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anothergracekellyblog · 7 years

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The Philadelphia Inquirer - September 11, 1977

“Even Their Warts Are Appealing”

A review of Arthur H. Lewis’ “Those Philadelphia Kellys... With a Touch of Grace” by Kiki Olson

So long, Rona Barrett... ciao Suzy Knickerbocker... catch you later, Larry Fields. In his latest book, "Those Philadelphia Kellys... with a Touch of Grace," Arthur H. Lewis out-dishes you all in his saga of a local family that counts among its members millionaires, sports heroes, politicians, movie stars, playwrights, comics, derelicts, homosexuals, and princes.

The fact that Lewis is a kindly, avuncular septuagenarian, who admittedly doesn't stay up later than 10 p.m., has not stood in the way of his writing a book chock-full of juicy gossip about the Kellys and the fast folk they careen around with.

He supplies information we've all wondered about at one time or another - tidbits like the state of Grace's virginity when she married Prince Rainier; the "other women" in John B. Kelly's life; the real "other woman" in John B. Kelly's life; the Kelly family reaction to brother George's lifelong "friend and companion," William Weagly; what is really lurking 'neath the pantyhose of Rachael Harlow, a companion of Kell's (Jack Jr.) and this city's most toasted transsexual; who really ran the show at the Kelly manse and how she put the kabosh on her son's bid for the mayoralty, and whether Jack really prefers blondes and how some of them rate him as an escort. There's even a crunchy chapter headed "There's Never Been a Good Kelly Marriage."

The photographs that punctuate each of the 34 chapters show a family so uniformly handsome that one would suspect that they had been cloned.

When looking at the group, "normal" hardly seems an operative word.

What normal, poverty-stricken family immigrates from Ireland in the late 1800s and without much education beyond mill-working produces sons who become millionaires, sports and political figures, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwrights and vaudeville and motion picture stars? Then follows a generation where one goes on to become an Academy Award winner and a princess, and her brother is acknowledged as probably "the most widely known amateur sports figure in the world today."

Normal like the Kennedys, maybe, and a comparison between the two families is inevitable. They're Irish, they're rich, they're attractive, they're political and they've got to win.

Besides interviewing the Kellys themselves, Lewis has gathered material from such local archivists as Stanley Greene, Harry Jay Katz, and Jack E. Edelstein and from West Coasters Dore Schary and Joan Blondell.

Although he opens his book by saying that "it's not easy to be objective about the Kellys since you keep falling in love with them," he has hardly written a book that is gushing with their virtues. He all but refers to Grace as a shill for "the suckers who lose their dough on Monte Carlo's green felt tables," to John B. Kelly as a generous "helluva fellow" who could also be a helluva freeloader as well, and to Kell, who even after all that exercising and all those beautiful women has had his bad times, too. Lewis' chapter on the meeting with Kell's wife, Mary (they've been estranged for nine years), has a wistfulness I can only recall in Francoise Sagan's early novels.

For anyone who has felt the slightest pang of envy for the people born into a family where wealth, beauty, honor and acclaim seem to come so easily, reading this book may be a harmless romp through the land of Schadenfreude - that perspicacious German word expressing "taking joy in the sorrows of others."

Find out why Grace cried a lot and called her friends cross-Atlantic from her pretty Mediterranean palace. Discover why John B's nephew, George, who was a champion pool player, died in a Race Street flophouse. Take a gander at John B. Kelly's last will and testament. Look to see if you're one of the many Philadelphians mentioned in the book. In other words, read all about it.

Ironically, the book ends with a full-page photo of Princess Caroline splashing in the surf in a brief bikini. Since she's the Kelly offspring getting the most ink these days, I'm sure it would be of great interest to his readers if Lewis would spill all he knows about this Philippe Junot fellow.

Kiki Olson is a Philadelphia freelance writer.

SOURCE: Newspapers.com

#grace kelly #grace as a child #1930s #those philadelphia Kellys... with a touch of grace #newspaper clipping #1977 #philadelphia inquirer

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gracie-bird · 3 years

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MEET ALICE CONDON.

She was pals with Princess Grace!

Alice Condon has never met anyone she didn’t like—including real royalty. The former Alice Godfrey was born at Temple Hospital in 1927 and grew up in East Falls. Two of her friends from those days would continue to play important roles in her life story: Ann Garman and Grace Kelly, who became Princess Grace of Monaco.

“We did lots of fun things together,” Alice says. In winter, the friends all ice-skated on Kelly’s tennis court and in summer, they cooled off in a Kelly Brick Yard mixer filled with water.

