Boston Globe (16/Sep/1982) - Grace Kelly

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• article: Grace Kelly
• newspaper: Boston Globe (16/Sep/1982)
• keywords: Alfred Hitchcock, Cary Grant, Grace Kelly, James Stewart, To Catch a Thief (1955)

Article

Grace Kelly

Her austere, convent-school beauty disguised an Intelligent warmth. Sensuality seemed to seethe just beneath the glacial surface. Alfred Hitchcock knew what to do with her.schoolgirlish vulnerability. He placed her in constant mortal danger in three movies.

The Princess of Monaco was killed on the same road she was chased by villains in "To Catch a Thief" in 1955. A year later, Grace Kelly married Prince Rainier in Monaco.

Her beauty was so memorable that it seems hard to believe that she made only 11 movies before retiring. She was leading lady to Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart and William Holden. Her last movie. Cole Porter's "High Society," co-starred Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra.

Her life was as vivid a fairy tale as any concocted by Hans Christian Andersen. Her father, John B. Kelly, the son of an Irish immigrant, was rejected by polite British society when he earned a sculler's rowing prize in England. The English Diamond Sculls of the Henley Regatta in 1920 rejected Kelly because as a manual laborer, a bricklayer, he "worked with his hands."

Kelly supposedly sent his sweaty rowing cap to Buckingham Palace, but enjoyed sweeter revenge when his daughter married into the Grimaldis, the oldest royal family in Europe. Her father had already left bricklaying to become a contractor and a millionaire.

Grace Kelly's early work in live television brought her to the attention of Hollywood. In "High Noon'Mn 1950 she was a shy Quaker bride and grew in movie roles until she became the sui generis star of the 1950s. John Ford helped make her a star in "Mogambo." She exuded sensuality without sultriness, virtue without vice, sex appeal without swaying hips.

She walked away from it all to marry her prince and raise a royal family and never seemed to long for Hollywood. Grace Kelly died violently in an automobile accident. She leaves a legacy of beauty with dignity, a memory of fairy tales come true.