Grace Kelly: from peasant to princess

Full name:                              Grace Patricia Kelly

Birth:                                       November 12th 1929

Place of birth:                         Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Death:                                    September 14th 1982

Place of death:                       Monaco, France

            Grace Kelly is one of the most admired women in the world. Even today, she is upheld as a standard of beauty, grace, and style. At a young age, Grace decided she wanted to become an actress, and studied acting (primarily theater) at New York City's American Academy of Dramatic Art and worked as a stage actress and model before moving to Hollywood.

            Grace appeared in Mogambo, which won her an Oscar nomination and a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress. Her work in High Noon and a screen test for the film Taxi piqued the interest of director Alfred Hitchcock, who, with the aid of Edith Head, pruned Grace into his ideal of the elegant, beautiful blonde. She gave Hitchcock wonderful performances in Dial M for Murder, Rear Window, and To Catch a Thief. Grace went against Hitchcock's glamorized vision of her for the film The Country Girl, which won her the Golden Globe and the Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role of 1954. In 1956, she was voted the Golden Globe's World Film Favorite Actor, Female.

            Later that year, she married Prince Rainier Grimaldi III of Monaco to become Her Serene Highness Princess Grace of Monaco. As a princess, she gave up her successful acting career. She had three children: Princess Caroline, Prince Albert, and Princess Stéphanie. Grace died on 14 September 1982 after her car went off a road in the cliffs of Monaco.