Grace Kelly, princess of Monaco, Hitchcock’s muse and global fashion icon, had the main gift of making people fall in love with her, thanks to the halo of mystery that surrounded her. “I never say never (…) and I never say always,” she declared on one occasion. A recent biography illustrated by Megan Hess recounts the path followed by this American until she became the consort of a small European principality and inspired brands such as Dior, Gucci, Cartier and Hermès.
One spring day in 1952, Miss Kelly, a native of Philadelphia and already living in New York, headed to “a barn-like studio on the west end of Manhattan.” That’s how she described it later, as if she remembered a trip abroad. In the “barn” she auditioned for a movie called Taxi. Although Kelly did not get the role, the test was circulating around the tables of several directors until it fell into the hands of Alfred Hitchcock, who was looking for a protagonist for Perfect Crime. Upon seeing her, the British director was captivated by her “sexual elegance,” capable of “putting out the eyes of a hippopotamus,” she said.
According to Grace Kelly. The princess who set style (Lunwerg), Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock believed that Grace’s restraint on screen was the perfect complement to the passion that bubbled beneath the surface, leading him to compare her to a snow-covered volcano. At the age of 25, “the cool blonde” (as The New Yorker dubbed her), she became one of the most beloved actresses of the 1950s. With her Hitchcock she would end up starring in two films, Rear Window and To Catch a Thief. However, the master of mystery could not convince her favorite protagonist, since she was already married, so that she returned to Los Angeles in 1962 to shoot her next film: Marnie, the Thief.
By then, Kelly had stopped dressing modestly (tweed skirts, sweaters with matching cardigans and rimmed glasses) as when she was trying to make a career for herself, and had become the muse of many costume designers. In reality, Grace was never the typical young girl who ends up getting lost in the woods and she always knew where she was going.
The Hollywood princess was born on November 12, 1929 in Pennsylvania. Her parents were called Margaret and Jack. She had a sister, Margaret, and a brother, John, older than her. Later she would be born Elizabeth, the youngest. Her father was a businessman and had managed to avoid the Great Depression of 1929. Grace enjoyed a comfortable life in a time of hardship. Shy and somewhat introverted, Miss Kelly dedicated much of her adolescence to dreaming alone, while her brothers competed fiercely in all kinds of sports.
Beginning around the eighth grade, Kelly expressed his dramatic aspirations, but his parents were not up for the task, so he sought and found the support of his uncle George Kelly, a prestigious playwright who had won the Pulitzer and whose works were They had premiered on Broadway. Although Grace failed her college entrance exams, she got a place at the exclusive North American Academy of Dramatic Arts and prepared to take on the world.
In 1947 she found herself living alone in the Big Apple, at the Barbizon Hotel for Women, a respectable place for ambitious young women of impeccable conduct, where male visitors were prohibited from entering the residential apartments. “But Grace quickly learned to bend the rules and was soon scandalizing the other residents by dancing in her underwear in the hallways and regularly receiving secret visits from men,” Hess writes in his rosy story about Her Highness. Serene Princess Grace of Monaco.
To succeed, she had the so-called “Kelly factor”: television producers couldn’t work with Grace without falling a little in love with her. This was influenced by her glamorous image of her, both distant and close to her. Although her first job was a television commercial for an insecticide that required the future princess to run from one place to another “smiling like an idiot and spraying like a demon,” her opportunity would not take long to arrive in the cinema. . Her secret was, perhaps, preserving an aura of mystery that left the public wanting more, something in which her way of dressing had a lot to do with it.
What was the style of the American princess like? Elegant, without ceasing to be sober. Her makeup was also discreet and timeless. The same thing happened with her jewelry, more subtle than lavish. She loved pearls, diamond necklaces and putting on the white gloves that she began wearing when she was still a child at Ravenhill Academy, a Catholic school for good girls. A minimalist style that Kelly broke with flashes of passion, something influenced by Edith Head, a costume designer who enhanced her outfits.
Kelly really liked Cartier (her engagement ring bore its seal), as well as the Dior house (her engagement dress in 1956 was from this brand). She also loved Gucci (who named a printed silk scarf he created exclusively for her Flora) and Hermès. Already pregnant with Carolina, Grace used to hide her incipient pregnancy behind a good-sized bag. When it reached the ears of Hermès, the legendary French brand renamed the model Kelly, joining the honorary division of handbags that have gone down in history, such as the Jackie by Gucci, the Lady by Dior or the Birkin, also by Hermès. .
As for the path followed by Kelly and Rainier to eating partridges, it began in 1955, when Kelly was filming To Catch a Thief on the Côte d’Azur and was invited to lead the American contingent at the Cannes Film Festival in Monaco. Upon learning that she would go there, the director of the French magazine Paris Match proposed that she do an advertising shoot at the Royal Palace, followed by a visit to the gardens with Prince Rainier.
However, on the day in question, Rainier arrived an hour late, when Grace had already visited the gardens. Despite the sit-in, the two hit it off and as soon as Kelly returned to her country they began to write to each other secretly. During this clandestine correspondence that lasted seven months they fell in love. It happened when Grace was in North Carolina filming The Swan, where she was interpreting another fairy tale: Alexandra, a young royal must decide in the run-up to the First World War between a brilliant and passionate man (Louis Jordan), and between the dry, bald prince (Alec Guinness) for whom it is intended. Dressed for the role by Helen Rose, the costume designer who had opened the doors to an Oscar, Grace looked like the princess she was about to become.
The couple announced their engagement in 1956 at the Kelly family residence in Philadelphia. For the occasion, Grace chose a simple polka dot dress. They then headed to New York for a formidable engagement party at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, where she wore a Christian Dior dress. They married in April and were together for the next two and a half decades, which helped put Monaco on the map and ensure that the Monegasques continued without paying tribute (without an heir, the principality would be ruled by the French again).
On their honeymoon, the newlyweds sailed the Mediterranean for seven months aboard a yacht. Grace soon became pregnant: in 1958 she gave birth to her first daughter, Carolina. Her son, Alberto, would follow fifteen months later, and a few years later Estefanía would complete the family.
After leaving the cinema due to the demands of the script, Mrs Kelly dedicated herself to organizing charity events and was appointed president of the Red Cross in Monaco. As for her style, she maintained her loyalty to Dior (according to Marc Boban, the person who assumed the succession after Christian Dior died in 1957, Grace Kelly “had a style that attracted attention, but without being excessive” ). For their part, Cartier and Van Cleef
Grace loved being a mother. After leaving the cinema due to the demands of the script, Mrs Kelly dedicated herself to organizing charity events and was appointed president of the Red Cross in Monaco. As for her style, she maintained her loyalty to Dior (according to Marc Boban, the person who assumed the succession after Christian Dior died in 1957, Grace Kelly “had a style that attracted attention, but without being excessive” ). For their part, Cartier and Van Cleef
Unlike the princely story drawn by Megan Hess, one of the most sought-after fashion designers of the moment, thanks to having clients such as The New York Times, Givenchy, Tiffany
Be that as it may, in 1982 tragedy struck and Grace suffered a stroke while driving on the roads of the Côte d’Azur. When she died, she was only 52 years old. For her funeral, the princess was placed on a bed of orchids and dressed in a white lace gown with a high collar. She was the red cap to a fairy tale life that none of her three children could continue.