Grace Kelly

[scriptgirl]

Diamond Source
Celebrity Diamonds: Grace Kelly


It was the fair tale of the 1050's, an enchanting European Prince and the American movie star. It began in May 1955, when Grace Kelly was in the south of France to attend the Cannes Film Festival and agreed to pose for a "Paris Match" photo layout with His Serene Highness Prince Rainier III of Monaco. They had never met, though Grace had visited the palace during the making of Alfred Hitchcock's "To Catch a Thief" a year earlier. This movie with co-star Cary Grant and the story of diamonds and jewelry in Monaco would ironically mark the future direction of Grace's life.


While a photographer recorded the photo shoot, the mustached prince escorted the Philadelphia-bred beauty through the gardens and his small, exotic zoo. However, romantic sparks did not fly because both were preoccupied with events in their lives. It was unlikely the prince and the movie star would ever meet again but fate was not to be denied. Several months later Grace and Rainier had dinner in New York. The spent most of the next several days with each other and then Rainier asked for her hand in marriage. Rainier denied that the proposal was impetuous saying, "I think we were both ready for marriage."

On December 28, Grace started to let the news of their proposal out. He gave her a friendship ring, a band with diamonds and rubies, until the 12-carat emerald cut diamond engagement ring could be made. Grace also received a beautiful jewelry set created especially for her by Van Cleef & Arpels, consisting of a necklace, bracelet and earrings of diamonds and pearls.


Grace left for Hollywood to start work on her last film, High Society. Her engagement ring made headlines when Grace wore the twelve carat emerald ring in the movie where it got a close-up and a line of dialogue from co-star Bing Crosby, "Some stone…did you mine it yourself?"

Grace still had several years remaining on her MGM contract and most in the movie industry could not believe she would give up her movie career. However, the Prince was not about to have his bride commuting to Hollywood so MGM agreed to let her out of her contract obligation if the studio could have exclusive rights to film the wedding.


On April 18, 1956, Prince Rainier Grimaldi and Grace Kelly were married in a civil ceremony in the Throne Room of the Palace. A television crew, the only media allowed at the wedding, transmitted the half-hour ceremony to 30 million viewers watching European television. On April 19, diplomats, heads of state, movie stars and socialites including David Niven, Gloria Swanson, Cary Grant, Ava Gardner and Aristotle Onassis were amount the 600 guest at the televised wedding mass in the Cathedral of St. Nicholas. Princess Grace of Monaco wore a wedding gown courtesy of MGM's costume designer Helen Rose. The high-necked, long-sleeved silk wedding gown had a billowing skirt and antique lace.


Before entering the cream and black open Rolls-Royce to drive through the streets of Monaco, Grace leaned over to Rainier and whispered something in his ear. Later when asked what she had said to Rainier, Grace recalled having whispered, "Thank you darling, for such a sweet, intimate wedding."

 

[scriptgirl]

USAToday

Rainier's fairy tale with Grace Kelly lives as his health fails
MONACO (AP) — Their romance captivated the world — an American movie queen, a European prince and their enchanted life in a hilltop palace overlooking the Mediterranean.

Prince Rainier and Princess Grace were married in 1956.
File Photo
The mystique of Prince Rainier III and Grace Kelly has endured the two decades since her tragic death, in part because the 81-year-old ruler never remarried and filled his tiny principality with countless memorials to the woman he loved.

Some see Rainier's ailing health as the final chapter in the fairy tale of Monaco — a subject that draws a mixture of sadness and smiles in the place where it all started.

"Princess Grace is still here. I can't explain it," said Nathalie Ponsenard, 40, who teaches at a nursery school not far from the royal palace. "She was just magical, full of warmth and generosity and humanity."

Here in Monaco, those of a certain age recount fondly how Princess Grace would take her children biking along the seaside or would wave and say, "Bonjour," in reply to passers-by.

Though she never returned to the screen after her 1956 marriage to Rainier, the actress brought her elegance and charm to the role of princess. And the world took note.

