From a Philadelphia childhood to the top of Hollywood, and then to a palace in Monaco, Grace Kelly lived a story that still sounds like a fairy tale, yet she played it with a cool, modern grace.
Grace Patricia Kelly was born on 12 November 1929 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She studied acting in New York, worked on stage and in television, and made her film debut in Fourteen Hours (1951). Her breakthrough came the following year opposite Gary Cooper in High Noon (1952), in which she played Amy Fowler Kane.
The 1950s brought a run of classic roles: Mogambo (1953) opposite Clark Gable, Dial M for Murder (1954) and Rear Window (1954) for Alfred Hitchcock, The Country Girl (1954) opposite Bing Crosby, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress, To Catch a Thief (1955) opposite Cary Grant, and High Society (1956) opposite Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra.
In 1956 she married Prince Rainier III of Monaco and left film acting to become Princess Grace of Monaco. She devoted herself to her family and to charitable work in Monaco, and she remained a beloved figure there.
She died on 14 September 1982 in Monaco, aged 52, following a car accident. Remembered for elegance, warmth and a string of luminous performances, Grace Kelly remains the Philadelphia girl who became a princess, and a Hollywood star who never lost her poise.
Image credit: Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Grace_Kelly_1954.jpg