High Society Read online

  ALSO BY DONALD SPOTO

  Spellbound by Beauty: Alfred Hitchcock and His Leading Ladies

  Otherwise Engaged: The Life of Alan Bates

  Joan: The Mysterious Life of a Heretic Who Became a Saint

  Enchantment: The Life of Audrey Hepburn

  In Silence: Why We Pray

  Reluctant Saint: The Life of Francis of Assisi

  Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis: A Life

  The Hidden Jesus: A New Life

  Diana—The Last Year

  Notorious: The Life of Ingrid Bergman

  Rebel: The Life and Legend of James Dean

  The Decline and Fall of the House of Windsor

  A Passion for Life: The Biography of Elizabeth Taylor

  Marilyn Monroe: The Biography

  Blue Angel: The Life of Marlene Dietrich

  Laurence Olivier: A Biography

  Madcap: The Life of Preston Sturges

  Lenya: A Life

  Falling in Love Again—Marlene Dietrich (A Photo-Essay)

  The Kindness of Strangers: The Life of Tennessee Williams

  The Dark Side of Genius: The Life of Alfred Hitchcock

  Stanley Kramer, Film Maker

  Camerado: Hollywood and the American Man

  The Art of Alfred Hitchcock

  FOR MY SISTERS-IN-LAW

  Lissi Andersen and Hanne Mller,

  with great admiration and loving gratitude

  CONTENTS

  Acknowledgments

  Introduction

  PART I Fade-In (1929 — 1951)

  One OFF THE MAIN LINE

  Two THE STUDENT MODEL

  PART II Action (1951 — 1956)

  Three LESS IS MORE, OR NOT

  Four L’AFFAIRE GABLE

  Five OVER THE MOON

  Six FRIENDS AND LOVERS

  Seven CLIMBING OVER ROOFTOPS

  Eight CRISIS

  Nine PLAYING THE PRINCESS

  PART III Fade-Out (1956 — 1982)

  Ten HIGH SOCIETY REARRANGED

  Notes

  Bibliography

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  MY MAJOR DEBT OF GRATITUDE IS TO GRACE KELLY GRIMALDI, Princess of Monaco, who granted interviews without which this book would not be possible.

  Many of those who knew or collaborated with her are no longer with us, but I was able to discuss Grace with the following before or during research for several other books. I acknowledge, therefore, the late Jay Presson Allen, Peggy Ashcroft, Anne Baxter, Ingrid Bergman, Herbert Coleman, Joseph Cotten, Hume Cronyn, Cary Grant, Tom Helmore, Alfred Hitchcock, Evan Hunter, Stanley Kramer, Ernest Lehman, Simon Oakland, Gregory Peck, Peggy Robertson, James Stewart, Jessica Tandy, Samuel Taylor, Teresa Wright and Fred Zinnemann.

  All of Grace’s directors, along with almost everyone who acted with her, are deceased. I am especially grateful, therefore, for the reminiscences of those actors and friends of Grace still available to supplement my interviews—among them, John Ericson, Rita Gam, Edward Meeks and Jacqueline Monsigny.

  THANKS TO GARY BROWNING, assistant visitor services manager at the Museum of Television and Radio, Beverly Hills, I was able to see many of Grace’s television appearances. Mark Gens and the staff of the Archive and Research Study Center at the University of California, Los Angeles, made additional kinescopes of her performances available to me.

  As so often, I was welcomed and helped by the dedicated staff at the Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Beverly Hills—in particular by Stacey Behlmer and Barbara Hall.

  Tom Smith provided research assistance in England, and Jonathan Boone in the United States; I acknowledge their thoroughness and alacrity.

  In 2007 the Forum Grimaldi, Monte-Carlo, mounted a tribute in dozens of rooms of its vast conference hall—a celebration of Grace’s life and career twenty-five years after her death. For the first time, Prince Albert and Princesses Caroline and Stéphanie made public some very important documents, letters and photos.

  Claus Kjær and Stine Nielsen at the Danish Film Institute, Copenhagen, provided important assistance during my research.

  My friend the actress Diane Baker first introduced me to the prolific French writer Jacqueline Monsigny and her husband, the actor Edward Meeks. At Grace’s request, Jacqueline wrote and Edward costarred in Grace’s last film—Rearranged, which has remained unavailable to the public since its production not long before the death of the princess. Thanks to Jacqueline and Edward, I was able to see this remarkable movie several times and to treat it at length in this book. They were close friends of Grace for over twenty years, and my interviews with them have provided unique and valuable material.

