|
Biography:Grace Kelly
As a talented young film star, Grace Kelly (1929-1982)
captured the imagination of the American public when she married Prince
Ranier III of Monaco, to become Grace, Princess of Monaco. Her tragic
and untimely death in 1982 touched the entire world. Grace,
Princess of Monaco was born Grace Patricia Kelly on November 12, 1929
in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She aspired to an acting career in her
teens, and was a major motion picture star by the age of 25. Kelly
became acquainted
with Prince Ranier Grimaldi III of the principality of Monaco during a
photo session arranged by Paris Match in 1955. The couple was
married in the spring of 1956, and they raised three children. Princess
Grace brought a special aura
of excitement and sophistication to Monaco that contributed to the
growth of the principality into a major tourist haven and a playground
for the rich and famous. She was noted for the manner in which she
adapted her American ways to her lifestyle as a royal mother. It wasn't
long before she won the love and respect of the entire world. The
fairy tale romance came to a tragic conclusion in 1982 when the princess
suffered a debilitating stroke while driving her car on a twisting
mountain road. The car, along with Princess Grace and her daughter,
Stephanie, plunged 150 feet, causing fatal injuries to Princess Grace.
Her daughter survived the ordeal,
but the Grimaldi family, along with Monaco and the entire world, were
left with only memories of the beloved Grace, Princess of Monaco. The
woman who would become the princess of Monaco was the granddaughter
of the Kelly family patriarch, John Henry Kelly, who immigrated to
America from Ireland in 1867. He fathered six sons, including George
Kelly, a Pulitzer Prize winner; Walter C. Kelly, a vaudevillian
personality; and John B. "Jack" Kelly, Sr., father of Grace Patricia
Kelly. Jack Kelly was an Olympic sculler and a self-made millionaire.
Her mother was Margaret Majer Kelly, a former model. Jack and Margaret
Kelly had four children: Margaret "Peggy" (Baba) Kelly Conlan, born in
1925; John B. (Kell) Kelly, Jr., born in 1927; Grace Kelly, born in
1929; and Lizanne LeVine, born in 1933. All of the Kelly children were
born and raised in Philadelphia. The issue of religion was
critical to the Irish-Catholic Kelly clan. Margaret Kelly converted from
her Lutheran faith after her marriage, and the Kellys maintained a
strict Catholic household. Jack Kelly held a reputation as an uncultured
man who placed great emphasis on athletic prowess.
Grace Kelly's brother took after his father and was an accomplished
world class oarsman.
Grace Kelly enjoyed playing hockey and swimming, but was not a
passionate athlete. She preferred instead to practice ballet, to read,
and to study theatrical arts. Kelly attended the Catholic
Ravenhill Academy in East Falls, Pennsylvania and eventually transferred
to Stevens School, a secular academy. She was extremely reserved and
quiet as a youngster,
but was popular among her high school friends. Kelly was always a
stunning
beauty, even as an infant. After graduating from high school in 1947,
she attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City.
During her years at the Academy she lived at a hotel for women called
the Barbizon. She supported herself through modeling and was in great
demand as a cover girl. After graduating in 1949, it was Kelly's
desire to act on the live stage-not to make movies and television
appearances. She worked in theaters in New York and Colorado, and, most
notably, she performed with Raymond Massey in The Father before
signing with agent Edith Van Cleve. To experts, including the great
actress Helen Hayes, Kelly was unsuited
to live stage acting because of her shallow voice. At Van Cleve's
urging, Kelly studied privately under Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood
Playhouse in New York, and worked summer stock until Van
Cleve-fully aware of Kelly's film potential-moved the young actress into
television work. Kelly acted in 60 teleplays in New York, mostly
between 1950 and 1951. Over the course of the next five years she made
11 movies. Some critics, including gossip
columnist Hedda Hopper, accused Kelly of employing adulterous
liaisons to further her film career. Others presumed that Jack Kelly's
prominent position and political connections were in part responsible
for his daughter's show business success. Jack Kelly, a Democratic Party
boss in his native Philadelphia, was well acquainted with some of the
most prominent figures of the times, including President Franklin
Roosevelt. Powerful personalities such as Isaac Levy, founder of the
Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), were also counted among the Kelly
associates. Regardless, Grace Kelly was determined to succeed without
special considerations and did little if anything to "pull strings" of
any nature in order to further her career. Film Career In
1950, Grace Kelly made her feature film debut in a movie called Fourteen