Alice and Grace were like family.

“She loved coming to my house and called my parents ‘Aunt Babe’ and ‘Uncle Bill.’ I loved going to their house and called her parents ‘Aunt Margaret’ and ‘Uncle Jack.’”

The two shared a Girl Scout troop, going to football games at Penn Charter and more, until Alice, two years Grace’s senior, went off to Ursinus College to study physical education. (She played basketball and field hockey.) When Alice married Charlie Waters, the Kelly Family came to the wedding at Seaview Country Club.

Of weddings, families and old friends

Alice and Charlie had two sons while they were living in Virginia. When Charlie got out of the Army, the family moved to Bryn Mawr, where they continued to be friendly with the Kellys. Alice and Charlie attended Grace Kelly’s 21st birthday party—a black-tie—affair, and when their third son was born, they asked her to be his godmother.

At the time, Kelly “was going to Hollywood to be in a movie called High Noon starring Gary Cooper,” Alice recalls.

In 1956 Grace Kelly married Prince Rainier of Monaco. Alice couldn’t attend the wedding because she was pregnant, although her parents went. Eventually, she and Charlie had four boys and two girls, and Alice taught kindergarten for 30 years.

After high school, Alice had lost touch with her friend Ann, whose family had moved from Philadelphia. While living in Chicago, Ann met and married Vern Condon. When they moved back east to New Jersey, Ann wanted to find Alice, and so she reached out to Princess Grace for Alice’s contact information. Alice and Ann reconnected and the two couples became fast friends and visited often.

The next chapter of the fairy tale

Alice lost her husband, Charlie, after 52 years of marriage. Soon after, Vern lost Ann. Alice and Vern remained friendly and, in 2004, they married.

“I would say we were just friends who could talk to each other about all the good times we had as couples, and then it evolved into something more,” Alice told a local newspaper in 2012. At the time, she and Vern were preparing to leave New Vernon, New Jersey, where she was a member of the garden club and the fire department ladies auxiliary. She raised funds for the library and served on the Shade Tree Commission.

The next stop for Alice and Vern was their new home at Jenner’s Pond. It’s convenient to Alice’s six children, nine grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren. It freed them from home maintenance and yard care. Plus, Alice had fallen in love with the cottages—and the people.

“Everyone smiles and greets you. People are so friendly and go out of their way to help you feel at home. The food is great, too,” she says. “It’s just a great spot to live.”

Vern passed in 2017. Alice remains here at Jenner’s Pond, surrounded by friends, looking back at a lifetime of happy memories and continuing to enjoy every day.

Source: Simpson Senior

#grace kelly #princess grace #alice condon #alice godfrey #east falls #philadelphia #friends #childhood

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princessgracekelly1956 · 5 years

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The Boston Globe - April 23, 1967

Mrs. Kelly

Princess Grace's Mother Believes Something’s Very Wrong With Fashion

By MARIAN CHRISTY

Globe Fashion Editor

PHILADELPHIA - She whizzes Into the posh Germantown Cricket Club here 90 minutes late. Her carriage is erect. Her manner stately

It's immediately obvious that she's worth the wait.

Mrs. John B. Kelly is a beautiful woman. When she whips into the club's private dining room for exclusive Globe interview and photographs, there's a flash of electricity. Everyone notices her.

She has a dazzling smile and a personality that scintillates. The stir she causes has nothing absolutely nothing to do with the chic German-made check suit she's wearing. Or the fact that she just happens to be the mother of former actress Grace Kelly, Princess of Monaco.

The lady is a star in her own right.

She's genteel, sparkling, aware, polished.

She may not know it, but she exudes sophistication in a super way. Worldliness has not touched her - although she's surrounded by wealth and prestige. Her values are in perfect perspective. And she doesn't hesitate to lay it on the line.

Mrs. Kelly charges into the interview with a clear statement of her view of fashion:

"I don't contrive to establish a fashion image for myself. Being known as a fashion plate and nothing else is, well, meaningless. Yes, I'm fascinated with clothes. But they're not the catch-all and end-all of my life. I'm much, much more interested in health, and the well-being of people."

What Mrs. Kelly doesn't spell out is the fact that she's an avid backer of Woman's Medical College in Philadelphia. Her interest in medical education for women is intense. She is vice president, board of corporators, of the college, and raises funds with notable zest. And she's a doer. At Spring picnics, she's the one who fries the most hamburgers for the students.

And she's democratic, too. She knows money isn't everything.

“I’m really not very social, you know. I have friends from all walks of life - good friends. I cherish the relationship I have with each and every one."

