This Saturday the Hollywood star and princess of Monaco would have turned 93, Grace Kelly, one of the most beautiful and elegant women but also an essential actress in the history of cinema, with just a few years in business and only a handful of films. She gave up her career, in the middle of her honeymoon with victory, to marry Rainier and be the mother of Alberto, Carolina and Estefania. But her story of her story with Prince Charming included, was cut short on September 14, 1982, when she was only 52 years old, the victim of a serious traffic accident, when she was traveling in the company of her little daughter.
His magnetism is evident in his few but unforgettable films. the woman from Gary Cooper in Alone in the face of danger the wife poisoned with passion for Clark Gable in Mogambothe attentive girlfriend of James Stewart in rear window, Ray Milland’s victim in Perfect Crime, the most beautiful lady in the universe catch a thief, with Cary Grant… That Hitchcock classic was filmed in Monte Carlo and that changed her life because in the principality she met the man who would be the father of her children, surrendered to the look and irresistible smile of the fashionable actress at that time. But she has never stopped being. Even before she became Rainier’s wife, she looked like a princess in everyone’s eyes on the big screen.
All those gifts, together with his elegance, entered through the eyes and the heart of who was then one of the golden bachelors of the European monarchies; Prince Rainier of Monaco, a dreamy little state on the Cote d’Azur and very rich.
Their love story was the fairy tale that society made its own through the society chronicles of the time, and they were happy until the end of their days. But before becoming a princess, she had been a “fine” American girl who became a great actress and enjoyed numerous romances, many with fellow screen stars, and always with men older than her.
Grace Patricia Kelly was born on November 12, 1929 in Philadelphia (United States) into a well-known and wealthy family from the state of Pennsylvania. Her father, John Brendan Kelly, was a successful construction businessman and her mother, Margaret Katherine Majer, a teacher, model, and former athlete of German descent.
Raised Catholic, at fourteen she begins acting in a high school theater group, where Grace decides she wants to make it on stage. She was 18 years old, she at the Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York where she was accepted for being the niece of George Kelly, a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright.
To pay for her studies, she began working as a model for items such as cigarettes, cleaning products, and lingerie. She landed her first Broadway role at the age of 20, to good reviews, which opened the doors of theater and television for the next two years.
Hollywood star and Hitchcock’s muse
After having small roles, in 1951 Fred Zinnemann chose her for Alone in the face of danger, with Gary Cooper as a shooting partner. John Ford saw her and chose her for Mogambo, with Clark Gable and Ava Gardner as protagonists. She was nominated for an Oscar and she began to shine as one of the biggest stars.
In 1953, at just 24 years old, Alfred Hitchcock calls her in Perfect Crime, Grace gets even more recognition and is delighted with how the director works. She becomes his muse and plays rear windowstarring James Stewart.
After several more performances, in 1955 he rolls again with Hitchcock catch a thief, with Cary Grant as a shooting partner on the French Riviera. And it was then that he met Monaco and Prince Rainier for the first time.
Before her life turned upside down, Kelly scooped an Academy Award for Best Actress that same year for The anguish of living, conly 26 years old. By then she had already enjoyed a number of romantic relationships, some with the most attractive co-stars.
Grace, the marriage breaker
Before becoming the Princess of Monaco, Grace Kelly’s sentimental resume begins at the age of 17 when she had an affair with one of her teachers, married and ten years older than her. In 1949 Grace had an affair with Prince Ali Khan, who later married Rita Hayworth.
In 1950 she had relations with Gene Lyons, an actor 10 years older than her. when she acted in Alone in the face of danger had an idyll with Gary Cooper the four weeks that the filming lasted. The actor had a girlfriend and was 28 years older than Grace. Something similar happened during the filming of Mogambo, where falls madly in love with Clark Gable, but he left her at the end of the film.
Later she had an affair with Ray Milland (her husband in Perfect Crime), 24 years older than the actress and married. Later with another married man, Willian Holden, eleven years older than her, partner of the anguish of living, a film with which the young star won the Oscar, with a 26-year age difference. She is credited with romancing Tony Curtis, Oleg Cassini, the great, or David Niven. In Hollywood they called her behind the scenes, the “marriage buster”.
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In 1955, while shooting the movie The Cisne (together with Alec Guiness), directed by Charles Vidor, also in Monaco, Rainier III invited her to see the palace gardens. From that date they began a short courtship relationship, because the Monegasque leader flew by plane to the Kelly family home in Philadelphia to ask for Grace’s hand and set the terms of the engagement a few months later.
As custom in the principality was not to allow their princess to appear on screen alongside other men, Grace gave up her film career. The wedding was held on April 19, 1956 in the Cathedral of Monaco. The bride wore a wedding dress designed by the American Helen Rose. From then on Grace was the perfect princess, mother and wife.
Princess of the best Monaco
Grace managed to put Monaco in the spotlight and thereby increase her investments and wealth. Meanwhile, the young highness enjoyed a happy marriage from which three children were born: Carolina, who was born on January 23, 1957, Albert II, on March 14, 1958, currently Sovereign Prince of Monaco, and Princess Estefania on March 1. February 1965.
All have enjoyed a life of fame, more than being part of the royal Grimaldi dynasty, for being their mother’s sons. Carolina de Monaco, in addition, is the clear heir to the beauty of Grace, as is the case with her daughter, Princess Charlotte, born from her second marriage to Stéfano Casiraghi, who tragically died in a boating accident in 1990. Not so Princess Alexandra , born from Carolina’s marriage to Ernesto Augusto de Hannover, from whom she also separated in 2009, who is more like her father.
The accident that killed her
The princess of Monaco was with her daughter Estefania in the Land Rover that fell down a 30-meter-high ravine. Only the two occupants of the vehicle would know what really happened for the misfortune to occur. One of them, Grace Kelly, died of injuries sustained in the accident the following day.
Grace died without regaining consciousness at the Princess Grace Hospital Center and was buried in the Cathedral of San Nicolás on Saturday, September 18, 1982. She did not know the many other misfortunes and scandals that her daughters and son were involved in. They are not the only orphans of her. The princess left millions of admirers and fans orphaned by her intelligence, beauty, education and elegance.