“I am basically a feminist. I think that women can do anything they decide to do.”

Grace Kelly- elly was the third child of four and the only one without a clear definition born in 12 November 1929. Peggy, extremely witty and her father’s favorite, was the eldest. John junior, born second, was the only boy. And Lizanne was the baby. Grace was defined by what she wasn’t: not athletic, not outgoing, not lively healthy since she suffered sinus trouble and asthma. A much-repeated family story has young Grace locked in a cupboard by

emotional Lizanne; instead of crying to get out, Grace stayed quietly locked in, playing with her dolls, for hours. “She seemed to have been born with a serenity the rest of us didn’t have,” Lizanne later explained. Grace was active in a place where it didn’t show: her imagination. Early on, she told her sister Peggy, “One day I’m going to be a princess.”

Make-believe was where Grace excelled in class theatricals, beginning with her first big role; the Virgin Mary in the Ravenhill Academy, a prestigious Catholic girls' school. Grace modeled fashions at local social events with her mother and sisters. It continued during high school, she acted and danced. Graduating in May 1947 from Stevens School, it was written in the Prophecy section, “Miss Grace P. Kelly - a famous star of stage and screen.”

Years later, as she was just gaining notice in Hollywood, the Los Angeles Times would write that she came seemingly out of nowhere. This was not true. Alongside the sporting blood in the Kelly clan ran a more verbal line of showmanship—the stage. Jack Kelly had two brothers who had gained fame in the theater: Walter Kelly, a successful vaudevillian, and George Kelly, a Pulitzer Prize– winning playwright. George became Grace’s mentor and confidant. It was he who encouraged her dream of acting, who warned her about Hollywood’s feudal studio system, and whose name helped her win late admission to the renowned American Academy of Dramatic Arts, in Manhattan. Grace’s parents did not want her to leave home for New York. Jack Kelly thought acting “a slim cut above streetwalker”—not an uncommon view at the time. But Grace was adamant. Living in Manhattan's Barbizon Hotel for Women, Grace worked as a stage actress and working as a model to support her studies. Her early acting pursuits led her to the stage, most notably a Broadway debut in Strindberg’s The Father alongside Raymond Massey.

Television producer Delbert Mann cast Grace as Bethel Merriday, an adaptation of the Sinclair Lewis novel of the same name, in her first of nearly sixty live television programs. Success on television eventually brought her a role in a major motion picture. Kelly made her film debut in a small role in the 1951 film Fourteen Hours. However, her on-screen for two minutes and 14 seconds performance in Fourteen Hours was not noticed by critics, and did not lead to her receiving other film acting roles. She continued her work in the theater and on television, although she lacked "vocal horsepower" and would likely not have had a lengthy stage career.

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In her second, Fred Zinnemann’s High Noon, she co-starred as the pacifist bride of tormented sheriff Gary Cooper. In her third movie, John Ford’s Mogambo, she was the prim wife of an anthropologist and Jane to big-game hunter Clark Gable’s Tarzan. Her appearance won her an Oscar nomination and a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress.

It was an impressive learning curve, straight to the top.

Her work in High Noon and a screen test for the film Taxi piqued the interest of director Alfred Hitchcock, who with the help of Edith Head, trimed 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. In 1954, when Rear Window premiered, Grace Kelly had been in only four films. She was hardly known to the public, and then she was suddenly known—a star. 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. The success of the song "True Love" from the movie High Society earned Grace a gold record. In 1956, she was voted the Golden Globe's World Film Favorite Actor, Female.

In 1951, the newly famous Grace took a bold stand against a racist incident involving Black American expatriate singer/dancer Josephine Baker, when Sherman Billingsley's Stork Club in New York refused Baker as a customer.

By 1956, two years, six films, and one Academy Award after Rear Window—while the country was still wondering, Who are you, Miss Kelly? She was gone, off to Europe to marry a prince, whence she would become Her Serene Highness Princess Grace of Monaco.

As a princess, she gave up her successful acting career, in which she had made eleven films. Kelly was active in improving the arts institutions of Monaco, and eventually the Princess Grace Foundation was formed to support local artisans. She was one of the first celebrities to support and speak on behalf of La Leche League, an organization that advocates breastfeeding; she planned a yearly Christmas party for local orphans, and dedicated a Garden Club that reflected her love of flowers. Kelly was also a member of the International Best Dressed List since 1960.

Grace died on 14 September 1982 after her car went off a road in the cliffs of Monaco when suffered a stroke. Grace was pulled alive from the wreckage, but had suffered serious injuries and was unconscious. She died the following day never having regained consciousness. Kelly was 52 years old leaving her three children.

Grace Kelly was known for her impeccable dress sense. She never veered from her classic style of elegant fabrics and cuts. Fashion designer Oleg Cassini, whom Grace would begin dating in 1954 and almost marry, called it her “Bryn Mawr look.” Her gowns are columnar, with waterfall pleats and cascades of fluting, sheer trains flowing from the back and sheer scarves like soft breezes around her neck. All this pleating and fluting and floating were in tune with the Hellenistic sculpting of 50s couturiers such as Madame Grès and the Greek designer Jean Dessès. Grace’s day dresses have fitted bodices and skirts blossoming from the waist and a shape that allowed her to move freely. As for color, Grace was given her own, Apollonian palette. Wheat-field and buttercup yellows, azure and cerulean blues, seashell pink and angel-skin coral, Sun King gold and Olympus white—no one wore white like Grace Kelly.

It was during that first pregnancy that Grace turned an accessory by Hermès into a much-coveted cult item. Out in public, she shielded her belly with a large square handbag made of brown pigskin, the Hermès sac à dépêches pour dames. The descendant of a 1930s Hermès saddlebag, it was simple, sensible, and superbly made, yet another example of “always.” In her honor, Hermès christened this bag “the Kelly.” Grace Kelly’s

style are still prominent until this day, her trademark white gloves symbolize the classic, understated look she wore both on and off screen. She even influenced a fellow modern princess, Kate Middleton in her choice of wardrobe.

One of the quality of Grace Kelly that I admire is the dreamer inside her and also the regal serenity about her. She was always in control, well mannered, delightful and ladylike. And

always, eternally it seems, beautiful. What was really wonderful her was her sheer admiration for her clothes. She considered them like old friends, and would often be photographed in the same outfit that would never happen today like the time she went to the Rear Window premiere in the same outfit that she wore to the Oscars. I adore Grace Kelly not because she is a Princess. But the rare beauty and stunning self-possession that flew her into the Hollywood silver screen, the Best-Dressed List, and the Monaco’s royal palace were more than captivating. Silver screen actress and later Princess Grace of Monaco, Grace Kelly lived up to her name. Poised and “grace”-ful, her polished and elegant look is one that will always be classic and beloved.

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