Then Mrs. Kelly gets down to brass tacks and talks fashion.

She says: "Something's wrong, very wrong, with fashion today. Silly-minded, anti-female designers are dressing women. The result is ugly. Skirts are notoriously short. Those thick, textured stockings are homely. And shoes - they're absolutely brazen. It all looks unladylike and inelegant. Too bad ... women go along with the whole business like a batch of sheep."

On elegance: "It's being above average. Standing out in a crowd. But it's always linked to the element of good taste. You can't go around dressed fadishly or outrageously. People might stare.

"But they won't call you elegant."

On American designers: "They're more middle-of-the-road, more practical than Paris couturiers. New York designers know that American women have busy lives and they can't go to meetings dressed like hobby horses."

On Paris: "This year, Grace came on from a holiday in Switzerland and we went to the Paris fashion houses. First stop was Givenchy. Grace bought - she's in the public eye and must wear couture clothes.

Continuing: "Then we went to the hair-styling salon of Alexandre of Paris. It was mad. They don't have private booths. Just two circular sofas with clients sitting around in pink robes, waiting, waiting, waiting. French women pick up a little gossip and waste a lot of time. And the salon operators are very amusing. They wear mini skirts, lacy stockings and poufy hair. Alexander did Grace himself. And Caroline had her hair cut, too."

More on Paris: "I don't take Paris seriously. It's too expensive. I buy clothes by American designers - Vera Maxwell and Bill Blass are two favorites. Most of all, I like quality and comfort. Everything else is secondary."

Mrs Kelly just returned from a happy holiday at the Monaco Palace.

While she was there, Princess Grace gave a cocktail party prior to the British American Hospital Gala - and invited theatrical personalities including Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, Mr. and Mrs. Alec Guinness, Lillian Gish.

Prince Rainier (Mrs. Kelly calls him "Rainier") was cool at the prospect of meeting Elizabeth Taylor. He made his feelings clear to Princess Grace who soothed his feathers. Then Liz showed up in a sumptuous white ballgown, her hair beautifully coiffed with ribbons.

"The prince was, in a word, 'fascinated'."

Mrs. Kelly has very definite ideas about everything.

She hates to waste time shopping for clothes. So she buys many things at once. She likes one shop in particular, The French Salon in Atlantic City, because the owner accessorizes the costumes and she can buy in one fell swoop. Save hours.

She loves opulent fabrics for evening. Particularly beaded clothes from Italy. And brocades with crusty textures. All her evening clothes are luxurious.

She often designs her own hats.

Grace mailed Mrs. Kelly a beautiful blue-green, hand-loomed fabric from Monaco. Mrs. Kelly had a local dressmaker whip up a coat and dress. Then she took a swatch of the fabric and made her own pillbox.

Princess Grace has just established The Monaco Boutique to sell hand-made things by Monaco's elderly women. When Mrs. Kelly slips into her new costume, she's a walking ad for Monaco.

On Grace: "She's the best dressed in our family. She has to keep up with things because she's always in the limelight. We often tell the story of Grace's real christening into the fashion world.

"On their honeymoon, she and Rainier decided to leave the royal yacht and spend a day or so in Spain. They liked it and stayed longer, despite the fact that Grace kept on showing up in her one suit.

“When she began to draw a crowd, someone from the hotel moaned, 'O, she's wearing THAT again.' Grace is recognized wherever she goes. She must maintain a fashion image."

We say: Mrs. Kelly is a serene woman. This has contributed to her endless beauty and agelessness. She is a woman many could emulate. She is never static she always moves with the wave of life.

#Margaret Kelly #Boston Globe #Marian Christy #fashion #newspaper #1967 #Philip N Preston

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graceandfamily · 6 years

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Those Philadelphia Kellys, With A Touch Of Grace, by Lewis, Arthur H. (1977).

#princess grace #1970

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nelson-riddle-me-this · 7 years

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20 Questions!

