Grace Coppin

She was born in Murray, Utah on April 26, 1910 to Ada M. and Thomas Coppin. After graduating from L.D.S. High School in Salt Lake City, she moved to Los Angeles where she attended the University of California at Los Angeles and earned both her B.A. and M.A. degrees with honors and was elected to the Phi Beta Kappa honor society. While enrolled in UCLA, she performed in several Shakespearean productions at the Pasadena Playhouse and began a highly successful career in radio drama. In 1936 she moved to New York City to continue her work in radio. She obtained her first role on Broadway in 1937. She married Byron McGrath, a well-established New York actor, on October 7, 1939. By the time the McGraths left New York City in 1951, Grace had performed in more than 30 Broadway productions, eight motion pictures, and dozens of radio soap operas. Among the notable theatrical people with whom she worked were Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, Margaret Webster, Judith Anderson, Maurice Evans, Orson Welles, and Montgomery Cliff. For three years in the early 1950s, the McGraths conducted a small business in Guayaquil, Ecuador, where Grace helped many of her neighbors learn to speak English. Accompanied by her husband and their son, Grace returned to Salt Lake City in the mid-1950s to care for her aged and infirm mother. For a brief time, the McGraths operated a restaurant in downtown Salt Lake City which quickly became a friendly haven for students, police officers, lawyers, bankers, and others. During the ensuing three decades, she performed in several University of Utah Theatre productions. Briefly in 1961-62, she served as promotional director for the University of Utah Theatre and organized the still flourishing University Theatre Guild. Throughout the years of her adult residence in Utah, Grace McGrath was continually involved, most often anonymously, in helping and encouraging disadvantaged children and young people and in bringing sustenance and good cheer to older people in nursing homes. Grace Lynne Coppin McGrath died at her home, 917 Second Avenue in Salt Lake City, on April 7, 1993 following a long, debilitating illness. A Memorial Service was held in Salt Lake City in July 1993.