You're Sensational - My very personal tribute to actress Grace Kelly

In the MGM Musical High Society, released in 1956, there is a scene in which Frank Sinatra serenades Grace Kelly with a song called: “You’re Sensational”.

I first saw High Society on dvd in December of 2004, and ever since then, I have always personally regarded “You’re Sensational” as Grace Kelly's theme tune, because for me, it epitomises her exceptional beauty and elegance during her years in Hollywood.

When I decided to write this hub in honour of her, it seemed natural to name it after the song.

**Most of the images on this HubPage have been copied and pasted from Google Images. Where possible, the images have been attributed.

**The "Princess From America" article is my own copy, but originally came from the 1968 Tell Me Why magazine.

**Photographs of the Grace Kelly Holidays, in France and the USA, 2006 and 2008, are my own.

David Sakho, 2011

I began to take a serious interest in Grace Kelly in the 1990’s and early 2000’s because she reminded very much of a girl I had once loved, but I had first learned about Grace nearly 30 years earlier, in 1968. When I was 13, in August or September of that year, I read a single page article about her in the children’s magazine: “Tell Me Why”. The article, entitled "Princess From America", was told in coloured illustrations with captions, (see below) and it focused on her visit to Monaco, which led to her romance with Prince Rainier and her marriage to him. The item made me aware of her, but it didn’t arouse any kind of interest in her at the time.

Above: The single page "Princess From America" article, from an autumn 1968 edition of the UK children's magazine "Tell Me Why". This article made me aware of Grace Kelly at the age of 13, but it was not until 30 years later, in the 1990’s, that I began to take an interest in Grace when I noticed the similarities between her and the love of my life, a girl I used to work with. It was not until 2004 that I became a big fan of Grace.

A strange thing, the man in these drawings does look like Prince Rainier, the woman doesn’t really look like Grace Kelly; but in the drawing at bottom left, she does look a bit like the girl I loved in the 1980’s.

Just over a decade after the Tell Me Why article, I began working in a large organisation in my home town. There, in the early 1980's, I got to know a very pretty young lady, and I eventually fell in love with her.

Sadly for me, it was to be an unrequited love. She never loved me; she gave me the run around when I plucked up the courage to ask her out, letting me ask her several times without giving me a straight yes or no, when she knew all along that she wasn’t really interested.

That girl planted the seed that eventually led to me taking an interest in Grace Kelly.

I didn’t become aware of it until many years later, but she was like Grace in several ways; by an extraordinary coincidence, her name, although different, began and ended with the same letters, her first name began with G and her surname ended with y; like Grace, she had a surname of Irish origin, she was Catholic, had been to a convent school, had that same kind of soft, sweet smile, and sometimes looked at people in the same manner, with sensuous, slightly parted lips. Also, I had heard from others that she came from a reasonably well to do background, and that she was loving and passionate.

During the 1990’s and into the early 2000’s, I would occasionally catch one of Grace Kelly’s old films, like Green Fire, on tv, or I would catch a documentary about her, and I gradually began to notice the similarities, both in looks and personality, between her and the love of my life.

In about November of 2004, I saw a documentary called: “The 100 Greatest Musicals”, a two or three hour long programme that featured snippets of all the famous musicals of the big screen, culminating in the one that viewers had voted the most popular. Somewhere in amongst them was a snippet from High Society, which featured the: “You’re Sensational” serenade, and it was as if it aroused something in me that had been dormant, or had been quietly building up in me for years. Almost overnight, I developed a total fascination with Grace Kelly.

I went out and hired the Alfred Hitchcock classic that she had starred in, “Rear Window”, and watched it several times. I had seen the film many years before; it had made no impact on me then, but I had remembered the famous kiss.

Over the next few weeks, about mid-November to early December 2004, I started collecting all of Grace’s old films, Dial M For Murder, High Society, Rear Window, To Catch A Thief, etc, I began Googling articles about her and images of her on the internet, and I bought several books about her.

The interest in Grace had its origins in my love for the girl I had worked with in the 1980’s who was like her in a lot of ways, but after late 2004, when I got to know more about Grace’s life, and found out it had been extraordinary in some ways, yet sad in others, I became interested in her for herself. I became a huge fan.