Thank you @alwayseleven I really love when I get to actually interact with people on Tumblr. Plus, it’s taking along time to import Sinatra At The Sands and I still have to burn the Ben-Hur soundtrack.

rules: answer 20 questions, then tag 20 people (I don’t know 20 people on Tumblr. Imma tag a few)

name: the pasta-tense of draw (I like pasta) nickname: don’t really have one, although on occasion people will refer to me as “grandpa” or “old man” or something like that because I’m so old-fashioned (I swear, I’m only 191). zodiac sign: O my sweet Katherine Hepburn, this junk? Pass. height: 5′8? I think, I don’t get measured much. I think I might still be growing. orientation: (Playing this song in the car is no joke how I came out to one of my friends)

youtube

ethnicity: I’m a soup of all of the European countries that sunburn, and Grease (so white). fave fruit: Oh, that’s tough. Peaches are lovely and fun to rub against your face! fave season: Maybe Summer, because there’s something profound and simple and happy about it. fave book: Gosh, I admittedly don’t read as much as I should. I always really liked Catcher In the Rye and To Kill a Mockingbird, but I don’t know. I really love this book by Carol Burnett called This Time Together. It’s a bunch of short vignettes in chronological order and it’s really funny and touching. fave flower: I admittedly don’t know too many flowers. Orchids are gorgeous, although bougainvillea are great to have in a yard. fave scent: I’ve always loved the scent of jasmine in the air. fave animal: Maybe foxes. They’re adorable, but also cunning. coffee, tea or cocoa: Coffe, tea, or meee? No, really, tea most of the time. average sleep hours: Oh, well. With school staring again, 11/12-7/8:30 depending on when class starts. I really should manage my sleep better (I say typing this at 2am..) cat or dog person: I never personally had either, but I’ve of course had friends and relatives with pets. I guess dogs. fave fictional character: Oii! That’s a tough one. RRRRGGGG HRMMM AWWWRRREMMEMEMGGGGG.. For now, at 2am, I’ll put down Tracy Lord (as played by my idol Katherine Hepburn [Grace Kelly plays her in the musical remake High Society, but she at times comes across as too snooty and looses the audience’s favor. My opinion.]) from The Philadelphia Story. She’s gorgeous, sophisticated, smart, witty, hilarious, utterly lovely, damn strong, yet vulnerable. I very much relate to the whole ‘goddess on a pedestal’ thing that's one of her major plot points as I like to think I have extremely high standards for myself and this can be tough. As Tracy is told by what, 3? people independently, with no group co-ordination or communication whatsoever, that she needs to “have some concern for human frailty”, I’ve been told by a couple people that “it must be nice to be perfect” or my favorite one (which inspired a drawing) “is it cold up there (on the pedestal you put yourself on)?” [he followed up to be sure I understood the implication]. Tracy gives me strength and inspiration, but also validation as she’s not just a tower of strength, she has weakness and human frailty of her own that I can empathize with. number of blankets you sleep with: Most of the year, just two. My top sheet and a blue/sea-foam green one, but when it’s cold out like this, I’ll add a third thicker blanket, and if it’s really cold, pile on my comforter and if that’s not enough, put on this sheep rug we have. dream trip: Oh gosh. I don’t know. It may sound kind of touristy/nerdy, but I’d love to go to The Bahamas and Jamaica. I’m a huge James Bond fan and there are tons of Bond locations on those islands. Plus, they’re gorgeous tropical paradises. I’d want to stay at the “One & Only” Ocean Club in the Bahamas (sadly, the Coral Harbour hotel from Thunderball was turned into a naval facility :( and at Ian Fleming’s estate: Goldeneye, in Jamaica. Scuba diving, shopping, good food, palm tress, blue mountain coffee? Mmmm blog created: When? I started Tumblr late last summer. number of followers: 30. It would be a bit more, but I block porn blogs from following my personal/main blog. I don’t even post anything pornographic! I don’t get it! At the most, on rare occasions, I’ll reblog a photo of a cute guy, but even then I try to keep it very tasteful,SFW, and non-sexualized. I don’t get it. And it’s all these lady porn blogs. I’ve seen more lady parts blocking these blogs than I have/will ever see anywhere else.

Tag - @bonjour-im-tired @reluctant-martyrs @justalittleblue-butterfly @orosnagos @tyronepowerbottom @kelliiee22 - YOU’RE IT!

Update: I just started Ben-Hur... that only took half an hour...

#questions #question games #getting to know you #what is this? The King & I?#does that mean I get to wear a big hoop skirt?#those arrre nice #but it covers up my gorgeous legs #hmmm #decisions decisions #that should be the name of a play #Decisions Decisions: A New Broadway Musical #go to bed self

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anothergracekellyblog · 6 years

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TIME magazine - January 31, 1955 Cover illustration by Boris Chaliapin

THE GIRL IN WHITE GLOVES

Almost every morning, a slim figure in a polo coat, leading a small black poodle on a leash, emerges from one of Manhattan's cliff houses on East 66th Street. The doorman gives her a cheery “Good Morning, Miss Kelly.” But outside, no head turns. For, in her low-heeled shoes and horn-rimmed spectacles, Actress Grace Kelly is all but indistinguishable from any other well-scrubbed young woman of the station-wagon set, armored in good manners, a cool expression, and the secure knowledge that whatever happens, Daddy can pay.

