INSTANT EXPERT

Grace Kelly 101.

Making her first pro stage appearance in Don’t Feed The Animals at the age of 12, Kelly always had a love for theatre; her uncle was Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright George Kelly, and she even used a scene from his 1923 play The

Torch-Bearers for her audition for the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Debuting on Broadway in Strindberg’s

The Father at 19, Kelly would frequently return to the stage; her MGM contract stipulated she could take time off for theatre performance every two years. Kelly’s screen test for a small role in 1951’s Fourteen Hours caught the attention of John Ford, who lauded her “breeding, quality and class”. He cast her in African adventure Mogambo, as wife to Donald Sinden, winning her an Academy Award nom and an MGM contract. But her Tinseltown stay was short: 11 films in six years. “I never really liked Hollywood,” Kelly told biographer Donald Spoto. “I found it unreal and full of men and women whose lives were confused and full of pain.” When Hitchcock saw Kelly’s 1950 screen test, he was hooked – recruiting her for his 1954 film Dial M For

Murder. “Grace conveyed much more sex than the average movie sexpot,” he later said. They reunited for Rear Window and To Catch A Thief. Yet Kelly was always a supporting player for Hitch – a fact that would’ve changed if she’d taken up his offer of Marnie. Kelly spent her Monaco years helping others. Named President of the Monaco Red Cross, she would personally distribute care packages at Christmas time. Among many other things, she established AMADE Mondiale in 1963, set up to promote and protect children’s welfare, and also Monaco’s first day-care centre. After her untimely death in 1982, her husband launched the Princess Grace Foundation – to date donating over $10m to good causes. Kelly first met Prince Rainier III of Monaco in 1955, when she was attending the Cannes Film Festival. Within a year, she and the Prince were married, though the mood was marred by rumours that she had slept with a number of her leading men. Gossip would dog her marriage too – that the Prince had simply married to prevent Monaco reverting to France. Whatever the truth, she and Rainier had three children, and Princess Grace never returned to Hollywood.