Hours. Her next film, High Noon, with Gary Cooper in 1952,
marked the beginning of a string of motion pictures over the course of
the next four years. To Kelly's displeasure,
each of her films generated rumors of a love affair between Kelly and
her co-star. Friends of the actress maintain that, in actuality, it was
an actor named Gene Lyons who attracted Kelly's attention during those
years. The two enjoyed a romance that matured during the filming of High
Noon and later disintegrated while Kelly was on location in Africa
for the filming of Mogambo, a 1953 release with Clark Gable. In
1954, Kelly starred in Alfred Hitchcock's Dial M for Murder, with
Ray Milland. This was followed by a second Hitchcock thriller, Rear
Window with Jimmy Stewart. The Bridges at Toko-Ri, with
William Holden was completed in 1954. That same year, Kelly appeared
with Bing Crosby in Country Girl, the film that earned her an
Academy Award for Best Actress. In 1955, Kelly starred in Green
Fire with Stewart Granger, followed by To Catch a Thief with
Cary Grant. In 1956, she starred in a musical adaptation of Philadelphia
Story called High Society, with Bing Crosby and Frank
Sinatra. The final film of her brief but intense career, The
Swan, was released in 1956. She co-starred with Alec Guinness and
received top billing for the first and only time in her career. During
the years when Kelly was under contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, she
shared her time between the incessant
demands of Hollywood and her chosen home in New York City, where she
aspired to find work on the Broadway stage. A Meeting
in Monaco In 1955, Kelly was in Monaco for the filming of
Hitchcock's To Catch a Thief with Cary Grant. An introduction was
arranged between the young American actress and the bachelor prince of
Monaco as part of a publicity stunt by Paris Match. The pair met
initially at the Cannes Film Festival in order to be photographed
together for the magazine. The event was well publicized, down to the
shimmering black cotton dress worn by Kelly. Later in 1955, the prince
and the movie star spent Christmas together in Philadelphia with Kelly's
family. Less than one week after the holidays, on January 5, 1956,
Kelly and the prince announced their engagement from her parent's home.
Kelly and the prince were wed in Monaco, where the ceremonies and
festivities lasted for two days-April 18 and 19, 1956. A Catholic
nuptial ceremony was celebrated at the Cathedral of St. Nicholas in
Monaco. The prince and princess honeymooned aboard a royal yacht. The
royal couple's eldest child, Princess Caroline Louise Marguerite, was
born in January of 1957. Their next child, Crown Prince Albert Alexandre
Louis Pierre, was born in March of the following year. Their youngest
child, Princess Stephanie Marie Elisabeth, was born in February of 1965.
Princess Grace lived with her husband and children in a 200-room palace
and maintained a private retreat in France at Roc Agel. Even as
princess of Monaco, Kelly never shunned her American roots. She commuted
regularly between Europe and Philadelphia, if for no other reason than
to see her doctor, dentist,
and bankers. At home in Monaco, Princess Grace ran the palace to
the best of her ability as a normal home. She expended great effort to
stay intrinsically involved with her children and to personally tend to
their needs. She cooked meals for her family, especially breakfast for
her children. Despite her great wealth, she never succumbed to needless
or excess extravagance.
The populace
of Monaco loved Princess Grace dearly, as did her film audiences in the
United States. After she married, Princess Grace became involved in
charitable pursuits and public service organizations. She served as
president of the Garden Club of Monaco, president of the Red Cross of
Monaco, and president of the organizing committee of the International
Arts Foundation. Her fondest benevolent
association was The Princess Grace Foundation, established to foster
involvement among young people in the creative arts, especially to
provide scholarships for eligible young students. Princess Grace
brought positive and long overdue
changes to the social climate of Monaco. Her presence revitalized the
mood of the principality, encouraged tourism, and endowed a dogged state
with renewed hope and energy. Not long after the birth of her
youngest daughter, it was rumored that Princess Grace had grown
increasingly unhappy and become homesick
for the more casual atmosphere of the United States. She moved to an
apartment in Paris, joined the board of directors of 20th Century Fox
productions, and traveled frequently to the U.S. During the final years
of her life, she involved herself in dramatic readings and pressing
flower designs for linens, in addition to her royal responsibilities and
her many charitable pursuits. Untimely Death Princess
Grace died unexpectedly from injuries incurred at the wheel of her own
car, a Rover 3500, when it careened from a cliff and crashed 150 feet
down the mountainside.