"The day Prince Rainier married Princess Grace — one of the world's most famous and beautiful women — was the day Monaco was born on the international stage," said Vincent Weylan, chief editor of the royalty division of Point de Vue magazine, a French weekly that focuses on Europe's royalty.

Many here speak of 1982, the year of her tragic car accident and death, as a time of national sadness. The fact that Rainier remained alone all these years is seen by some of his subjects as a testament to his love. Experts agree.

"He never really got over her death. It was an irreparable loss," said Philippe Delorme, a French biographer of Rainier. "It would have been very hard to replace her."

On the 20th anniversary of her death in 2002, the royal palace published a glossy book in honor of the late princess filled with pictures of the royal couple. Rainier himself penned the preface.

"Twenty years after her disappearance, Princess Grace is always present in our hearts and in our thoughts," the prince wrote. He praised her for "carrying out to perfection her role as spouse and mother."

Grace's widower has helped to keep her memory alive.

Along the coast by the elegant Monte Carlo casino is Princess Grace Avenue; down by Monaco's yacht-filled harbor is the Princess Grace Library; and, outside the hospital where Rainier was clinging to life on a respirator Friday is the Princess Grace Theater.

At the 19th century Monaco Cathedral, where Princess Grace was laid to rest beside Rainier's three predecessors, hers is the only grave permanently honored with fresh flowers.

It was at the cathedral on April 18, 1956, that the couple was married, in what was called at the time the "wedding of the century."

Precisely where the fairy tale began is where it will end. Beside her tomb is an empty slab of marble waiting to be engraved with the prince's name.

"The end of Prince Rainier will certainly be the end of an era for Monaco. But it is larger than that," said Weylan. Most of Europe's royal elders who witnessed the historic events of the last century have died, including the queen mothers of England and Denmark, the father and mother of the king of Spain.

"It will also be the end of an era for Europe," he said.

The heir to Rainier's throne is his son, 47-year-old Prince Albert, who is unmarried and has no children. Monaco changed its succession law in 2002 to allow power to pass from a reigning prince who has no descendants to his siblings. Both of Albert's sisters — Princess Caroline and Princess Stephanie — have children.

Rainier assumed the throne in 1949, seven years before he married. Some see in Albert the hope for a new fairy tale.

"What I hear," said 22-year-old Sandrine Negre, "is that he's not married yet because he's looking for someone like Grace Kelly."

"You never know," she said, peering through sunglasses on a walk near Princess Grace Avenue. "Maybe Monaco will have another American princess."

 

[scriptgirl]

leninimports
iography

born:
12 november 1929
philadelphia, pennsylvania, usa

died:
14 september 1982
monacoville, monaco. (road accident)



Grace Kelly rarities in our new amazon.co.uk store
Grace Kelly was born on November 12, 1929, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She was born into a rich Irish Catholic family in Philadelphia (her uncle was the playwright George Kelly) and attended private schools before enrolling in the American Academy of Dramatic Art in New York City in 1947. She made her professional debut in summer stock in July 1949 and her Broadway debut in November 1949. She also appeared frequently on television.

During her six-year (1951-56) heyday in Hollywood, she appeared in such films as Fourteen Hours (1951), in which she made her screen debut; High Noon (1952), as Gary Cooper's Quaker wife; Mogambo (1953); and The Country Girl (1954), for which she won an Academy Award for best actress as Bing Crosby's dowdy wife. But perhaps her most memorable roles were in such Alfred Hitchcock films as Dial M for Murder (1954), Rear Window (1954), and To Catch a Thief (1955). Kelly was the perfect Hitchcock heroine and had what he described as "sexual elegance."

After making The Swan (1956) and High Society (1956), she married Prince Rainier and became princess of Monaco. The couple had three children--Princess Caroline, Prince Albert, and Princess Stephanie--and remained devoted to each other and their family.