A few blocks away, Grace Kelly's name is emblazoned on two first-run Broadway houses, and the same face, without spectacles, makes husbands sigh and wives think enviously that they might look that way too, if only they could afford a really good hairdo. In Hollywood, producers fight over her, directors beg for her, writers compose special scripts for her. In an industry where the girls can be roughly divided into young beauties and aging actresses, Grace Kelly is something special: a young (25) beauty who can act.

A year ago, Grace Patricia Kelly was only a promising newcomer (generally thought to be English), who lost Clark Gable to Ava Gardner in Mogambo. Currently, she is the acknowledged “hottest property” in Hollywood. In Manhattan this year, the New York Film Critics pronounced her acting in The Country Girl “the outstanding performance of 1954.”

CAN’T TOUCH HER

Grace Kelly, with the lovely blonde hair, chiseled features, blue eyes and an accent that is obviously refined, is a startling change from the run of smoky film sirens and bumptious cuties. Said one Hollywood observer: “Most of these dames just suggest Kinsey statistics. But if a guy in a movie theater starts mooning about Grace, there could be nothing squalid about it; his wife would have to be made to understand that it was something fine - and bigger than all of them. Her peculiar talent, you might say, is that she inspires licit passion."

From the day in 1951 when she walked into Director Fred Zinnemann's office wearing prim white gloves ("Nobody came to see me before wearing white gloves"), the well-bred Miss Grace Kelly of Philadelphia has baffled Hollywood. She is a rich girl who has struck it rich. She was not discovered behind a soda fountain or at a drive-in. She is a star who was never a starlet, who never worked up from B pictures, never posed for cheesecake, was never elected, with a press agent's help, Miss Antiaircraft Battery C. She did not gush or twitter or desperately pull wires for a chance to get in the movies. Twice she turned down good Hollywood contracts. When she finally signed on the line, she forced mighty M-G-M itself to grant her special terms. Beamed a New York friend: “Here, for the first time in history, is a babe that Hollywood can't get to. Can't touch her with money, can't touch her with big names. Only thing they can offer her is good parts.”

STEEL INSIDES

She has managed to get the parts. In the short space of 18 months, she has been paired with six of Hollywood's biggest box office male stars - Clark Gable, Ray Milland, James Stewart, William Holden, Bing Crosby, Cary Grant. These seasoned veterans have learned to view with a jaundiced eye the pretty young newcomers assigned to play opposite them. Grace, as usual, was different. Says Holden, one of Hollywood's ablest pros: “With some actresses, you have to keep snapping them to attention like a puppy. Grace is always concentrating. In fact, she sometimes keeps me on the track.” Says Jimmy Stewart: "She's easy to play to. You can see her thinking the way she's supposed to think in the role. You know she's listening, and not just for cues. Some actresses don't think and don't listen. You can tell they're just counting the words.”

Outside the studio, Grace continued to disregard the Hollywood rules. She was friendly, but she refused to court the important columnists. Interviewers who tried to get her to open up came away swearing that they would rather tackle a train window anytime. One producer grumbled that she had “stainless steel insides.” She flatly refused to divulge even the standard data (bust, waist, hips). One columnist asked routinely whether she wore nightgowns. “I think it's nobody's business what I wear to bed,” she said coolly. “A person has to keep something to herself, or your life is just a layout in a magazine."

In the end, publicists had to content themselves with tagging Miss Kelly as “a Main Line debutante.” She is neither Main Line nor a debutante, but she is the next thing to both.

THE BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE

In Philadelphia, the Kellys are about as conspicuous as the 30th Street Station, which, like many of the city's major structures, bears the credit: Brickwork by Kelly. Handsome, athletic John B. Kelly, Grace's father, the son of a farm boy from County Mayo, began business life as a bricklayer. Eventually, he parlayed a borrowed $7,000 into the nation's biggest brickwork construction company. One of his brothers was George Kelly, Pulitzer Prizewinning playwright (Craig's Wife); another was Walter Kelly, the famed “Virginia Judge” of the vaudeville circuits.