I went on to get about half a dozen other books about her, the remainder of her films, and several dvd documentaries.

Grace Kelly’s life was both blessed in some ways, but sad in others. Although she was bought up in a well-to-do family and enjoyed wealth, fame, comfort and privilege that most of us will never know, her personal life was unfulfilled. Her Father, whom she worshipped and admired, never properly recognised or appreciated her achievements as an actress.

He openly criticised and sometimes even insulted boyfriends that she brought home if he thought they were unsuitable.

In early 1956, she accepted the marriage proposal of a Prince whom she hardly knew. On 19^th April 1956, she had a fairytale wedding at Monaco Cathedral, but within a few years, the fairytale was over, as, by all accounts, she found herself trapped in a desperately unhappy marriage; she couldn’t escape from it, because under Monaco’s Royal traditions, she would have had to completely give up custody of her children, who were royal heirs. She was killed at the age of 52 in a car accident on the Moyenne Corniche above Monaco in 1982.

I’m not going to repeat everything I’ve ever read about Grace here, because you will find more or less the same thing in any book or internet biography of her. I’m just going to give a relatively brief outline of her life, with my own views on it and on her films.

Grace was born in Philadelphia in November 1929, the daughter of John and Margaret Kelly, and one of five brothers and sisters. Her Father, John Kelly, of second generation Irish descent, had been a gold medallist in rowing at the 1920 Olympics, and had made a fortune from his brick manufacturing business. Her Mother, Margaret, of German descent, had been a sports teacher before retiring to bring up her children.

Grace had health problems as a little girl. Her siblings all seemed to be fairly robust, physically and mentally. Grace seemed to be plagued with sinus problems, had colds all the time, and was the family introvert. Her Father, obsessed with physical fitness, could not understand why she was like this, and apparently once made a remark along the lines of her: ‘Not really being one of the Kelly family’. It seems that he wasn't able to grasp the concept of individuality, the fact that people are not all the same.

Grace grew into a pretty teenager, and decided, partly because of the influence of her uncle, prize winning dramatist Geoge Kelly, that she wanted a career in acting. She was thinking more of a career in the theatre.

It was partly by chance that she later got a break in films. She went to AADA, the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, in New York between 1947 and 1949, supported herself by working as a fashion model while studying, and after graduating, went on to do theatre and tv work. Her first role was on Broadway in the August Strindberg play "The Father”.

By all accounts, Grace was hard working and dedicated. During her theatre and tv years, and later on during her film career, she never turned up late for a job, and loved her acting work.

My reviews of Grace’s films take up the biggest part of this Hub page. The first Grace Kelly film I can remember seeing was The Bridges At Toko-Ri way back in the 1960’s. I have vague memories of seeing Fourteen Hours, Rear Window, To Catch A Thief, Mogambo and High Society at various times in the 1970’s, ‘80’s and ‘90’s, but they had no significance for me until I became a big fan in 2004. The only Grace Kelly film that I did like before I became a fan was High Noon, but that was because I liked it as a Western, and not because of her.

Fourteen Hours, black and white, 1951

Grace progressed from theatre and tv to get her first film role in “Fourteen Hours”.

Released in 1951, it is a tense drama about an unhappy young man, played by Richard Basehart, who spends 14 hours perched on the window ledge of a New York skyscraper threatening to throw himself off. Grace is only on screen for a few minutes, in the role of Louis Ann Fuller, a woman who is seeking a divorce from her husband, but changes her mind after witnessing the drama.

I can remember seeing this film on tv one night as far back as the early 1970’s, but I wasn’t yet a fan of Grace then, and I didn’t even know she had been in it until 2004.

From the 1970’s, I only remembered the scene near the end of the film in which an attention-seeking joker in the street below pretends to jump and accidentally turns on a searchlight!

High Noon, black and white, 1952

At the end of 1951, Grace began filming “High Noon” with Gary Cooper.

Cooper plays the part of Will Kane, a sheriff who broke up a gang and got its leader sent to prison several years earlier. Two of the old gang turn up in town on the day Cooper is getting married to Amy, (Grace) and wait at the station for the old gang leader, who has been released from prison and is coming on the noon train to join them and go after Kane.