Books and gossip inevitably have arisen in the years since her death speculating on her affairs, unhappiness in her long marriage etc. etc, yawn, yawn...the same stuff that seems to surround anyone famous who dies. For all the sources seem to emanate from silver haired gentlemen who perhaps finding their pension's rather meagre decide to make a trip to fantasy island, come up with 'I know let's tell a sex scandal like story about Grace and I who told me to get lost in a bar in 1965 but hey let's not let reality get in the way of making a buck or two' and write a tacky covered book destined for the bargain bin bucket of the bargain bin bucket hell superstore in the hope that they can buy outright the timeshare they've acquired in the Costa del Crap! Or elderly journalists who make the mistake of thinking that advancing years gives some respect to books that can not disguise their bitterness that Princess Grace never called them to confide in anything other than 'lovely weather today!'

But do buy these tacky books from this site as I'm also a hypocrite.

Princess Grace died of injuries sustained in an automobile accident. She and her daughter Stephanie were driving on a winding road at Cap-d'Ail in the Côte d'Azur region of France when Princess Grace suffered a stroke and lost control of the car, which plunged down a 45-foot (13.7-metre) embankment. This was on September 14, 1982.

The spot where she fatally lost control is said to be the same spot where the picnic scene in To Catch a Thief was filmed in 1954.

Trivia

Birth name
Grace Patricia Kelly

Nickname
Graciebird
Gracie

Height
5' 7" (1.70 m)

Spouse
Prince Rainier of Monaco (19 April 1956 - 14 September 1982) (her death) 3 children

Trivia
Chosen by Empire magazine as one of the 100 Sexiest Stars in film history (#5). [1995]

Ranked #51 in Empire (UK) magazine's "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" list. [October 1997]

Hoped to return to acting in Alfred Hitchcock's Marnie (1964), but the people of Monaco didn't want their princess playing a thief and romancing Sean Connery.

Has three children with Prince Rainier: Princess Caroline (1957), Prince Albert (1958) and Princess Stephanie (1965).

Her movies are banned in Monaco by order of Prince Ranier.

The inscription at her burial site in Monaco's cathedral does not refer to her as a princess. It uses the title "uxor principis" (prince's wife), which is traditional in the House of Grimaldi.

Interred at the Cathedral of St. Nicholas, Monte Carlo, Monaco.

Assisted in the pre-production status of The Grace Kelly Story starring Cheryl Ladd as Grace Kelly.

Actress Rita Gam was among her bridesmaids.

Born at 5:31 AM EST.

In 1993, the USA and Monaco simultaneously released a commemorative postage stamp honoring her. However, USA federal law forbids postage stamps depicting foreign heads of state, so the USA stamp listed her as "Grace Kelly", while the Monaco stamp listed her as "Princess Grace".

Part of Prince Ranier's attraction to marrying a movie star was to increase tourism in his tiny, cash-poor principality, and the Kelly family was turned off by his demands that a substantial dowry accompany Grace to Monaco. A figure of $2,000,000 was finally agreed upon, which was diverted from Grace's inheritance so that her brother and two sisters wouldn't be shortchanged.

Kelly's wedding gown was the most expensive garment that MGM designer Helen Rose had ever made. It used twenty-five yards of silk taffeta and one hundred yards of silk net. Its 125-year-old rose point lace was purchased from a museum and thousants of tiny pearls were sewn on the veil.

Was considered for the role of Maggie the Cat in 'Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958)' that was eventually played by Elizabeth Taylor.

The so-called "wealthy" family Grace was born into was actually an immigrant family of bricklayers who had barely a generation of new-found business success. Grace's father and brother were both Olympic gold-medal scullers. Grace's cousin, former US Secy of Navy John Lehman, Jr. now chairs the Princess Grace Foundation, which supports young performing talent.

Attended and graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, New York.

The film that won Kelly an Oscar ("The Country Girl") was first offered to Jennifer Jones, who had to turn it down due to pregnancy.

When she left Hollywood, several roles she was slated to play were eventually filled by Lauren Bacall. ("Designing Woman" and "The Cobweb"). Director George Stevens also wanted her for "Giant" (1956)

Niece of playwright George Kelly.

