Grace Kelly's Movies

Grace Kelly was the daughter of Jack Kelly and the niece of playwright George Kelly.   Grace started her acting career in theatre before moving into soap operas.   Soap operas were originally filmed live and as Cary Grant once commented that experience was to help her immensely in her movie career.

Despite being billed as Hollywood’s princess Grace Kelly appeared in only 11 movies before leaving Hollywood to become a real life princes in the European principality of Monaco.   Those movies were Fourteen Hours, High Noon, Mogambo, Dial M for Murder, Rear Window, The Bridges at Toko-Ri, The Country Girl, Green Fire, To Catch a Thief, The Swan and High Society.

Grace Kelly’s first movie was Fourteen Hours in which she played a very small part.   Her film debut didn’t really set off any fireworks.   The main thing about this film was that Gary Cooper noticed her while visiting the director on-set.

Grace Kelly’s second movie was High Noon which starred none other than Gary Cooper himself.   Apparently Grace Kelly had two affairs during the filming of this movie, one with Gary Cooper the other with the director Fred Zinneman.

Grace plays the part of Gary Cooper’s on-screen wife who happens to be a pacifist Quaker.

John Ford noticed Grace Kelly’s acting in High Noon and cast her as Ava Gardner and Clark Gable’s co-star in his film Mogambo.   This movie was to make lifelong friends out of Grace Kelly and Ava Gardiner as they spent months in Africa together.   Grace, having known Ava’s then husband Frank Sinatra for years, could completely emphasize with Ava over her marital problems.   Both Ava and Grace were nominated for Oscars for their performances.

Alfred Hitchcock had seen one of Grace’s earlier screen tests and so decided to cast her in his movie Dial M for Murder.   This movie would be the first of three that Grace Kelly and Alfred Hitchcock did together.  

Grace Kelly’s next movie would be another Hitchcock thriller – Rear Window.   Grace received great reviews for this movie as Hitchcock made audiences around the world fall in love with her.

Grace Kelly’s next movie would be a very minor role in the Bridges at Toko-ri which starred William Holden.

The next movie for Grace Kelly was to be The Country Girl where she played alongside Bing Crosby and William Holden (again).   This movie would also win Grace an Oscar for Best Actress.

Grace’s next role was a very small role in the movie Green Fire starring alongside Stewart Granger.   Stewart Granger’s character discovers an emerald deposit in South America, but he gets chased away before he can mine it.   Between the ‘drama’s caused by the emeralds he also meets Grace’s character, who runs a coffee plantation with her brother, and falls in love.

I’ve never seen this movie as it seems almost impossible to purchase it.

In Grace’s next movie Alfred Hitchcock gets to unite his two favorite stars – Grace Kelly and Cary Grant – on screen.   While on set Grace and Cary got on extremely well and would become life-long friends.

In Grace Kelly’s penultimate movie she plays the part of a princess while in real life she was corresponding with Monaco’s Prince Rainier who she had met earlier in the year.

Grace Kelly’s final movie was High Society in which she starred alongside Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra.

The movie was met with pretty lukewarm reviews and Grace Kelly left Hollywood to start her new life as the Serene Highness Princess Grace of Monaco. She did take something with her from the movie, however and that was the gold record that Bing and her received for their duet True Love by Cole Porter. Grace would keep the gold record hanging on the wall in her office in Monaco until she died.

If you’d like to know more about Grace Kelly then Wendy Leigh has written a great book called True Grace which portrays Grace as a real person.   Wendy hasn’t made her out to be a saint, nor is the book a sordid expose.   True Grace is basically a really easy to read book that I thoroughly enjoyed.