Grace Voss Frederick | |
|---|---|
 Voss in 1945, in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle | |
| Born | Grace Caroline Voss November 3, 1905 |
| Died | January 16, 2009 (aged 103) |
| Occupation(s) | Actress, photographer, museum curator, philanthropist |
| Years active | 1922–2009 |
Grace Voss Frederick (November 3, 1905 – January 16, 2009) was an American actress on the Broadway stage and on television when it was still an experimental medium. During the Great Depression, Voss shifted to photography to earn a living. She became a well-known portrait photographer and her work was featured in magazines like Life and Look. She transitioned from portraiture to television background and set designs in 1953 together with her husband Claude Frederick. Their work was shown on popular television shows of the period and featured in several movies. Because of the limits of technology, she invented a machine, known as the "Threeplex", which allowed still background photographs to simulate moving or time effects. The machine was donated to Brigham Young University after the couple's retirement.
The Fredericks moved to Arizona in the 1970s and she began collecting historical memorabilia and organizing it into historic productions. When her husband died, she founded the Grace Museum of America. The museum, located in Cave Creek, Arizona, contains art, antiques, and other items of historical interest mainly from the 19th and 20th centuries. To preserve the natural environment and her museum collection, in 2001 she donated 90 acres (360,000 m2) of her land and US$6 million to the Arizona State University Foundation. The endowment was to ensure that the cultural center and nature reserve she had created would be conserved in its natural state and not broken up and sold for development. Frederick died at the age of 103 and in 2012 was featured as a biographical subject in the Arizona Literary Magazine.