Grace, 1929–82, princess consort of Monaco, b. Philadelphia as Grace Patricia Kelly. She acted on stage and television in New York, and made her film debut in 1951. Cool, blonde, and patrician, she became a major film star after her first Hollowood picture, High Noon (1952). Her major films include three released in 1954: Dial M For Murder and Rear Window, both directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and The Country Girl, for which she won an Academy Award. She also starred in To Catch a Thief (1955), The Swan (1956), and High Society (1956), among others. She retired from moviemaking in 1956 when she married Rainier III, the ruling prince of Monaco. Princess Grace died following an automobile accident (1982) in France.
See biographies by S. Bradford (1984), J. Spada (1987), R. Lacey (1994), J. Curtis (1998), and J. R. Taraborrelli (2003).
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