There is a tense build up to the inevitable shoot out as Cooper is abandoned first by his new wife, because she is an anti-violence Quaker, and then by the townspeople, who leave him to face the gang on his own. The story takes place in real time; it is 10.30 am when the sheriff is married, and the arrival of the old gang leader takes place at 12.00 noon.

An interesting film this, the script was written by the left wing scriptwriter Carl Foreman, once called before the anti-communist McCarthy Senate Committee. The film was dissed by many when it was first released, but is now regarded as a classic, one of the greatest Westerns ever.

An interesting film for me too. I didn’t like it on the first two occasions that I saw it on tv, in 1970 and 1972, but it became one of my all-time favourites for its tense build up and action packed ending after I saw it for the third time in 1976, and even then I didn’t pay any particular attention to Grace Kelly; it was only after I became a fan in late 2004 that I fully appreciated her appearance in this classic.

Mogambo, colour, 1953

Grace went on to get nominated for Best Supporting Actress in Mogambo in 1953, the first colour film that she appeared in.

This is another of Grace’s old films that I had seen many years before, but had not really paid much attention to. I bought the film on dvd after becoming a Grace Kelly fan, and I didn’t get into it right away, but after watching it a few times, I grew to like it. I think Ava Gardner is the strongest character in it, but Grace is quite good in the role of a snooty, upper class, and highly strung young Englishwoman who has an extra-marital affair with the character played by Clark Gable.

The golden trio of Alfred Hitchcock films

Grace’s first collaboration with Hitchcock, this is a mostly dark and atmospheric film where all of the action takes place in a London flat.

Ray Milland plays the part of a husband who wants to get rid of his wife, played by Grace. He suspects that she has been having an extra marital affair with a man they both know.

He blackmails a dodgy character he knows, played by Anthony Dawson, into agreeing to carry out the murder, but the plan goes wrong; when Dawson turns up at the flat one night to try and kill Grace, she ends up killing him in self-defence by stabbing him with a pair of scissors. Milland then callously tries to frame her so that it looks as if she has plotted the killing.

This is not an action packed film; it is more one that can be enjoyed by the kind of film fan who likes a steady build up, and engaging dialogue.

The scene I most enjoy in it is the long one in which Milland gets Dawson around to the flat on the pretence of wanting to buy a car. He then confronts Dawson with a steadily growing list of unsavoury things that he knows about him, and thus corners him into agreeing to carry out the murder.

Not Grace’s best performance; she plays the part of stay at home wife Margot Wendice, who has taken a lover, Robert Cummings, because her husband is not attentive enough.

The scene where she struggles with Dawson and eventually stabs him with the scissors is dramatic, but I felt Hitchcock could have filmed it a bit better. Dawson struggles to kill Grace with the scarf, and she somehow knows exactly where to reach, behind and over her head, for the scissors, which to me seems unrealistic for someone in the middle of the shock situation of being jumped on and throttled by a stranger in her home. I would have had her hitting the attacker with the first thing that came to hand, then perhaps biting him, and being in a position at some point during the struggle to see, or at least briefly glimpse the scissors, before reaching for them.

Grace looks lovely in this film, but not as radiant as she did in Rear Window and To Catch A Thief.

My favourite Grace Kelly film, and one of Alfred Hitchcock’s best, Rear Window was based on an old stage play called: “It Had To Be Murder”.

In this cinema classic a photographer, Jeff, played by James Stewart, is confined to his New York apartment with a broken leg. Bored, he whiles away his time by observing other people on the block with his long focus camera and binoculars, and becomes convinced that a neighbour, Raymond Burr, later of “Ironside” fame, has murdered his wife in the apartment opposite.

Grace plays the part of Stewart's girlfriend, Lisa, who is into fashion, fine food and culture. She wants him to marry her. He doesn't think that he is worthy of her, or that she could swop her sophisticated lifestyle for one as a photographer's wife who may have to rough it with him in wild and dangerous locations.

She eventually proves to him that she can live dangerously by taking some risks, including climbing into the murderer's apartment, to obtain evidence that the murder has taken place.

