grace kelly

Grace Kelly was born November 12, 1929, in Philadelphia.  Her family was affluent.  Her father, John B. Kelly, Sr., won three Olympic gold medals, owned a brickwork contracting company and ran unsuccessfully for mayor of Philadelphia in 1935.  Her mother taught physical education at the University of Pennsylvania.  One of her uncles was a vaudeville star and movie actor and another was a Pulitzer Prize winning screenwriter.  Kelly participated in drama and dance programs while in high school and dreamed of becoming an actress.  When she was rejected by Bennington College, she decided to pursue her dream, much to the chagrin of her parents. 

Kelly attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York and made her Broadway debut in The Father.  Other theatre and live television roles followed and, in 1951, she was offered her first film role, a small part in the film, Fourteen Hours.  This led to her breakthrough role alongside Gary Cooper in High Noon (1952)(read our review).  While High Noon won four academy awards and has become one of the most beloved films of all time, neither Kelly nor the critics loved her performance.  She returned to New York where she took private acting lessons.  Later that year, John Ford offered her a role alongside Clarke Gable and Ava Gardner in Mogambo (1953).  Her performance earned her first Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. 

Mogambo proved the springboard to many other roles including a very busy 1954.  That year, she starred in some of her most memorable roles.  Two of these were Dial M for Murder (1954) and Rear Window (1954)(read our review) with director Alfred Hitchcock.  She also starred in The Country Girl (1954) with Bing Crosby and William Holden, a role which won her an Oscar for Best Actress.  The next two years saw her starring in Green Fire (1954), Hitchcock’s To Catch a Thief (1955), The Swan (1956) and High Society (1956) with Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra.

High Society turned out to be her last film role.  On April 18, 1956, Grace Kelly married Prince Ranier of Monaco whom she had met the previous year when she was part of the U.S. delegation to the Cannes Film Festival.  She was offered other roles, most notably the lead in Alfred Hitchcock’s Marnie (1964).  However, while she was interested, the idea of their princess playing a kleptomaniac did not sit well with the Monacan public.  Despite several other offers, she never returned to film and devoted the rest of her life to her duties as Princess of Monaco and to various philanthropic causes.  On September 13, 1982, she suffered a small stroke while driving.  Her car left the road and plunged down a 120-foot mountainside.  She died the following night at the age of 52. 

Grace Kelly appeared in only eleven feature films in her short career.  Nevertheless, in five years, she rose from relative obscurity to become the one Hollywood’s top stars.  While her film career was short, Kelly left a lasting legacy.  How could she not?  She was unknown when her film career began at age 21, was Hollywood royalty by the age of 25 and was actual royalty by the age of 27.  If anyone personified the myth and allure of Hollywood, it was Grace Kelly.

Read our review of High Noon, featuring our Star of the Month, Grace Kelly.