Grace Kelly, Hollywood Serenity
"Grace Kelly was Hollywood's beautiful, elegant and glamorous fairy-tale princess who upon marriage to Rainier III, Prince of Monaco in 1956, became Her Serene Highness The Princess of Monaco, but was generally known as Princess Grace of Monaco. She was also an accomplished actress and won 2 Best Actress awards for her work. Both as an actress and as a Princess, Grace brought a sense of style and class to everything she did, setting the fashion standards for the next decades. The American Film Institute ranked her #13 amongst the Greatest Female Stars of All Time. She was one of the most intriguing American women of the 20th century. Despite her untimely death at the age of 52, her legacy lives on today
Biography
Grace Kelly was born in Philadelphia, on November 12, 1929 into a wealthy family. With two sisters and a brother, she spent her childhood in the Kelly home on the hill above East Falls, 3901 Henry Avenue. She left for New York City where she and worked as a model and attended the American academy of Dramatic Arts. After making her stage debut in Strindberg's The Father, Kelly caught the eye of television producer Delbert Mann, who cast her as Bethel Maraday in her first of nearly 60 live television programs. Television success eventually brought her a role in the 1951 film Fourteen Hours which led to many offers. She was performing in Colorado's notable Elitch Gardens when she received a telegram from Hollywood producer Stanley Kramer, offering her the starring role opposite Gary Cooper in High Noon. According to biographer Wendy Leigh, at age 22 Kelly had an off-set romance with both Cooper and director Fred Zinnemann.Her next film, Mogambo (1953), was a drama set in the Kenyan jungle which centers on the love triangle portrayed by Kelly, Clark Gable, and Ava Gardner. Whilst filming this movie she had an affair with Gable later memorably commenting "What else is there to do if you're alone in a tent in Africa with Clark Gable?" The movie earned Kelly an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress, but the award went to Donna Reed for her role in From Here to Eternity.
Grace was now an established actress but it was her work with director Alfred Hitchcock, which began with Dial M for Murder in 1954, which made her a star. Her standout performance in Rear Window (1954) brought her to real prominence. As Lisa Fremont, she was cast opposite James Stewart, who played a crippled photographer who witnesses a murder in the next apartment from his wheelchair. In 1955, she was awarded the Academy Award for Best Actress for The Country Girl. While it was being filmed, she was romanced by co-star Bing Crosby, a fellow Irish Catholic, (who had recently lost his wife) but Kelly always denied that they had an affair.
In 1955, Grace once again teamed with Hitchcock in To Catch a Thief (1955) co-starring Cary Grant. In 1956, she played Tracy Lord in the musical comedy High Society (1956) which also starred Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby. The whimsical tale ended with her re-marrying her former husband, played by Crosby. The success of the song "True Love" from the movie earned Grace a gold record and in 1956, she was voted the Golden Globe's World Film Favorite Actor, Female. High Society was well received and has proved to be a perennial favourite. It also turned out to be her final acting performance.She had recently met Prince Rainier of Monaco who was about to change her life forever. The wedding, which actually comprised two ceremonies on successive days, proved one of the most lavish and reported social events of the decade.
In 1982, Princess Grace lost control of the vehicle in which she and her daughter were travelling. While Princess Stephanie survived the accident with minor injuries, Grace lingered in a coma for barely 24 hours, before she died on 14th September. It was later determined that the Princess had suffered a stroke which had led to the crash.
Actor Jimmy Stewart, left, gave Kelly's eulogy at her highly publicized funeral, saying, "Grace brought into my life as she brought into yours, a soft, warm light every time I saw her, and every time I saw her was a holiday of its own. No question, I'll miss her, we'll all miss her."