  Not for the first time, and surely not for the last, my brother-in-law John Mller devoted his time and considerable talents to several important tasks in preparing this book for publication. Once again, I salute his artistic and technical gifts.

  For various acts of kindness, I am grateful to John Darretta, Lewis Falb, Sue Jett, Irene Mahoney and Gerald Pinciss.

  MY NEW YORK AGENT, ELAINE MARKSON, has been a devoted friend and trusted confidante for over thirty years. I am equally fortunate in the constant help and affectionate encouragement of her associates, Gary Johnson, Geri Thoma and Julia Kenny.

  Elaine introduced me to the good people at the Harmony Books division of Random House, where my publisher is the highly respected and perceptive Shaye Areheart. Shaye and my superbly attentive and ever-vigilant editor, Julia Pastore, have offered warm support of me and my work. They have my great gratitude.

  THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO my sisters-in-law, Lissi Andersen and Hanne Mller, who have been as devoted to me as they have been enthusiastic followers of my career. They and their husbands, Sren Andersen and John Mller, welcomed me with open arms from my first day in Denmark, where I am blessed to share my life with Lissi and Hanne’s brother, Ole Flemming Larsen. He watched Grace’s movies with me, he listened patiently to portions of the manuscript, and he provided pointed suggestions for its improvement. Ole’s artistic eye for detail and his amazing language proficiency are but a few of his many talents, and his commitment to me and to our life together means more than I can say. Grace, who always placed family first in her life, would have admired and loved Lissi, Hanne and Ole, as does …

  D.S.

  Sjælland, Denmark

  Christmas 2008

  INTRODUCTION

  DURING OUR LAST MEETING, I ASKED GRACE KELLY GRIMALDI if she planned to write an autobiography or to authorize a writer to compose her life story. “I’d like to think I’m still too young for that!” she said with a laugh. Without any hint of a dark premonition, she then added, “Donald, you really ought to wait until twenty-five years after I’m gone, and then you tell the whole story.” I have honored her request for a delay: Grace left us in September 1982, and I started work on this book early in 2007.

  I spent many hours with this remarkable woman over several years, beginning with our first meeting during the afternoon of September 22, 1975; in a short time she offered me a friendship that deepened over the years. At our introduction, at her home in Paris, she was preparing to relocate from her apartment on the Avenue Foch to another residence nearby. There were packing boxes, and movers working with quiet efficiency, and my tape recording of that afternoon indicates that there were only three brief interruptions in our long conversation.

  First, an elderly attendant, the only servant I saw that day, inquired what he might offer for refreshment, and Grace asked if I would like tea and biscuits. Then, a few moments after we began the interview, Grace apologized as she went over to a sliding glass door to the terrace, to admit her cat, eager to check out a visitor. Later, Grace’s youngest child, ten-year-old Princess Stéphanie, emerged
from her room. “Mommy, I can’t find my yellow sweater.” Grace told her to try the obvious place—the drawers of her dresser. Stéphanie returned a few moments later, unable to find the beloved sweater. Grace excused herself, went to Stéphanie’s aid and returned moments later, the ward robe problem having been quickly resolved.

  The matter had not been attended to by a servant, nor had one been looking after the child during my visit. “I hope you don’t mind these little interruptions,” Grace said that afternoon. “We just don’t like the idea of turning the children over to nannies and minders. We like to help them ourselves—and then of course we know what to tell them when they ought to do something on their own. They don’t always have everything done for them, I can tell you that!”

  My visit that day was an important part of the research for my first book, The Art of Alfred Hitchcock, the first full-length treatment of all the director’s movies. Knowing that she gave interviews but rarely, I had not much hope when I wrote from my home in New York to Grace’s secretary at the palace in Monaco. Up to 1975, my writing résumé listed only a few magazine articles and one essay in a book—hence I had little hope for an interview with the princess, who was constantly besieged with such requests.

  Two weeks after I wrote, however, I received a reply from her secretary, Paul Choisit, asking if I would like to meet with Her Serene Highness in Paris that September. You bet I would. I went to visit Grace shortly after spending two weeks with Alfred Hitchcock, while he was directing (as it turned out) his last film, Family Plot, that summer of 1975. I told him that I had an appointment to interview Grace. “That should be interesting,” he said with a wry smile.

  MY FIRST CONVERSATION with Grace that September afternoon was mostly about her three films for Alfred Hitchcock, made between July 1953 and August 1954. Her memories were sharp, picturesque, amusing and full of telling anecdotes. That day and later, she also spoke about other directors, especially Fred Zinnemann and John Ford, mostly to compare their methods and manners with Hitchcock’s. There was no doubt about her deep respect, affection and acute understanding of Alfred Hitchcock the director and the man. Later she also spoke quite frankly to me about her life and about incidents for which she asked my confidence “as long as I’m around,” as she said. I gave her my word.

