Movie stars I loved as a kid - Grace Kelly

I haven't done a "Movie stars I loved as a kid" post in ages but I was reading about the new exhibition on Kelly at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and that inspired me.

Grace Kelly - a graceful masterclass in allure:

Grace Kelly’s acting career was shorter than you might think, cramming 11 films – and a Best Actress Oscar in 1955 for The Country Girl – into a mere five years before her life changed direction in 1956 when she announced her engagement to Monaco’s Serene Highness Prince Rainier (“pronounced Raynyay” as the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin helpfully explained). It was a fairy tale of sorts but Kelly conferred every bit as much status as she gained. The $2million dowry from her building tycoon father was a welcome shot of liquidity for the cash-strapped Grimaldis and a Hollywood princess put their tiny country on the map – well, almost.

Grace Kelly was a leading lady in film and in life:

Grace Kelly’s film career was as brief as it was incandescent. She managed 11 features in five years, three of them for Alfred Hitchcock, the collaboration for which she is best remembered.

Kelly had a simple, decorative part as Gary Cooper’s pacifist bride in High Noon (1952), but it was her role as a prissy anthropologist’s wife in John Ford’s Mogambo (1953) which first caught Hitchcock’s attention. He quickly cast her as the obliviously imperilled heroine of Dial M for Murder (1954) and the process of sculpting her into the cool, stylish blonde with the fire beneath was under way. That shoot was fraught with technical difficulties and Hitchcock neglected his inexperienced leading lady, whom he later regretted was a little stiff in the part.

Rear Window (1954), his next film, was such a meticulously planned and orderly production that Hitchcock could devote more of his attention to Kelly – and to crafting the most perfect, seductive close-ups that he, costume designer Edith Head and cinematographer Robert Burks could contrive between them.
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Before teaming up again with Hitchcock, Kelly did three films with other directors, one of which was dramatic, pointedly unglamorous and won her the Best Actress Oscar. George Seaton’s The Country Girl is an oddly forgotten film now, possibly because “dowdy” and “embittered” aren’t modes that casual Kelly fans are entirely comfortable seeing her try. But this woman-wronged role can be chalked up as her biggest stretch as an actress, and many of her scenes with Bing Crosby (as her tragic has-been husband) and William Holden (as the intemperate, woman-hating Broadway director who wants Crosby for his show) are fierce and surprising: this is the film that hints hardest at the serious actress Kelly might have become.

Instead, it was back to Hitch for one of his flimsier outings, the cat burglary romp To Catch a Thief (1955), opposite a disgustingly tanned Cary Grant.
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It’s certainly clear from the later performances of Eva Marie Saint, Vera Miles and Tippi Hedren that Hitchcock never got over the abrupt retirement of his leading lady. As Hedren, subjected to hours upon hours of hair, make-up and screen tests, explained once: “I was very touched by his evident need to re-create Grace Kelly – or whoever it was he wanted to re-create out of the raw material that was me – but I didn’t really want to go along with that sort of thing.”

Grace Patricia Kelly was born on November 12, 1929 and died on September 14, 1982:

Hitchcock offered Kelly the lead in his film Marnie in 1962. She was eager, but public outcry in Monaco against her involvement in a film that portrayed her as a kleptomaniac made her reconsider and ultimately reject the project.
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In 1951, the newly famous Kelly took a bold stand against a racist incident involving Black American expatriate singer/dancer Josephine Baker, when the Sherman Billingsley's Stork Club in New York refused Baker as a customer. Kelly, who was dining at the club when this happened, was so disgusted that she rushed over to Baker (whom she had never met), took her by the arm, and stormed out with her entire party, vowing never to return (and she never did). The two women became close friends after that night. A significant testament to their close friendship was made evident when Baker was near bankruptcy, and was offered a villa and financial assistance by Kelly (who by that time had become The Princess of Monaco) and her husband Rainier III of Monaco. The princess also encouraged Baker to return to performing and financed Baker's triumphant comeback in 1975, attending the opening night's performance. When Baker died, the Princess secured her burial in Monaco.
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On September 13, 1982, while driving with her daughter Stéphanie to Monaco from their country home, Princess Grace suffered a stroke, which caused her to drive her Rover P6 off the serpentine road down a mountainside. Grace was pulled alive from the wreckage, but had suffered serious injuries and was unconscious. She died the following day at the Monaco Hospital, having never regained consciousness. It was initially reported that Princess Stéphanie suffered only minor bruising, although it later emerged that she had suffered a serious cervical fracture. It was rumored that Princess Grace had been driving on the same stretch of highway that had been featured in her 1955 movie To Catch a Thief, but her son has always denied it.
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In his eulogy, James Stewart said: "You know, I just love Grace Kelly. Not because she was a princess, not because she was an actress, not because she was my friend, but because she was just about the nicest lady I ever met. Grace brought into my life as she brought into yours, a soft, warm light every time I saw her, and every time I saw her was a holiday of its own. No question, I'll miss her, we'll all miss her, God bless you, Princess Grace."

Kelly was one of the few blonds whom I found attractive. In fact I never really thought of her as a cool blond because the was something smolderingly hot and sexy about her.