Similar to Dial M For Murder in that it is a mostly dark and atmospheric film, never moving away from one location. Rear Window is cleverly made so that you never move out of James Stewart’s apartment, and you see most things from his perspective, from his position of confinement. Even the dramatic scene where Grace gets into the murderer’s apartment and gets apprehended by him is seen from James Stewart’s viewpoint.

And then there’s that kiss… Grace’s memorable first appearance in the film. As James Stewart awakes from an evening slumber, Grace’s shadow moves over his face, and then you see her face filling the screen, moving silently and in slow motion, towards him, before the camera switches to a profile view as she plants a tender kiss on his lips.

A clever touch to this film is that almost throughout it, there is no dramatic or incidental background music; and yet it is full of music, coming from the radios and record players of other people on the block, and from the studio apartment of the musician. At various points as the film progresses, an instrumental version of Dean Martin’s “Amore” is heard, then Bing Crosby’s "To See You is to Love You”, then “Many Dreams Ago” and the partygoers at the Musician’s apartment sing Nat King Cole’s “Mona Lisa”. The only bit of background music is the catchy jazz score heard when Grace goes to push an accusing letter under the murderer’s door.

My one minor criticism of the film is that again, I think Hitchcock could have filmed one of the scenes a bit better. When the murderer returns and catches Grace in his apartment, he grabs her, and she reacts by hitting his arm and crying half-heartedly: “Jeff, Jeff!” in the direction of her boyfriend’s apartment. Surely it would have been more realistic to have her screaming at the top of her voice so that everyone in the apartment block could hear her!

Last but not least, Grace looks radiant in this film. Her first appearance, after the kiss, is in a stunning outfit designed by Edith Head, consisting of a short sleeved black top, white petticoat skirt with some black linear streaks running vertically down part of the way below the belt, a white lace shoulder throw and white long sleeved gloves, with Strappy black sandals and a pearl necklace and bracelet.

She turns up one evening to visit James Stewart wearing a white sleeveless blouse, green pencil skirt and black high heeled pumps, her hair tied in a bun, looking very modern for 1954; she wouldn't have looked out of place in any 21^st century office.

On a very personal note, in the scene where Grace climbs into the murderer’s apartment, she is wearing a casual frock with a floral pattern; the girl I loved back in the 1980’s, and who was uncannily like Grace in many ways, wore a casual frock that was similar, flared and with a floral pattern, but shoulderless, in the summer of 1984.

The last of the three films Grace made with Alfred Hitchcock.

Cary Grant plays the part of a retired jewel thief, “The Cat”, who has gone straight, but who comes under suspicion when a series of new jewel robberies are carried out. He arranges to go undercover to try and nab the new robber.

Grace plays the part of a bored rich girl on holiday on the French Riviera. She is with her Mother, and is looking for excitement and romance. She is convinced that Cary Grant has done the robberies and wants to become his partner in crime, not realising that he is actually struggling to clear his name.

This film isn’t dark and atmospheric like the other two Hitchcock films Grace appeared in. It is bright and has a pleasant vacation/holiday feel to it, and it’s not confined to one place; there are outdoor scenes that were shot on location on the French Riviera in the summer of 1954, full of warm, bright sunshine and cloudless blue skies. The market scene is very sunny and colourful. It’s also a little more light hearted than Dial M for Murder and Rear Window. The wonderful scenery inspired me to go on holiday to the French Riviera in July 2006 to try and find some of the film’s outdoor locations. I visited the Carlton Hotel in Cannes, and the beautiful village of Eze.

Again, Grace looks absolutely radiant in this film, perhaps even more so than she did in Rear Window. She is stunning in the blue evening dress in her first appearance in the film, in the black and white beach outfit she is wearing when she meets Cary Grant in the hotel foyer, and in the car chase scene where she is wearing a pink chiffon scarf, pink and white top, pleated pink skirt and white gloves.

I was interested to find out that this film had its premiere on 5th August 1955, the day I was born.

I love the opening credits and opening music of the film; the camera zooms in on the window of a travel shop, with the reflections of vehicles going past in the street. There is a model cruise liner in the window, and a poster that says: "If You Love Life, You'll Love France".

