INTRODUCTION

HER STORY

QUOTES

Grace and Alfred Hitchcock were soulmates who were involved in a very intense love affair of the mind. After she deserted him for marriage, he called her Princess Disgrace.

After accepting Rainier's proposal, Grace called her friends to tell them she was engaged to be married but hung up before telling them who the man was. The consensus was Oleg Cassini. No one suyspected Prince Rainier.

Princess Grace first met French president de Gaulle on a state visit to Paris in 1959. To prepare for the trip, she had sent to the library for a copy of the general's memoirs. However, when she saw how huge the volume was she asked a secretary to provide her with a résumé.

When Grace first arrived back in New York after her marriage to Prince Rainier, she was carrying a large, almost square handbag that she had purchased on the journey from Hermès in Paris. The bag was derived from a piece of luggage once used to carry bridles and riding tack, and it became known henceforward as the Kelly bag.

When Grace picked up the 1954 Academy Award for her performance in The Country Girl, Judy Garland-- who was nominated for A Star Is Born-- didn't bother to hide her opinion that she had been gypped, sniffing at the thought of Grace Kelly "taking off her fucking makeup and grabbing MY Oscar."

Legend has it that Marilyn Monroe's engagement congratulations to Grace ran, "So glad you've found a way out of this business."

When people speak of Grace Kelly as one of the classic faces of her era, it's usually a Howell Conant photograph they are thinking of. His images of Grace vacationing in Jamaica in 1955 caused a sensation and were the making of Conant's career.  It was also the beginning of an extraordinary collaboration between subject and photographer that lasted until her death in 1982.

Grace put her foot down when MGM wanted to hire a voice double to sing True Love in the 1956 movie High Society. She insisted on singing her own track and made a fool out of her critics, because the record-- a ballad performed with co-star Bing Crosby-- didn't just go Gold, it went Platinum.

The location for the 1953 movie Mogambo was full of tall Watusis, beautiful warriors who had been hired as extras, wearing their breechclouts. Grace and co-star Ava Gardner were walking along, and Ava said to Grace, "I wonder if their cocks are as big as people say? Have you ever seen a black cock?" With that, she reached over and pulled up the breechclout of one of the Watusis, who gave a big grin as this huge cock flopped out. By then Grace had turned absolutely blue. Ava let go of the breechclout, turned to Grace, and said, "Frank's bigger than that."

Gary Cooper said of her that, "She looked like she was a cold dish with a man until you got her pants down, then she'd explode."

Plunged 120 feet to her death in 1982 after her brakes failed. Ironically, the accident happened in the place where she had shot a scene from To Catch A Thief (1955) 27 years before.

In Dial M For Murder (1954), before Grace stabs Anthony Downson, you can actually see the pair of scissors she uses embedded in his back.

Had a long-running practical joke going with Alec Guinness whereby each would smuggle an Indian tomahawk into the other's bed no matter where they were. Part of the gag was that neither would ever allude to the fact afterwards."

The inscription at her burial site in the Cathedral of St. Nicholas, Monte Carlo, Monaco, 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.

Cheryl Ladd portrayed her in the 1983 TV movie, The Grace Kelly Story. Grace assisted in the pre-production status.

In High Society (1956) she recreated Katharine Hepburn's The Philadelphia Story role as Tracy Lord.

In The Swan (1956) she played a young woman betrothed to a prince!  It was her penultimate role. Shortly after making the film she became engaged to a prince in real life.

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.

When actress Jennifer Jones became unexpectedly pregnant, Paramount begged MGM to allow Kelly to take her place in 1954's The Country Girl. The studio initially refused, but she successfully battled for the role. The result was a Best Actress Oscar.  Greta Garbo had refused the role earlier.

When she married Prince Rainier III of Monaco, MGM released a Technicolor film of their wedding ceremony.

Her wedding gown was the most expensive garment 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 thousands of tiny pearls were sewn on the veil.

After marriage, she occasionally lent her presence to documentaries like The Children of Theatre Street, a 1977 film about the Kirov Ballet School.

It was announced in 1962 that she was to return to Hollywood to star in Hitchcock's Marnie, but she later withdrew from the project and never acted again.

Her uncle, George Kelly, was the Pulitzer Prize-winning dramatist behind the plays The Show-Off and Craig's Wife.

It was while filming Hitchcock's To Catch A Thief on the French Riviera in 1955 that she met Prince Rainier III of Monaco, and the two began a romance.