Part of old Hollywood glamour is the intensity and lack of cynicism in love. In the movies people fell in love, overcoming all odds, and there was no question about its validity or lasting potential. Many of the stars had similar love stories to tell. A couple that captured the engulfing, enduring power of love more than many others was Bill Boyd and Grace Bradley.

After unsuccessful marriages, Boyd was hesitant to pursue any relationships; meanwhile Grace had admired him from afar. Bill had been seen a few times with a showgirl named Hazel Forbes and because he’d become so famous as Hopalong Cassidy, the media naturally assumed they were together and published it everywhere. Bill was nervous about any commitment so he called Grace Bradley thinking they’d have light-hearted fun together.

She had just returned to her townhouse after shooting a movie on location in Oregon when he called to ask her to attend a party at his house. Because her friends knew how she felt about him, Grace replied with sarcasm and after hearing Boyd laugh she knew it was actually him and not a friend playing a joke on her. In her flustered state Grace managed to accept the invitation and asked him to come to her house and meet her mother, which he accepted.

He went to the house and chatted with her mother while Grace nervously chose an outfit upstairs. As Bill liked to tell it, when she came down the stairs, “First I saw the shoes and the legs, then the body, and then I saw the face…and I was a goner.” After seeing the pair together and Bill’s expression when he rejoined his guests after dropping Grace off at a photo shoot after the party, his friends knew he was in love.

Grace and Bill spent three days practically inseparable. At the end of their third day together they were sitting in his beach house talking and he got quiet, then looked at her and said, “I’m going to ask you a question, and if you say yes, I’m gonna faint.” To which she replied, “Well, go ahead and faint then.” That was his proposal and her answer. 

People were very surprised by the engagement because the couple had never been seen together before this, and if anything people thought he was dating Hazel Forbes. They spent time away from each other working on different movie projects, then came back together during Memorial Day weekend for an engagement party and to sign their marriage license. They had to wait until Bill had been divorced from his ex-wife Dorothy for a year, which fell on a Friday and they married the next day, exactly three weeks after they first met.

They got married at her townhouse in a simple evening wedding on June 5, 1937. The ceremony was later in the day because Bill had to drive five hours to the wedding from Lone Pine where he was filming. The wedding which was supposed to be private, just the couple, the pastor and Grace’s mother, became full with photographers. Grace and Bill allowed the photographers to take pictures while they exchanged vows, then the couple left for his beach house then the ranch to begin their life entwined.

Bill and Grace were there for each other through many career and life twists and turns. A prominent part of their marriage was Bill’s living legacy as Hopalong Cassidy. Immortalized on film and television, Boyd’s features also graced the cover of Hopalong Cassidy pulps. Geppi’s Entertainment Auctions’ Hake’s Americana has a hardcover bound pulp volume of Hoppy westerns. The collection contains complete runs of 2 pulps published in 1950-1951. Go to hakes.com to buy this great collectable.

There’s much more to learn about Hopalong Cassidy and William Boyd in Hopalong Cassidy, An American Legend, the definitive biography co-authored by his widow Grace Bradley Boyd and Michael Cochran, published through Geppi’s Entertainment’s Gemstone Publishing. The book will provide behind the scene details of the adventures of Hoppy and the man who made him live, William Boyd. Learn the rest of Grace and Bill’s love story in the biography!