The Country Girl, black and White, 1954

This was the film for which Grace won an Oscar. Not my favourite film of hers, but I think it is an enjoyable watch. She gives an excellent performance in it. She plays the part of a woman who is steadfastly supporting her husband, a theatre actor played by Bing Crosby, who has gone from being a successful performer to being a depressed alcoholic since his young son died in an accident.

Crosby lies compulsively to cover up his shortcomings, and Bill Holden, playing the part of a theatre agent who is trying to get him the role in a stage play, is misled into believing that long suffering Grace is a domineering and manipulative woman who is trying to stifle Crosby’s talent.

The truth comes out when Grace and Bill Holden confront each other in a dramatic scene set in a Police station after Crosby has been arrested for drunk and disorderly behaviour.

The Bridges At Toko-Ri, colour, 1954

Grace only had a supporting role in this film, Bill Holden was the star. He takes the role of a US Navy pilot in the Korean War who has to fly a dangerous mission to destroy bridges in North Korea. Grace plays the part of his wife, whom he visits when on leave.

I remember seeing this film as a boy way back in the 1960’s, but again, that was long before I became a Grace Kelly fan. At that age, I was more interested in the jets and the combat action!

Green Fire, colour, 1954

Grace said that she hated this film. In it she plays the part of a young woman who runs her own coffee plantation in Columbia. She falls in love with a dashing emerald prospector who turns up there, Stewart Granger. The love turns a bit sour later on when her younger brother goes to work at Granger’s emerald mine and gets killed.

I feel that Grace’s acting abilities were not used as well as they could have been in this film, the story could have portrayed her as being more strong willed; Stewart Granger's character gets her brother killed and nearly ruins her coffee plantation, but at the end of the story, she is still supposed to love him!

The Swan, colour, 1956

Grace looks lovely in this period drama, but of all her films, it is the one I least like.

Ironically, she plays the part of a princess who has to make the painful decision of whether to marry her handsome private tutor, Louis Jourdan, a commoner, or marry an older man more suitable for her position, Alec Guiness.

I always have feeling of sadness when I watch this film, a feeling that perhaps it was a portent of the things that would happen to her in Monaco.

High Society, Colour, 1956

This was a remake of the Philadelphia Story, 1940. I have seen the Philadelphia Story, starring Kathleen Hepburn and Cary Grant; I actually think the original is better than the 1956 version, but Grace’s film was shot in colour and is full of great Cole Porter numbers, Samantha, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, True Love, Well Did You Evah, and of course, You’re Sensational.

Grace plays the part of Tracy Samantha Lord, daughter of a millionaire, who has divorced her previous husband, played by Bing Crosby, because she feels that he did not achieve what he was capable of for his status and background. She is set to re-marry someone who is more ambitious.

She has to deal with a photographer and a reporter from a gossip magazine that wants to cover the story of her wedding. Frank Sinatra is the reporter, and as he is attracted to Grace's character, he ends up forming part of a temporary love triangle.

Again, Grace looks lovely in this film, which she completed just before she sailed to Monaco, but not as lovely as she did in Rear Window and To Catch A Thief.

Cool and sometimes aloof on the surface, by all accounts, the young Grace was a loving and passionate girl who liked men and had many relationships. During her years in Hollywood, some of her relationships were controversial and resulted in her frequently being featured in the gossip magazines and newspapers.

I read in one of the books about her that she had a casual encounter with a married man in her neighbourhood at the age of 17, because she didn’t want to start at her acting college in New York without any sexual experience.

At the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, she began a relationship with one of her tutors, Don Robertson. He was Jewish American, and when Grace took him to her home in Philadelphia, her Father, Jack, and brother, Kell, didn’t like him and gave him a difficult time, making racist remarks and cracking Jewish jokes. Don Robertson himself alleged that Jack Kelly tried to buy him off, because he didn’t want him involved with Grace. Grace, dominated by her Parents even when she became an adult, did nothing to defend him.

Don Robertson said that he eventually broke up with Grace after she had a casual fling with the Aly Khan, who gave her a piece of diamond and emerald jewellery. Robertson remained a good friend and advisor to Grace for years after they broke up.