The accident occurred at the Grimaldi's private retreat at Roc Agel.
Princess Grace remained unconscious for two days before she died in
Monte Carlo on September 14, 1982, following the removal of life-support
apparatus. Later reports confirmed that she suffered a stroke at the
time of the crash and would have been paralyzed
on one side had she survived. Funeral services were held at the
Cathedral of St. Nicholas in Monaco, the same church where she had been
married in 1956. The death of Princess Grace was felt around the
world. The family of the princess acknowledged the receipt
of tens of thousands of letters and cards of condolence.
Mourners continued to leave flowers at the site of the auto crash for
months afterward. Prince Ranier III admitted to "a heaviness of heart
that I don't think will change in my lifetime," as quoted by writer
Roger Bianchini in Ladies Home Journal. Ranier went forward with
his wife's intended plan to build a house on Kelly ancestral lands in
Ireland. Further Reading Collier's
Encyclopedia, 1997. Englund, Steven, Grace of Monaco: an
interpretive biography, Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1984. Cosmopolitan,
April 1991, p. 212. Entertainment Weekly, September 11,
1992. Good Housekeeping, September 1992. Ladies
Home Journal, April 1983. Life, March 1983. People
Weekly, September 5, 1983; September 12, 1983.
Actor:Grace Kelly
Both literally and metaphorically, Grace Kelly was the cinema's
fairy-tale princess; beautiful, elegant, and impossibly glamorous, she
transcended the limits of Hollywood aristocracy to attain the power and
glory of true royalty. Born November 12, 1929, in Philadelphia, PA, her
father was a wealthy industrialist while her mother was a onetime cover
girl. Her uncle, George Kelly, was the Pulitzer Prize-winning dramatist
behind the plays The Show-Off and Craig's Wife. At the age
of ten, she made her own theatrical debut in a Philadelphia-area
production, and in her late teens she moved to New York, where she
worked as a model while attending the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.
After turning down a Hollywood contract for fear of being typecast as a
starlet, Kelly began to work in television, and in 1949 she made her
Broadway debut in a revival of August Strindberg's The Father.
When Hollywood again came calling, she accepted and was soon cast in a
bit part in 1951's Fourteen
Hours.
In just her second screen appearance, Kelly co-starred in a certifiable
classic, the 1952 Western High
Noon. Curiously, however, she did not benefit from the film's
success, and no other offers were immediately forthcoming. She agreed to
a screen test for a role in Taxi!
but was rejected in favor of Constance Smith. However, the screen test
found its way to director John
Ford, who tapped her for 1953's Mogambo.
The result was a seven-year contract with MGM, as well as a Best
Supporting Actress Oscar nomination. Alfred
Hitchcock then enlisted Kelly's services for a pair of 1954 films, Dial
M for Murder and the brilliant Rear
Window; it was said that she was the perfect blonde the master
director had been seeking throughout his career. She was now a major
star, and when actress Jennifer
Jones became unexpectedly pregnant, Paramount begged MGM
to allow Kelly to take her place in 1954's The
Country Girl. The studio initially refused, but she successfully
battled for the role. The result was a Best Actress Oscar.
After starring in MGM's Green
Fire, Kelly teamed with Hitchcock for the third and final time on
1955's To
Catch a Thief. While filming on the French Riviera, she met Prince
Rainier III of Monaco, and the two began a romance which was soon making
international headlines. After starring in 1956's High
Society, a musical update of The
Philadelphia Story, and a remake of the onetime Lillian
Gish vehicle The
Swan, Kelly announced her pending marriage to Rainier. She also
announced her retirement from filmmaking to devote her full energies to
her new duties as Princess of Monaco. A lavish wedding soon followed,
and although it was announced in 1962 that she was to return to
Hollywood to star in Hitchcock's Marnie,
she later withdrew from the project and never acted again. Grace Kelly
died September 14, 1982, in an auto accident after suffering a heart
attack while driving. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide |
[ Featured Celebrity Web ]
Art Wallpapers 3d, art Painting Wallpapers
