TMS Muse of the Week: Grace Kelly
(Getty Images)
Many have theorized who in US history is the closest comparison to royalty, since the country doesn’t have its own monarchy. The Kennedys are often seen as the American equivalent of the Windsors, for an obvious example. The closest thing to Princess Diana in the US might have been thirty years earlier than Diana, with Grace Kelly, Princess of Monaco. Grace is considered the lucky lady who got to have the Hollywood glamour before transitioning to regal glamour less than a decade into her career. What’s interesting to me is that Grace actually isn’t the first actress to marry into royalty. Rita Hayworth wed and had a daughter with Prince Aly Khan of Pakistan in 1949-1953, and Gene Tierney was engaged to the same Prince right after Rita in 1953-54. Yet, one wonders why neither relationship is as publicized as Grace and Prince Rainier III of Monaco. It could be because Grace and Rainier stayed together up until Grace’s fatal car crash in 1982, giving the impression of a real fairytale happy ending. Though we know now all these years later things weren’t always so perfect for the couple and their family. But even so, more than half a century later, the public loves to idolize Grace.
It’s not hard to see why the blonde princess became a superstar when you look over her life. From growing up in upper middle class Philadelphia, to her natural beauty which landed her both modeling jobs and stage plays at the beginning of her career, to quickly being cast in her first movie, Henry Hathaway’s drama Fifteen Hours (1951); after he was impressed with her performance in the hit 1949 Broadway production of August Stindberg’s family drama ‘The Father.’ From there, history was made nearly overnight. Leading man Gary Cooper personally requested her to play his on-screen wife in Fred Zinnemman’s hit western High Noon (1952), which was her first big film success. John Ford’s Mogambo (1953), a remake of Victor Fleming’s romantic adventure Red Dust (1932) which brought back male lead Clark Gable opposite Grace and Ava Gardner, followed before she was cast in Alfred Hitchcock’s crime thriller Dial ‘M’ for Murder (1954). The next two years would be the prime of Grace’s very short lived movie stardom. To many, the actress is the quintessential Hitchcock blonde, even including the director’s other legendary muses Ingrid Bergman and Tippi Hedren. All of Hitch’s female leads are classy and sophisticated in their own ways, but Grace had a poise and natural coolness that just radiated on screen, especially in technicolor. In Dial ‘M’ for Murder, we see her run the gamut from pampered to confused to desperate, impressing critics and audiences with her natural presence and skill.
(Warner Bros)
Grace and the master of suspense collaborated two more times on the classics Rear Window (1954) and To Catch a Thief (1955), and in between the star controversially won Best Actress at the Oscars for George Seaton’s melodrama The Country Girl (1954). Though Grace had won movie viewers over, fans were wishing and hoping for Judy Garland to take the prize for her comeback picture, George Cukor’s A Star is Born (1954). To this day, you will still find film fans insisting Judy should have won. Grace didn’t have to worry about gossip for long though, as she met her future husband only two months after winning her Oscar and she would be crowned a year later in 1956. During her engagement, Grace finished up her final films before crossing overseas; including the ever appropriate royal romance of Charles Vidor’s The Swan (1956) and Charles Walters’ High Society (1956), a movie musical adaptation of Philip Barry’s 1939 play ‘The Philadelphia Story.’ While living abroad, the royal lady provided plenty of humanitarian work as president of The International Arts Foundation, The Red Cross of Monaco and The Garden Club of Monaco, and founder of the non-profit children’s charity AMADE Mondiale.
In retrospect, it’s wild how much of an impact Grace made with such little time. Only 5 years in movies and 26 as princess before her tragic death at 52. Two daughters [Stephanie and Caroline], a son [Albert] and many grandchildren carry her legacy. Along with two mediocre biopics—Anthony Page’s Grace Kelly (1983) with Cheryl Ladd and Oliver Dahan’s Grace of Monaco (2014) starring Nicole Kidman—Grace’s granddaughter Jazmin Grimaldi supposedly inspired a popular series of books and movies, Meg Cabot’s The Princess Diaries (2000-2015), to boot. Though their time together was cut shorter than expected, Rainier continued to show his love for Grace by never remarrying and being buried next to his wife for his own death in 2005. There’s no doubt, the starlet-turned-regal wife paved the way for many future glamorous blondes from Tippi and Catherine Deneuve in cinema to Princess Di and TV star A.J. Langer, who has been married to Charles Courtney, Earl of Devon since 2005. Grace was an activism icon, a style icon—with one of the most legendary wedding dresses of all time—a film icon, a royal icon, and an icon who definitely has genuine grace.