She seemed to like older men, and during her film making years, there were stories that she had a very brief fling with Gary Cooper when making High Noon, and a relationship with Clark Gable on location in East Africa when making Mogambo.

Later on, there were the stories of relationships with Ray Milland on the set of Dial M For Murder, and with Bill Holden and Bing Crosby, during the filming of The Bridges At Toko-Ri and The Country Girl. Milland and Holden were married, and in the moral climate of the times, the 1950’s, Grace was portrayed by the gossip magazines and newspapers as a marriage wrecker.

Shortly before Grace's marriage to Prince Rainier, her Mother, Margaret, caused her much public embarrassment by telling a magazine that Prince Rainier: "...was about the 50th one to come to Grace's door!".

There is a lot of sensationalism surrounding celebrities, the media are always looking to dig up a story that they hope will sell, it still goes on today, well over 50 years after Grace's time in Hollywood, so it's hard to be sure if the rumours about her are all true.

If the stories about Grace are true, then to me, the number of men she may or may not have been involved with is irrelevant. Since the late 1970's, when I first learned about evolution, I have always had the view that we humans are warm-blooded animals, mammals, and like other mammals, our strongest drive is, and always has been, the one to mate and procreate; it goes back hundreds of thousands of years, to the time when we were nomadic primates spreading across the earth, long before societies, civilisations and religions existed. Some of us have stronger sex drives than others, so I would just view the young Grace as an individual who had a strong sex drive; that in itself wouldn't have harmed anyone.

Our relationship and sexual behaviour only becomes harmful when it is abusive, irresponsible, or emotionally hurts others. If it is true that Grace got involved with married men, then she would have been aware of the emotional hurt she could have caused to their wives and families; but it takes two to tango, and the men in question would also have also been aware of what they were doing. Milland and Holden were each reputed to have had many extra marital affairs, and when Bing Crosby allegedly first got involved with Grace in 1952, his wife was dying of cancer.

From about 1953 onwards, Grace was pursued by fashion designer Oleg Cassini. They eventually got together in the summer of 1954. The story is that after chasing her for a year, she sent him a message asking him to join her in France.

He was so excited that he ran out of his house and dived straight into his private swimming pool… there was just one little problem, in his excitement he had forgotten that the pool had been emptied for cleaning, and he ended up injuring himself!

At Christmas 1954, Cassini stayed at the Kelly home in Philadelphia, and got the Jack Kelly treatment. Grace's Father did not like him and was apparently very rude and discourteous towards him.

Grace was then involved with French actor Pierre Aumont for a time before beginning the romance that eventually led to her becoming a princess.

In 1955, while Grace was on the French Riviera for the Cannes Film Festival, the magazine Paris Match arranged a meeting between her and Prince Rainier of the independent , tax-free principality of Monaco.

After their brief meeting, Prince Rainier carried on communicating with her by letter, but it was not until December of 1955 that they met each again, when he went to visit her at her family home in Philadelphia. He spent Christmas of 1955 there, and Grace got engaged to him in January of 1956.

It was a strange romance. It was portrayed in the media of the time as a fairy tale, but Grace and Rainier didn’t really know each other very well; they only met twice before the engagement, in Monaco and then in Philadelphia. After the engagement, behind the scenes, Prince Rainier requested a dowry of about two million dollars from Jack Kelly, and there was some unpleasantness between them. In the end, Grace apparently paid the dowry out of the fortune she had made in Hollywood.

In April 1956, Grace sailed to Monaco on the USS Constitution, and on 19^th April 1956, she married Prince Rainier at St. Nicholas’ Cathedral in Monaco. It was regarded as one of the most romantic weddings of the 20^th Century.

Again, we can never be sure because none of us were there, but every book and account I’ve read about Grace tells more or less the same story; that after a few years in Monaco, she felt trapped and became desperately unhappy.

The rigid formalities of life in the Monaco Royal Family meant that she lost regular contact with all of her Hollywood friends, and had limited contact with her family. She did not speak French very well, and whenever she attended official ceremonies, she was often too embarrassed to speak at all. This was misinterpreted as aloofness by the people of Monaco, and it took her many years to gain their full respect.

