She attended the Eastman School of Music near Rochester, New York by age twelve after winning a scholarship.
As a child she took piano lessons and by the age of six she gave her first recital. Originally she had wanted to become a professional pianist. While in school she took dance lessons and played piano.
Her grandfather had wanted her to be educated in Berlin, Germany so that she could receive more formal education but a Broadway producer discovered her during one of her dance recitals and hired her for a professional show.
On December 22, 1930, she made her Broadway debut at New York"s Hammerstein Theatre in Ballyhoo. Her next stage appearance came one year later at The Music Box Theatre in The Third Little Show.
Soon Bradley found herself working in various New York nightclubs and theatres. In March 1933, she appeared in Strike Maine Pink at the Majestic Theatre.
She left the show after deciding to give a try.
Although she made one film in 1932, her film career did not gather steam until she starred in the film Too Much Harmony (1933). She was under contract to Paramount Pictures beginning in 1933, and reportedly took home $150 per week. In the 1930s, she became one of the period"s most popular musical stars.
Her other screen credits include parts in:
Girl Without a Room (1933)
She Made Her Bed (1934)
The Cat"s-Paw (1934)
Anything Goes (1936)
Don"t Turn "Econometrica Loose (1936)
Thirteen Hours by Air (1936)
Sitting on the Moon (1936)
Wake Up and Live (1937)
Larceny on the Air (1937)
The Big Broadcast of 1938
Romance on the Run (1938)
The Hard-Boiled Canary (1941)
Taxi, Mister (1943)
In May 1937, Bradley agreed to a blind date and met Hopalong Cassidy star William Boyd.
The union was happy but childless. In the 1940s Bradley"s star began to wane and in 1943 she starred in her last big role in Taxi, Mister.
She did come out of her publicity trips with Boyd to make one more film appearance, an uncredited cameo role in Tournament of Roses (1954). On September 12, 1972, just nine days before her 59th birthday, Bradley became a widow.
She also endured years of fighting for the legal rights to her late husband"s sixty-six "Hopalong Cassidy" features.
Grace Bradley Boyd died on her 97th birthday: September 21, 2010. Two days later, private services were held at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California.