Ziegfeld Follies (1946) $347.30 million in adjusted worldwide box office
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For comments….all you need is a name and a comment….please ignore the rest.
Hi
I haven’t seen too many of her films but one of my favourite musicals is Showboat. I think the second version is better but Grayson looked incredible in it and sang beautifully. I realise that type of music is an acquired taste but I think I could listen to her more than say Janette McDonalld.
Sadly with the decline of musicals, her career was finished although I’m surprised she didn’t do more T.V work. They definitely don’t make movies or stars like hers anymore.
I suppose the world has just changed and is less innocent.
I also forgot Anchors Aweigh, another good show. I’ll make a point of seeing Kiss Me Kate.
Hey Chris…thanks for checking out our latest classic page. Well your two movies watched doubles my total….as I have only seen Anchors Aweigh. Kiss Me Kate…is also on my movies to watch list. Interesting comparison between MacDonald and Grayson. I agree with you 100%…the world is a lot less innocent for sure. Thanks for the feedback.
Another winning page. Now you need a Howard Keel page.
Thanks SteinHOF….Howard Keel will be done in the near future….thanks for the visit and the comment.
Cogerson
1—–as is usual with musical performers, she was often in Technicolor. Of her 21 movies, 13 were in color.
2—–The relatively low box office rating (#41 of 1942) of Rio Rita surprises me. Off the Mannix ledger, Rio Rita grossed $3,320,000 with a profit of $1,340,000. Hard to believe 40 movies did better that year.
3—–surprised that critics consider The Vagabond King worse than The Kissing Bandit. It is difficult to imagine anything worse than The Kissing Bandit, but I haven’t seen The Vagabond King.
4—–I recall reading a profile of Grayson years back which mentioned that her bust size was exactly the same as Jane Russell’s. Grayson made it known to MGM that she didn’t want to be exploited like that, and as MGM viewed her as a “class” performer, they did as she wanted.
5—–I have always felt it was too bad that the cast of Show Boat which was used in the intro to Till the Clouds Roll By was not used in the feature version of Show Boat. Grayson did play Magnolia, but Lena Horne as Julie was better casting than Ava Gardner (although Gardner did a good job) and Tony Martin was born to play a riverboat seducer. Howard Keel just seemed too strong a personality to be quite at home playing the weak Gaylord Ravenel.
Hey John
1. 13 out of 21 is pretty good for that time era.
2. As for Rio Rita…..that $3,320,000 is the worldwide rental number…..it earned $1,927,000 in North American rentals….or $160 million in USA and $267 million for total worldwide box office rentals
3. Vagabound King had some pretty horrible scores….and it was the movie that ended her movie career…..so I think it is safe to say the right two movies worked there way to the bottom of the rankings…..good thing for them…Frank and Kathryn’s other movies together did much better.
4. Very interesting info about Grayson and Russell…I think Grayson made the right decision there.
5. Good thoughts on Show Boat….I will have to check that one out. I know Gardner was bitter the rest of her life that they did not let her sing in the movie.
Good feedback….thank you for sharing it.
CORRECTIONS
1 Kathryn Grayson’s last SCREEN appearance of any kind was in 1989 but she continued working on stage into the 1990s.
2 Vagabond King is of course Entry 19 in the above table.
APOLOGIES.
Thanks for the corrections….Vagabound was her last movie appearance….and she had 5 television roles from 1956 to her passing in 2010.
1 “O day worthy to be marked with a great white stone!” I’ve been watching out for this Grayson page for some time now and indeed I think I informally requested it. To me Possibly Interesting Facts are revealing, as I did not know of her engagement to Hughes, was oblivious of her touching kindness to Lanza’s family despite disliking him, and was totally unaware that she was thought of as a potential Durbin replacement.
2 She would never have replaced Deanna in my affections but nevertheless I liked her very much as she had a fine singing voice and as the nice little set of miniature stills above clearly illustrate Kathryn like Deanna was very beautiful.
3 I was sorry to see her movie career collapse along with those of others such as Donald O’Connor, Howard Keel and Jane Powell because of the general decline of her bread and butter movies the musicals. As the table above shows she made no more movies after the 1956 Vagabond King [apart from a few shorts] but worked extensively on the stage and did some television work. Her last performances of any sort were 3 guest appearances from 1987-1989 in the TV mystery series Murder She Wrote starring Angela Lansbury [Delilah to us Cogerson followers!]
4 I just hope that the co-star links column at 16 above does not mislead because the Vagabond King of the title was played by Oreste Kirkop an opera star who made just this one film and for it was given equal billing with Kathryn above the title. Leslie Nielsen had a minor role and is not even mentioned in most posters. Anyway the very comprehensive table of worldwide grosses is as always most welcome and as the ready reckoner above reveals the average split is par for the course being approx. 65.6 domestic/34.4 foreign. Overall this page should be treasured as a worthy tribute to a historically important star of the Hollywood musical’s golden era.
Hey Bob….you are probably correct….I have been very lack on updating my request list….probably have about 20 requests sitting in the comments…that I have not moved up….one day…I will get that caught up. I think you mentioned her with a Howard Keel comment you were making.
I thought of you when I read that Durbin comment….I think in the end….their careers ended up close statistically….though nowhere near in your mind. Yep it is a shame the musical genre got pretty bare by the end of the 1950s. And like many performers of this generation they ended their careers appearing in roles in popular television shows.
As for Vagabound King…are you sure Nielsen was not the opera star? The man had some pipes on him….hearing Nielsen sing was like listening to angels singing…lol. As often is the case….I pick the co-stars based on Cogerson knowledge…I knew Nielsen and Moreno….but have to admit….Oreste Kirkop was unknown to me so he was not included.
19 of the 20 movies listed had worldwide box office….that might be a record……to bad 20th Century Fox did not list the worldwide gross on the last movie. 65.6 domestic/34.4 foreign split is almost perfect for my old way of guessing those numbers.
Thanks for the nice words about this Grayson page.