There were happy moments in the marriage in the early years, but Prince Rainier was apparently not romantic by nature; his rigid adherence to royal traditions and protocol gave him a cold, formal and unsentimental approach to things. He banned Grace's old films from being shown in Monaco cinemas, because he wanted her to be thought of as a princess, not an actress.

Sometimes, while Prince Rainier was attending to his royal duties, Grace would be by herself in the palace for many hours, lonely and bored.

By the late 1950’s early 1960’s, she was yearning to return to acting. Alfred Hitchcock offered her a role in his film Marnie, but although Prince Rainier seemed willing to let her take it, the people of Monaco were against it. As a result, she sank into a depression for a time in the early 1960’s.

All this eventually brought about a change in Grace. She had been lively, sociable, fun-loving and passionate when she was in Hollywood; after several years in Monaco, she became more serious and introverted; the rigid formalities of Monaco Palace life and traditions knocked a lot of the vivaciousness out of her.

Grace and Prince Rainier had three children, Princess Caroline, born in 1957, Prince Albert, born in 1958, and Princess Stephanie, born in 1965. After the birth of her last child, Grace put a lot of her energy into her royal duties, and tried her best to become an ideal princess.

Grace gained weight in later years, as most of us do when getting older, but her face retained its beauty up to the time of her tragic death in 1982.

In September 1982, Grace was driving near the Moyenne Corniche on the mountainous road above Monaco. To this day no-one knows exactly what happened, but there is a story that Grace was arguing with her youngest Daughter Princess Stephanie when she lost control of the car and went off the road. She had apparently suffered a stroke.

The combination of the stroke and the crash impact caused severe brain damage, and her life support was switched off. She was buried on September 18th 1982 in Monaco Cathedral, scene of her wedding 26 years before.

As a young starlet in the early 1950's, and then many years later in the 1970's, Grace helped famous black American performer Josephine Baker.

Grace was at the Stork Club in New York one evening in 1951 when Josephine Baker was refused entry because of her colour. Grace and her friends left the club with Josephine and never returned to it. Grace became a close friend of Josephine after this, and more than 20 years later, when Josephine was in financial difficulties, Grace provided a home in Monaco for her and her family of adopted children, as well as supporting her return to performing.

As Princess Grace, she founded and supported the Princess Grace Foundation in Monaco to help people with special needs who were not provided for by ordinary social services.

When alive, Princess Grace had anonymously given financial help to many emerging dance, theatre and film students in the USA, enabling them to begin their careers. After her death, the Princess Grace foundation was formed to continue doing this work, and has made extensive donations to many artists.

The Princess Grace Foundation USA: http://www.pgfusa.com/

Although I am a big fan of Grace, there are some things about her that I don’t like.

I read in “Grace Kelly, Her Life and Loves” that when she was filming Mogambo on location in East Africa, she went on Safari with Clark Gable and shot wild animals to try and impress him. She also had a liking for fur, which was partly down to the fashion and culture climate of the 1950’s. As a vegan and someone who is against the exploitation and abuse of non-human animals, that is a side of her that I feel uncomfortable with.

From what I’ve read about her, I’ve also formed the impression that she could be a little egotistical and shallow in some ways. When she wrote to Oleg Cassini, who had been chasing her for a year, inviting him to join her on the French Riviera, her message quoted Jesus in the New Testament: “Those who love me follow me”.

She eventually dumped Oleg Cassini, a man who loved her very much, to marry Prince Rainier, and at their last meeting, when Oleg pointed out that she hardly knew Rainier, she said: “I will learn to love him”. I may be wrong, but I have always felt that part of her reason for agreeing to marry Prince Rainier so hastily, after seeing him only twice, was to obtain the status of being a princess.

I will never know exactly how Grace felt about everything from 1956 onwards, but whenever I see her old films, I always see her as enjoying freedom, a career that she loved, many friends and a healthy social life before getting confined to a life in Monaco that could be lonely and full of stuffy formalities.