All the Kellys, says a friend, are “beautiful, physical people.” Father Jack was a champion sculler; Grace's mother (who is of German descent) was a model, later the first woman physical education instructor at the University of Pennsylvania. Father Jack, who still takes his athletics seriously, went to England in 1920 to compete at Henley. But the Henley committee ruled that he could not compete because he had once “worked with his hands" and was therefore not a “gentleman.” He went on to the Olympics, where he soundly thrashed the Henley winner, and triumphantly sent his sweaty green rowing cap to King George V of England with his compliments. The moment his son John B. Jr. (“Kell") was born in 1927, Jack resolved that he would win at Henley; he began training the boy personally at the age of seven. In 1947 Kell righted an old wrong done his family by going to Henley in the colors of the University of Pennsylvania and scoring an impressive victory for Penn and Pop.

CHURCH & ATHLETICS

Of the three Kelly daughters, Peggy was the oldest and a cut-up, Lizanne the youngest and an extrovert. Grace, the middle one, born Nov. 12, 1929, was shy, quiet, and for years snuffled with a chronic cold. The big, 15-room house in plain East Falls, across the Schuylkill River from the Main Line, was the meeting place for the whole neighborhood. “There was a lawn out back with swings and a sandbox, a tennis court and the usual things like that,” says Grace. Summers, the Kelly family had a house on the Jersey shore at Ocean City. As regularly as she marched the children to St. Bridget's Roman Catholic Church every Sunday, Mrs. Kelly marched them off to the Penn Athletic Club for workouts. "There's a certain discipline in athletic work,” says Mrs. Kelly. “That's why Grace can accustom herself to routine and responsibility.” Sister Peg organized home theatricals. "Somebody else always got the lead,” Grace recalls, without rancor. Even then remote and self-absorbed, Grace used to write poetry, some serious, some "little gooney ones” that showed a neat turn of phrase. Sample, written when she was 14:

I hate to see the sun go down And squeeze itself into the ground, Since some warm night it might get stuck And in the morning not get up.

Little Grace went to the local Ravenhill convent school, then to Stevens School in Germantown. By the time she was eleven, she was appearing in a local amateur dramatic company. Turned down by Bennington (she flunked math), Grace got herself into the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York. From the first, her family was dubious about an acting career. “We'd hoped she would give it up,” says her mother. Snorts Father Kelly: “Those movie people lead pretty shallow lives.”

THE “CLEAN” WAY

But Grace knew what she wanted. To assure her independence, she got a job modeling, was soon making $400 a week posing for Ipana, beer ads, Old Golds. Photographer Ruzzie Green describes her as “what we call ‘nice clean stuff’ in our business. She's not a top model and never will be. She's the girl next door. No glamour, no oomph, no cheesecake. She has lovely shoulders but no chest. Grace is like Bergman in the 'clean’ way. She can do that smush stuff in movies - remember all those little kisses in Rear Window? - and get away with it.” A friend remembers her at this period as “terribly sedate, always wore tweed suits and a hat-with-a-veil kind of thing. She had any number of sensible shoes, even some with those awful flaps on front.”

She did TV commercials (“I was terrible - honestly, anyone watching me give the pitch for Old Golds would have switched to Camels"), doggedly made the rounds of summer stock (New Hope and Denver) and casting offices. “I've read for almost everything that's been cast. I even read for the ingenue part in The Country Girl on Broadway (left out in the movie ). The producer told me I really wasn't the ingenue type, that I was too intelligent looking.”

Then she read for the daughter's part in Strindberg's grim The Father. She got the part and won good notices, but the play lasted only two months. Grace went back to TV (“summer stock in an iron lung") to play in such varied offerings as Studio One, Treasury Men in Action, Philco Playhouse and Lights Out.

FIRST FAN

Once before and once shortly after she left dramatic school, Grace turned down $250-a-week movie contracts: “I didn't want to be just another starlet.” Now Hollywood reached for her again but failed to get a firm grip. Director Henry Hathaway gave her a bit part as the lady negotiating a divorce across the street from the man on the ledge in Fourteen Hours. But she refused a contract; she did not feel ready yet. She did accept a one-shot offer from Producer Stanley Kramer for the part of Gary Cooper's young wife in High Noon.

Fourteen Hours produced her first fan, a high-school girl in Oregon who started a fan club and kept Grace posted on new members. Grace thought it a hilarious joke. “We've got a new girl in Washington,” she would cry in triumph. “I think she's ours, sewed up.” In High Noon her finishing-school accent sat awkwardly amongst the western drawls, and her beauty made little impact. What was more, from High Noon determined Grace Kelly got her first real self-doubts about her planned progress. Says she: “With Gary Cooper, everything is so clear. You look into his face and see everything he is thinking. I looked into my own face and saw nothing. I knew what I was thinking, but it didn't show. For the first time, I suddenly thought, ‘Perhaps I'm not going to be a great star, perhaps I'm not any good after all.’” Grace hustled back to New York to learn how to make it show.