Measurements: 34-24-35 (1955 pin-up), (Source: Celebrity Sleuth magazine)

Filmography

Actress - filmography
(1980s) (1960s) (1950s)

Rearranged (1982)

Poppies Are Also Flowers (1966) (as Princess Grace) .... Host
... aka Danger Grows Wild (1966) (UK)
... aka Mohn ist auch eine Blume (1966) (Austria)
... aka Opium Connection, The (1966)
... aka Poppy Is Also a Flower, The (1966) (USA)

High Society (1956) .... Tracy Samantha Lord
Swan, The (1956) .... Princess Alexandra
To Catch a Thief (1955) .... Frances Stevens
... aka Alfred Hitchcock's To Catch a Thief (1955) (USA: complete title)
Bridges at Toko-Ri, The (1955) .... Nancy Brubaker
Green Fire (1954) .... Catherine Knowland
Country Girl, The (1954) .... Georgie Elgin
Rear Window (1954) .... Lisa Carol Fremont
... aka Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window (1954) (USA: complete title)
Dial M for Murder (1954) .... Margot Mary Wendice
Mogambo (1953) .... Linda Nordley
High Noon (1952) .... Amy (Fowler) Kane
Fourteen Hours (1951) .... Mrs. Louise Ann Fuller

 

[scriptgirl]

Find Articles
ace Kelly
St. James Encyclopedia of Pop Culture by Victoria Price

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Her icy beauty and regal poise made Grace Kelly one of the most popular movie stars of the 1950s. But when she married into one of Europe's oldest royal families, becoming Her Serene Highness Princess Grace of Monaco, she became the star of a real-life fairytale romance that captured the global imagination.

Born into a wealthy Philadelphia family, Grace Kelly was raised in a household that valued achievement. Her father, Jack, had been a champion Olympic rower who became a successful businessman, so Grace and her siblings were encouraged to excel in both athletics and academics. Well-educated at parochial and private schools, Grace made her debut in Philadelphia society at sixteen, but after graduating from high school in 1947, the young blond beauty left Philadelphia for New York City, where she attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. After finding work as a model and in small roles on television, Kelly made her Broadway debut in 1949. With her strikingly perfect features and exquisite blond beauty, it was not long before she was brought out to Hollywood, where she made her first film appearance in 1951.

A year later, Grace Kelly starred as Gary Cooper's wife in High Noon, and overnight she became one of Hollywood's most sought-after leading ladies--the quintessential cool blonde. Signed by MGM in 1953, Kelly starred opposite Clark Gable in Mogambo, for which she garnered her first Oscar nomination. A year later, she would win the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in The Country Girl.

Kelly's next three films, all directed by Alfred Hitchcock, would become instant classics. As noted in Baseline's Encyclopedia of Film, Hitchcock "made brilliant use of her signature combination of cool, elegant charm and smoldering sensuality in Dial M for Murder, Rear Window and To Catch a Thief."

By the mid-1950s, Kelly was Hollywood's most popular movie star--an aristocratic beauty whose poise was no on-screen act. Her charm captivated one of the world's most eligible bachelors. While attending the Cannes Film Festival in 1955, Kelly had been introduced to Prince Rainier, the monarch of the tiny Mediterranean principality of Monaco. Afterward, Kelly returned to the States to film High Society with Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra, but it would be her last film. In April 1957, Grace Kelly wed Prince Rainier in a ceremony which her biographer, Robert Lacey, wrote, was "the first modern event to generate media overkill." Guests included Ava Gardner and Aristotle Onassis.

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Following her marriage, Kelly retired from acting. However, because she was under contract to MGM, the wedding was filmed as a movie and shown in the United States, which only increased her fame at home and around the world. Although her film career had lasted only six years, images of Princess Grace entertaining Hollywood celebrities at Monaco charity events and appearing around the world with other European royalty continued to command an audience in the United States, and she remained one of America's most popular public figures.

After the birth of three children--Princess Caroline, Prince Albert, and Princess Stephanie--rumors circulated that Grace was unhappy and lonely in her marriage. She had hoped to return to acting in 1964, when Hitchcock offered her the lead in Marnie, but negative public opinion in Monaco had forced Prince Rainier to decline on her behalf. Even as she grew older and gained weight, the fairy-tale appeal of Grace's marriage continued to intrigue and delight American audiences, who followed her life and that of her children. And when those children, particularly her daughters, turned out to lead wild and sometimes problematic lives, Americans ate up the European soap opera with glee. And so the United States joined Monaco in mourning upon Princess Grace's death in a car accident on the windy roads above Monaco.