I’m not a royalist, I believe in egalitarianism and the sharing of wealth and resources, so I have always loved Grace the actress more than Grace the Princess; and yet, I have to accept the paradox that if she hadn’t got married to Prince Rainier, her life would never have had the same mystical aura around it, it wouldn’t have been as glamorous to many people without the “fairy story” of the actress who married a Prince, and had one of the most romantic weddings of the 20th Century.

If she had never met Prince Rainier, she may have married Oleg Cassini, or married a fellow member of the acting profession. She would have been remembered in later years as a beautiful actress in her youth, but as she grew older, she would most likely have become one of the leading senior ladies of Hollywood, perhaps getting work in the occasional film or made for tv drama. Grace would have just turned 82 if she were still alive today.

I’m down to earth in a lot of ways, but if I could step on a time machine and travel back to 1954 to meet Grace Kelly in her heyday, at the height of her Hollywood career, I think I would be a little bit overawed by her. My feelings for her have always been ones of almost worshipful admiration for her beauty, glamour and sophistication, and her successful film career.

Copyright David Sakho, 2011

The strong interest I developed in Grace after 2004 led me to take holidays in three places where she had either lived or worked. Between July 2006 and November 2008, I made two visits to Monaco and the French Riviera, and I visited New York and Philadelphia.

Between 29th July and 8th August 2006, I took my first “Grace Kelly holiday”. I got a flight from Liverpool to Nice on the French Riviera and spent 11 days visiting some of Grace’s old haunts there.

It was one of the most enjoyable holidays I've ever been on. It had a wonderful romantic feel to it because of the associations with Grace Kelly, and the weather was beautiful, hot and sunny with cloudless blue skies almost every day.

I visited two locations where her film: “To Catch A Thief” had been shot in the summer of 1954. I visited Cannes, and got a photo of the front entrance of the Carlton Hotel where she had stood waiting to meet Cary Grant for the drive in the sports car and the chase scene. I also visited Eze village, another of the outdoor locations for the film.

In Nice, I searched without success for the location of the sunny, colourful flower market scene in To Catch A Thief. I did find the flower market, but it didn’t look like the one in the film. It was only later on that I found out the scene had not been shot at the real Nice flower market; it had been shot on Boulevard Jean Jaures, one of Nice’s main thoroughfares.

My second “Grace Kelly holiday” was in the spring of 2008.

I went to see the Monaco Grand Prix, but I also visited some more locations from “To Catch A Thief”. I visited the village of Cagnes sur Mer, where the cemetery scene in To Catch A Thief was filmed, I visited a house in Cannes where a scene with her and Cary Grant had been shot, I visited the stone gate that she had driven her Sunbeam sports car through in the village of Grasse, and I visited the village of La Turbie, where one of the car chase scenes had been filmed.

I also think I may have located the scene of Grace and Cary Grant’s picnic at the end of the car chase scene, a hairpin bend in one of the mountain roads overlooking Monaco. I had tried without success to find it in 2006. I’m not sure if it was the exact location, but it did look very similar to the picnic spot in the film.

My Third “Grace Kelly holiday” was in October/November 2008. It was my first visit to the USA.

I mainly went for the historic election of Barrack Obama, (I was in Washington DC on the night he was elected) but I also visited Grace’s home town of Philadelphia, where I saw and photographed her family and childhood home at 3901 Henry Avenue.

I later visited and photographed her old haunts in New York, the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, where she had studied acting between 1947 and 1949, the Barbizon Hotel, where she lived while at the AADA, and the Manhattan Apartments, where she had lived in the later part of her film career.

I hope to have one more “Grace Kelly holiday”. I have always wanted to visit the Paramount Studios in Hollywood to see if the particular studio plot where Grace made Rear Window still exists, though I don’t know when I might be able to do that. At the moment I am unemployed, having been made redundant after eight years of doing a job that was not only enjoyable, but well paid, enabling me to travel regularly.

Finally, here are some more of my favourite photographs of Grace. The old saying is that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. There have been many beautiful actresses, Greta Garbo, Ingrid Bergman, Rita Hayworth, Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, Catherine Deneuve, Jane Fonda, etc.

Different people will have different opinions on the most beautiful actress ever, but for me, Grace was the most beautiful, radiant and elegant actress in the history of cinema. I think these pictures demonstrate that extraordinary beauty, radiance and elegance.