{{Short description|American actress, singer, and vaudeville headliner (1882–1956)}} {{Use American English|date=July 2020}} {{Use mdy dates|date=May 2024}} {{Infobox person | name = Grace La Rue | image = Grace Larue 1913.jpg | alt = | caption = La Rue in 1913 | birth_name = Stella Parsons {{cn|date=September 2025}} | birth_date = {{birth date|1882|04|23|mf=y}} | birth_place = [[Kansas City, Missouri]], U.S. | death_date = {{death date and age|1956|03|13|1882|04|23|mf=y}} | death_place = [[San Francisco, California]], U.S. | resting_place = | occupation = Actress | years_active = 1906–1940 | spouse = {{plainlist| * William T. Gray (1897 - 19??); 2 daughters * Charles Burke (divorced) * {{marriage|Byron Chandler|1909|1914|end=divorced}} * {{marriage|[[Hale Hamilton]]|1920|1942|end=died}} }} | children = }}
'''Grace La Rue''' (born '''Stella Parsons'''; April 23, 1882 – March 13, 1956) was an American actress, singer, and [[vaudeville]] headliner.
==Career== La Rue began her career as a teenager, working with a traveling tent show. In the meantime, she married a William T. Gray by whom she had two daughters while still in her teens.<ref>[https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0357883/bio/?ref_nm__ov_bio_sm Internet Movie Database]: Grace LaRue, ''trivia'' and ''family''</ref> Her later performances included being part of the team Burke and La Rue, with her second husband, Charles Burke.<ref name="v">{{cite book |last1=Cullen |first1=Frank |last2=Hackman |first2=Florence |last3=McNeilly |first3=Donald |title=Vaudeville Old & New: An Encyclopedia of Variety Performances in America |date=2007 |publisher=Psychology Press |isbn=978-0-415-93853-2 |page=654 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XFnfnKg6BcAC&dq=%22Grace+La+Rue%22&pg=PA654 |access-date=July 12, 2021 |language=en}}</ref> One of their numbers was a minstrel piece titled "Grace La Rue and her Inky Dinks". She soon broke away from the act - and Burke - to appear in musical comedy.{{cn|date=September 2025}}
La Rue performed in a number of productions on Broadway debuting in ''The Tourists'' in 1906. She also appeared in ''The Blue Moon'' (1906), ''Molly May'' (1910), ''Betsy'' (1911), and the [[The Follies of 1907|1907]] and 1908 ''Ziegfeld Follies''.<ref name="ibdb">{{cite web |title=Grace La Rue |url=https://www.ibdb.com/broadway-cast-staff/grace-la-rue-68008 |website=Internet Broadway Database |publisher=The Broadway League |access-date=February 21, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200128224330/https://www.ibdb.com/broadway-cast-staff/grace-la-rue-68008 |archive-date=January 28, 2020}}</ref> In 1909, she married Byron Chandler in [[Bennington, Vermont]].<ref>Vermont Marriage Records, 1909-2008 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010.</ref> The marriage broke up in 1914 when La Rue divorced, alleging that Chandler was unfaithful and that he beat her.<ref>"Chandler in Hands of Sheriff's Men," ''New York Times'', April 8, 1914.</ref>
La Rue made her debut as a Vaudeville single act in November 1912 at Poli's in [[Springfield, Missouri]]. As part of the act she sang an aria from ''[[Madama Butterfly|Madame Butterfly]]'', and a duet with a phonograph recording of [[Enrico Caruso]]. ''[[Variety (magazine)|Variety]]'' gave her a good review commenting that the act gave La Rue the "opportunity to display her Parisian cultivated voice."<ref>''Variety'', November 24, 1912</ref>
La Rue made her debut at the [[Palace Theatre, London|Palace Theatre]] on August 4, 1913. Her act featured the song "[[You Made Me Love You (I Didn't Want to Do It)]]", from the show ''Honeymoon Express'', a musical she had appeared in with [[Al Jolson]]. Later that year, she brought her Vaudeville act to Britain, appearing at the London Palace on August 4, 1913, where she made [[gramophone]] recordings of hit songs from her act.
In 1919, La Rue made her screen debut opposite American stage and film actor [[Hale Hamilton]] in the melodrama ''That's Good''. She married Hamilton on May 29, 1920, amid a whirl of controversy surrounding a lawsuit filed by Hamilton's second wife, actress [[Myrtle Tannehill]].<ref>{{cite news |title=Grace La Rue Wed To Hale Hamilton. Actress and Her Co-Star of the Play " Dear Me " Married in Chicago Court. JUST SUED FOR $200,000 Myrtle Tannehill, Who Divorced Bridegroom, Charges Alienation. Bride Once Wife of B.D. Chandler |url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9D02E6D9143AEE32A25752C0A9609C946195D6CF&legacy=true |newspaper=[[New York Times]] |date=June 1, 1920}}</ref>
In 1922-1923, La Rue appeared in Irving Berlin's second ''Music Box Revue'' at the [[Music Box Theatre]] in New York. In 1924, she appeared at the [[London Coliseum|Coliseum]] in London with Hamilton. For the rest of the decade she worked mainly in the United States alternating between Vaudeville and in musical comedies and revues. One of her last big time appearances was in the 1928 ''Greenwich Village Follies'' at the [[Winter Garden Theatre]] in New York. She appeared in a 1929 [[Vitaphone]] short called ''Grace La Rue: The International Star of Song''. By the early 1930s, she had retired to California, where she made a brief appearance in the 1933 Mae West film ''[[She Done Him Wrong]].'' [[File:Signed sketch of Grace La Rue and Hale Hamilton by Manuel Rosenberg.jpg|thumb|Signed drawing by [[Manuel Rosenberg]] 1919]] Grace La Rue died at Peninsula Hospital in [[Burlingame, California]] on March 13, 1956.<ref>{{cite news |title=Grace La Rue Hamilton |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1956/03/14/archives/obituary-2-no-title.html |newspaper=[[New York Times]] |date=March 14, 1956}}{{paywall}}{{bettersource|date=September 2025}}</ref>
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== {{Commons category|Grace La Rue}} * {{IMDb name|0479010}} * {{IBDB name|68008}} * [https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/search/index?utf8=%E2%9C%93&keywords=grace+la+rue Grace La Rue], New York Public Library Digital Gallery photo *[https://archive.org/details/GraceLaRue Grace La Rue in recording from 1910 singing "Does Anybody Here Know Nancy"] *[https://www.flickr.com/photos/puzzlemaster/3741812996/in/set-72157605223652067 1920 passport photo of Grace La Rue and Hale Hamilton]
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{{DEFAULTSORT:La Rue, Grace}} [[Category:1882 births]] [[Category:1956 deaths]] [[Category:American vaudeville performers]] [[Category:American stage actresses]] [[Category:20th-century American actresses]] [[Category:Ziegfeld girls]] [[Category:20th-century American singers]] [[Category:20th-century American women singers]] [[Category:Singers from Kansas City, Missouri]] [[Category:Singers from California]]