THE “TOO” CATEGORY

She was still learning (with Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse) when 20th Century-Fox called her to test for a role in a film called Taxi. Dressed in an old skirt and a man's shirt on her way to class, “I walked into Gregory Ratoff's office, and he threw up his arms and screamed, 'She's perfect.' In all my life, no one has ever said, 'You are perfect.' People have been confused about my type, but they agreed on one thing: I was in the “too” category - too tall, too leggy, too chinny. And Ratoff kept yelling around, 'What I love about this girl, she's not pretty.’” But the producer did not like her, and another girl got the role.

Director John Ford saw the test, however, and wanted her for Mogambo. Even then, Grace did not come running. When M-G-M offered her a seven-year contract starting at $750 a week, she demanded a year off every two years for a play, and permission to go back to New York, instead of hanging around Hollywood, whenever she finished a picture. She was only 22, and all but unknown. But M-G-M agreed to her terms. Says Grace: “I wanted Mogambo for three things: John Ford, Clark Gable, and a free trip to Africa.”

In Africa, Grace picked up a lot of film technique from Ford and developed a hero worship for Gable. Ford was soon predicting that she would be a star. For her performance as the cool English wife stirred to sudden and thwarted passion for White Hunter Gable, Grace won a “best supporting role” nomination for the Academy Award.

RESTRAINT & CONTROL

M-G-M still seemed uncertain about what to do with her. But Alfred Hitchcock, also impressed by the Taxi test, snapped her up for Dial M for Murder, then for Rear Window. Says Hitchcock: “From the Taxi test, you could see Grace's potential for restraint. I always tell actors don't use the face for nothing. Don't start scribbling over the sheet of paper until we have something to write. We may need it later. Grace has this control. It's a rare thing for a girl at such an age.” Director George Seaton adds: “Grace doesn't throw everything at you in the first five seconds. Some girls give you everything they've got at once, and there it is - there is no more. But Grace is like a kaleidoscope: one twist, and you get a whole new facet.”

Under Hitchcock's expert direction, Grace bloomed in Rear Window. As a sleek young career girl, she distilled a tingling essence of what Hitchcock has called “sexual elegance.” She was learning her trade. The way she walked, spoke and combed her hair had a sureness that gives moviegoers a comfortable feeling: she would never make them wince with some awkwardness of misplaced gaucherie. Exhibitors, who know a good thing when they see the turnstiles click, began dropping Hitchcock and Stewart from their marquees and advertised simply: “Grace Kelly in Rear Window.” In Hollywood, the stampede was on.

MORE THAN BEAUTIFUL

When the stampede started, Grace was in a bathing suit dutifully splashing around a Japanese bathhouse as Navy Pilot Bill Holden's wife in The Bridges at Toko-Ri (a movie that does little for Grace except establish the fact that she has a better figure than normally meets the eye). At about the same time, Paramount's producer-director team of William Perlberg and George Seaton got word that Jennifer Jones, scheduled to play the title role in their next picture, The Country Girl, had become pregnant. They asked M-G-M to lend them Grace. This time M-G-M said no. Grace still gets angry when she thinks about it. She went to her agent, says Perlberg, and told him: “If I can't do this picture, I'll get on the train and never come back. I'll quit the picture business. I'll never make another film.” Actress Kelly had her way. M-G-M lent her out to Paramount again, but this time jumped the price from the $20,000 charged for Toko-Ri to $50,000 and demanded that she give M-G-M an extra picture (her contract calls for only three a year).

The Country Girl was final proof that she is more than merely beautiful. The well-bred girl from Philadelphia is completely convincing as the slatternly, embittered wife of aging, alcoholic Matinee Idol Bing Crosby. She slouches around with her glowing hair gone dull, her glasses stuck on top of her head, her underlip sullen, resentment in the very sag of her shoulders and the dangle of her arms. She looks dreadful. Said Seaton: “You know that old cardigan sweater she wears? Well, a lot of actresses would say, 'Well, why don't we just put a few rhinestones here? I want to look dowdy, of course, but this woman has taste... and before you know it, she'd look like a million dollars. But not Grace. Grace wanted to be authentic.”

Bing Crosby, a little nervous himself at undertaking so exacting a dramatic role, was dubious about his untried costar and said so. But before the shooting was over, Crosby was telling Seaton, “Never let me open my big mouth again,” and talking of taking Grace out dancing.

