Person Biography:
Born on April 26, 1910, in Murray, Utah, to Ada M. and Thomas Coppin, she graduated from L.D.S. High School in Salt Lake City and moved to Los Angeles to attend the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). She earned both her B.A. and M.A. degrees with honors, was elected to the Phi Beta Kappa honor society, and began a successful career in radio drama.
She performed in several Shakespearean productions at the Pasadena Playhouse and moved to New York City in 1936 to continue her work in radio. She obtained her first role on Broadway in 1937 and married Byron McGrath, a well-established New York actor, on October 7, 1939. By the time the McGraths left New York City in 1951, she had performed in more than 30 Broadway productions, eight motion pictures, and dozens of radio soap operas. She worked with notable theatrical people such as Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, Margaret Webster, Judith Anderson, Maurice Evans, Orson Welles, and Montgomery Cliff.
In the early 1950s, the McGraths conducted a small business in Guayaquil, Ecuador, where she helped her neighbors learn to speak English. Later, she returned to Salt Lake City in the mid-1950s to care for her aged and infirm mother. The McGraths operated a restaurant in downtown Salt Lake City, which became a friendly haven for students, police officers, lawyers, bankers, and others. She performed in several University of Utah Theatre productions and briefly served as promotional director for the University of Utah Theatre and organized the University Theatre Guild in 1961-62.
Throughout her adult residence in Utah, she was continually involved in helping and encouraging disadvantaged children and young people, as well as bringing sustenance and good cheer to older people in nursing homes. She died on April 7, 1993, at her home in Salt Lake City following a long, debilitating illness, and a Memorial Service was held in Salt Lake City in July 1993.