Because she stopped acting in her twenties, Grace Kelly remains locked in the public imagination at the height of her beauty. Although her status as a cultural icon is certainly enhanced by her marriage into royalty, her image as one of the most beautiful women ever to grace the silver screen can never be tarnished, even by rumors of her unhappiness or the knowledge that she did not remain the unsullied beauty she once was. Grace Kelly--beauty incarnate and an American Princess--still remains one of America's most intriguing stars.

 

[scriptgirl]

ebay

 

[scriptgirl]

Ullstein

 

[scriptgirl]

ebay

 

[dg_fan]

amazing! who is the girl next to her at the top?

 

[scriptgirl]

That is another Irish Lass, Maureen O'Hara, of "Miracle on 34th Street" and "The Parent Trap."

ebay

 

[dg_fan]

oh! i see

 

[scriptgirl]

corbis

 

[nmyngan]

love the family pic

mptv

 

[scriptgirl]

Thank you.
Grace in Ireland, during a state visit there, telling reporters to please back up and allow her breathing room.

corbis

 

[nmyngan]

zuma

 

[scriptgirl]

Grace's costume from The Swan

ebay

 

[Romy B]

I wish they were photos in color.

 

[scriptgirl]

Here is one in color. Hope that helps.
The sketch of the dress Grace wore in "To Catch A Thief"

 

[scriptgirl]

From the exhibit

flickr

 

[scriptgirl]

flickr

 

[scriptgirl]

The OscarSite
Gracefully exquisite star of Hollywood films in the late 1950s. Born in Philadelphia, PA, the daughter of a former cover girl and a wealthy industrialist, former world champion oarsman Jack Kelly, and the niece of Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright (Craig's Wife, etc.) George Kelly, she made her stage debut as a child of 10 in a Philadelphia production. After attending Raven Hall Academy, then the Stevens School, both in Philadelphia, she came to New York, where she took up modeling while attending classes at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. She auditioned for many plays, but at first the only parts she could get were in cigarette commericals on TV. She finally made it Broadway in 1949, in a revival of Strindberg's The Father, starring Raymond Massey. Her serene beauty attracted attention in Hollywood and she landed a bit part in the film FOURTEEN HOURS (1951). The following year she got her first starring role, as the wife who ultimately did not forsake Gary Cooper in HIGH NOON. She was nominated for best supporting actress in 1953 for her portrayal of an adulteress in MOGAMBO. The following year she won the best actress Academy Award and the New York Critics Award for her performance as the embittered wife of an alcoholic actor-singer (Bing Crosby) in THE COUNTRY GIRL. The qualities that typed her as a star were an icy aloofnes and haughty reserve underneath which lay dormant passions. A dash of humor was added to her screen personality in two of the three films she made for Alfred Hitchcock (DIAL M FOR MURDER and REAR WINDOW, both 1954, and TO CATCH A THIEF, 1955).
While working on TO CATCH A THIEF, the action of which takes place on the French Riviera, she met Prince Ranier III, the ruler of the tiny principality of Monaco. They married in 1956 in a spectacular royal ceremony (three months before the release of HIGH SOCIETY), and Grace retired from the screen. Instead of publicity photos, her delicate face now appeared on postage stamps. In 1962 she hosted a TV tour of Monaco. There was talk of a film comeback, but several announced projects did not materialize. She did narrate, however, THE CHILDREN OF THEATRE STREET (1978) and other documentaries. At 52, still one of the world's most beautiful and elegant women, she died of cerebral hemorrhages, one leading to and another resulting from a fatal accident, when the car she was driving on a treacherous Cote d' Azur mountain road plunged down a 45-foot embankment and burst into flames. The circumstances of the crash remain a mystery. Cheryl Ladd impersonated her in the TV movie "Grace Kelly" (1981).