BAGS PACKED

Hollywood is now eager to adopt Actress Kelly, white gloves and all, and is trying hard, with the air of an ill-at-ease lumberjack worrying whether he is using the right spoon. But Grace shows no interest in the Hollywood way of life, or even in having the customary swimming pool ("I don't swim that much"). Thus far, she has lived with a sister or a girlfriend in a furnished, two-room North Hollywood apartment, acting as if she considered herself on location, with her bags packed ready to go back to New York.

Young men who are eager to brighten her after-hours life come away baffled. “If she doesn't think a joke is funny," one complained, “she doesn't laugh." Wolves are discouraged when Grace briskly pulls on her glasses (her lovely blue eyes are nearsighted) and assumes her Philadelphia expression. Some suspect that she is, as Oscar Wilde put it, “a sphinx without secrets." Publicity men despair of her. “A Grace Kelly anecdote?” said a friend. “I don't think Grace would allow an anecdote to happen to her.”

A few of Hollywood's older, more sought-after men have concluded, from time to time, that they were just the boys destined to discover and unlock the real Grace. Each time, Grace has resisted unlocking, though whenever her father reads in a column of a new “romantic attachment,” the family gets alarmed. “I don't like that sort of thing much," snorts father Kelly. “I'd like to see Grace married. These people in Hollywood think marriage is like a game of musical chairs." When the gossips reported that Ray Milland was leaving his wife for Grace, mother Kelly hustled out to California to set things straight. Milland insists that he only took her to dinner once; Grace says nothing. Most recently Grace's escort has been Dress Designer Oleg Cassini, onetime husband of Gene Tierney and professional man-about-ladies. The Kellys deplore all such gossip-column romances. "I don't generally approve of these oddballs she goes out with,” grumps brother Kell, who is still national sculling champion and works for his father's company between workouts on the Schuylkill. “I wish she would go out with the more athletic type. But she doesn't listen to me anymore.”

Some of Grace's admirers fear that M-G-M may do to her what the studio did to Deborah Kerr - lash her down to "lady" roles and keep her there. Even after The Country Girl, the best M-G-M could think of was to assign Grace to Green Fire (which she did as her part of the bargain on Country Girl) and then offer her Quentin Durward. Grace, who sees the satin-lined trap as clearly as anyone, refused the Durward part after reading the script. “All the men can duel and fight, but all I'd do would be to wear 35 different costumes, look pretty and frightened. There are eight people chasing me: the old man, robbers, the head gypsy and Durward. The stage directions on every page of the script say, 'She clutches her jewel box and flees.’ I just thought I'd be so bored..."

RELUCTANT SCENERY

While waiting for M-G-M to think again, Grace retired to her three-room apartment in a huge, modern building in Manhattan (masonry by Kelly), where she lives alone with her poodle puppy, Oliver. Her amusements range from photography (she develops her own negatives, sloshing around her bathroom in the dark) to word games. A favorite game is one devised by Alfred Hitchcock when he met Lizabeth Scott and got to wondering what would happen if other people dropped the first letter of their names: Rank Sinatra, Scar Hammerstein, Reer Garson, Orgie Raft, Ickey Rooney. Four times a week she puts her hair up into a ponytail, dons a leotard, and goes off to classes in modern dancing and ballet. Wandering near Broadway, she avoided the Broadway theater where M-G-M publicized Green Fire with a huge poster of a bosomy girl in sexy green drapery with Grace's head but another girl's body. “It makes me so mad,” says Grace. “And the dress isn't even in the picture.”

Last week M-G-M's Production Boss Dore Schary summoned Grace to Hollywood to propose a new picture - a western with Spencer Tracy scheduled to costar. After two days of talk, Grace was still noncommittal; she would wait, she said coolly, until she had seen the completed script.

It is possible that Grace might yet win an Oscar for her Country Girl performance, and even M-G-M would have a hard time turning an Oscar-winning actress into a road-company Greer Garson. Furthermore, Actress Kelly is determined that that will not happen to her. Says she, setting her beautiful chin: “I don't want to dress up a picture with just my face. If anybody starts using me as scenery, I'll do something about it.” If all else fails, Grace could conceivably break her contract and return to television. Or she could try the stage, where acting talent counts for more, and the competition is tougher. She could always give up the whole thing for the role of wealthy young socialite. But if her studio mentors are wise, and if Grace is as wary as she has so far proved to be, the young beauty from Philadelphia may yet become an authentic jewel in Hollywood's tinsel crown.

#grace kelly #1955 #boris chaliapin #time magazine #vintage #sheila scan #sheila edit

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