Grace Kelly Biography: From Movie Star to Princess

Grace Kelly Biography
Grace Kelly (MGM Promotional Photo)

Grace Kelly’s movie career was relatively short. However, she didn’t end up in the unemployment line holding a tin cup. She met and married Prince Rainier III of Monaco and became a Princess. It was a role she played to perfection.

Margaret and John Kelly were not at all surprised when a beautiful little girl arrived on November 12, 1929 in Philadelphia. They were Catholic and planned to add little Grace to the other kids. Dad was a former Olympic Gold Medal winner in rowing, and mom was a coach of women’s athletics at the University of Pennsylvania. Mr. Kelly was a successful contractor, but sometimes was known as a “brick layer.” The Kelly family was not “rich” in today’s terms, but they had a beautiful 17-room home in Colonial style.

Grace was a quiet little girl who preferred reading to participating in athletic shenanigans with her family. She was taught to be ladylike at all times. She succeeded in becoming a gracious young girl while attending the prestigious Ravenhill Elementary School. Her interest in drama was piqued when she attended the private Steven’s School. Surprisingly, Grace excelled in the drama program and wanted to continue her studies at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York. Although her dad was skeptical, he was convinced by mom to let Grace go and try her luck in the Big Apple.

It was 1947 when Grace arrived in New York and just after World War II ended. The big city was bustling with activity and was exciting for the wide-eyed 18 year-old. She was absolutely beautiful with her porcelain skin, green eyes, and Jean Harlow blonde hair. She was immediately accepted into the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.

Having no job yet to help sustain her, she went to the famed Powers Modeling Agency and found work. She was poised, knew how to cross her legs in a ladylike manner, and not stand like a farmer in a field of potatoes. She became a top model and one of the highest paid. Not content to merely be a clothes horse, she dipped her dainty foot into television.

She appeared in two plays at the Bucks County Playhouse in 1949. She was chosen as ‘the most promising personality of the Broadway stage of 1950’ by Theatre World Magazine after her acting in plays The Rockingham Tea Set, Episode, The Mirror of Delusion and The Apple Tree. She was seen in the play The Father by legendary Twentieth Century-Fox film producer Sol C. Siegel. He alerted director Henry Hathaway to test her for a small part in his film Fourteen Hours (1951) starring Paul Douglas and Richard Basehart. She flew out to Hollywood and completed the part of a cool wife in a mere two days. She was 22 at the time. She returned to New York to resume her stage acting.

Grace didn’t have to wait long for another call from Hollywood. Producer/director Stanley Kramer wanted her for the part of a Quaker wife in the now-iconic Western High Noon (1952). Here was a chance to co-star with Gary Cooper, one of the biggest stars in the film business. The film was a huge success and won four Academy Awards®. It catapulted Kelly into an overnight star.

With no other films on the agenda, she returned to New York and appeared in television dramas such as Philco Television Playhouse, Kraft Theatre and other shows beginning back in 1950.

Seemingly incredibly lucky, she got a call from MGM to test for a role of a mousy, but pretty, wife in the major jungle epic Mogambo (1953). It was to star two of MGM’s biggest stars, Clark Gable and Ava Gardner, and was to be shot in Africa. Plus, she was offered a lucrative 7-year contract with the studio. Gardner was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar® and Kelly was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar®, both losing.

Grace Kelly Biography
Grace Kelly in ‘Dial M for Murder’ (Photo © Warner Bros.)

Director Alfred Hitchcock was well-known for casting cool blondes in his film such as Martha Hyer, Tippi Hedren, Kim Novak, and Doris Day in his tingling movies. Hitch wanted her to star in his startling mayhem movie Dial M For Murder in 1954. It was to be shot in the then-popular 3D process. Kelly looked even more spectacular in three dimensions.

The now-popular actress was kept busy in 1954. It turned out that she completed five of her famous films all that year. Her next one paired her with handsome William Holden (Golden Boy, Network) in the film adaptation of author James Michener’s The Bridges at Toko-Ri. She played the wife of a Navy jet fighter pilot assigned to Asia. Another hit for her and Paramount Pictures!

Hitchcock called again and wanted her for his next thriller, Rear Window, starring James Stewart, Raymond Burr, Wendell Corey and Judith Evelyn. There was a previous offer to star in On The Waterfront with Marlon Brando, but she turned it down. Actress Eva Marie Saint got the part and an Oscar® as Best Supporting Actress! So, it was off to Hollywood again to work with Hitch and Stewart. Rear Window opened in October 1954 and was a big hit.

Paramount had another great part for Kelly as the wife of an aging alcoholic singer. She would play Georgie in The Country Girl, with singing icon Bing Crosby. It would be the first time she appeared dowdy on screen without glamorous costumes. MGM did not want to loan Kelly out, but she insisted and got her way. She was running neck and neck for an Oscar® with Judy Garland in A Star Is Born. Kelly won and Judy was left out in the cold.


When the French Government called Kelly to ask if she would attend the 1955 Cannes Film Festival where The Country Girl would be shown, she didn’t hesitate. It was there she met Prince Rainier III of Monaco. He was looking for a wife to produce some heirs to save his country from returning to France’s jurisdiction. Kelly’s parents had never approved of any of her previous boyfriends (one of whom was fashion designer Oleg Cassini), so she thought it might be a good idea to settle down and marry the bachelor Prince. (Plans were being made for a future wedding after the Prince announced their engagement in January 1956.)

MGM rushed Kelly into Green Fire (1954), a potboiler filmed in the Colombian jungles. Dashing Stewart Granger played an adventurous emerald hunter and Kelly was a coffee plantation owner. The movie was a real stinker and took a nosedive at the box office.

Grace Kelly Biography
Her prestige was sufficient enough to weather a bad picture, so she came back to another triumph in To Catch a Thief (1955) with the terminally charming and handsome Cary Grant. Filmed on the French Riviera, Grant played a reformed “cat burglar” and Kelly was his temptress. It was her third and last picture for director Alfred Hitchcock and a great box-office smash.

MGM never could figure out how to cast her, so they bungled again and put her into the costume picture The Swan (1956), set in 1910. She played Princess Alexandra opposite stodgy Alec Guinness and handsome French actor Louis Jourdan. MGM had dusted off an old, moldy Ferenc Molnár Hungarian play and wanted to cash in on Kelly’s new fairytale romance with Prince Rainier. The picture was a flop.

The final picture she made under her MGM contract was the musical High Society (1956) with Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Celeste Holm and jazz musician Louis Armstrong. It was a remake of the 1940 comedy The Philadelphia Story with Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant and James Stewart. Kelly played society dame Tracy Lords as first played by Hepburn. The picture was directed by former choreographer Charles Walters and was a sprightly musical of happy songs as sung by the two best singers in Hollywood. The score was written by Cole Porter, one of the best in the business. The film was a huge success.

Grace Kelly left Hollywood and never looked back. She and Prince Rainier had one of the most beautiful weddings ever held. Celebrities from all over the world attended. The ceremony was televised.

Grace Kelly went from being a well-bred girl from Philadelphia to Hollywood to become a movie star and ended up being a Princess. She and Rainier started a family and produced Princess Caroline (1957), Prince Albert (1958 and heir to the throne), and Princess Stephanie (1965).

Despite her fairy-tale life, Princess Grace’s life came to an end in a terrible automobile crash. On September 14, 1982, Princess Grace was driving a car which went over a cliff in her adopted country. She was only 52.