  At that first meeting, Grace impressed me with her total lack of affectation and of anything like a regal manner. She wore a simple navy blue suit and, as I recall, very little jewelry. She put on no airs, she was funny and ironic, she had an extraordinary memory for detail, she told some delightfully risqué tales of Hollywood, she was realistic and completely unstuffy—and she was as interested in my life as I was in hers. I was completely at ease with her. We sat on a comfortable sofa, and we sipped tea and munched delicious little cookies, on and off, all through the afternoon until dusk.

  But there was one enormous surprise for me as I prepared to depart.

  As we came to the end of the afternoon, Grace asked if anyone was going to write a foreword or introduction to my work. I replied that, as The Art of Alfred Hitchcock would be my first book, I had given no thought to the matter of a foreword by anyone—I had been lucky just to find a small independent publisher. “I am constantly asked to endorse products,” she continued, “and to comment on books, or to say something about a movie. I cannot do that, for many reasons. However, in your case, I would make an exception. If you will send me your manuscript when it’s finished, would you like me to write a foreword to your book?”

  In December, I sent her the final draft of The Art of Alfred Hitchcock, and on January 16, 1976, a diplomatic courier arrived at my New York apartment, bearing her introduction to the book and a charming cover letter: “I am enclosing the foreword,” she wrote, “as well as the galley sheets that I very much enjoyed reading. It will certainly be a great book about Alfred Hitchcock.” The book was published in August of that year, with Grace’s remarks right up front. Thirty-three years later it is still in print. Doubleday purchased it from the original publisher; foreign translations appeared; and Grace’s introduction still honors my debut as a writer. Her generosity was a significant addition and brought the book attention from some who, I am certain, would otherwise have ignored it. And yes, she said, of course I could exploit both her words and her name in promoting the book.

  IN THE SUMMER of 1976, Grace invited me to the palace in Monaco, where I presented her with the second copy of the published book—the first, of course, went to Hitchcock. It was a torrid, humid day, and she returned from her country house especially for our reunion. As I was shown into the family quarters, Grace was standing in an orange chiffon outfit, trying, with difficulty, to fasten a bracelet. “Oh, Donald,” she said, smiling and extending her wrist when she saw me, “would you please help me with this?”

  “What shall we have to drink?” she said afterwards, as we settled onto a settee facing open French doors to a terrace and trying to catch a breeze. We decided on sparkling water. That day I also met Princess Caroline, who came in, fresh and alarmingly beautiful, and briefly joined us. Her mother was proud to show off her intelligent, poised daughter, then a university student in Paris. I was booked into Grace’s schedule for an hour in the late morning, but she insisted that I remain for lunch.

  From 1975 until Hitchcock’s death in 1980, I was a kind of go-between, delivering messages back and forth from Monaco to Hollywood during my various visits with Hitch and Grace. With the probable exception of his wife, he did not easily confide in anyone—but I was an acolyte, and he dropped the mask of diffidence with me, especially at the elaborate lunches prepared just for the two of us in the dining room of his offices at Universal Studios. At such times he was more frank than if we were doing a formal interview. He rarely laughed, but I saw tears run down his face when he spoke, for example, of his recently deceased sister.

  Grace, on the other hand, was consistently more forthright and unguarded once she felt confident of my trust. I think this was one of the reasons she offered to write the foreword to my book, and to entrust me with details of her association with Hitch and of her life and career.

  WHEN GRACE DIED, I was asked by National Public Radio in the United States to compose and broadcast a tribute to her. It was one of the most difficult assignments of my life, before or since. I spoke briefly of our friendship and of our many conversations about the great and small things of life.

  The book you are holding is the story of a working life, from Grace’s days as a model and television actress to her final film, made not long before her death. Although that last movie has never been released, it leaves no doubt that Grace was one of the foremost talents of her time, our time, any time. I am fortunate to be able to treat this last, unavailable movie in considerable detail here, as well as a wide selection of her television appearances, which have been, up to now, completely ignored by biographers.

  With very few exceptions, Grace’s story has not, I think, been generally well served by writers. Apart from an astonishing array of factual errors and omissions, there has been an accumulation of imagined events and fantasies about all kinds of things—love affairs particularly, most of which turn out to be utterly without basis in fact. She was, as I have written here, certainly a healthy, beautiful young woman with normal desires—and most of all, a deep capacity to love and to be loved. As she told me, she “fell in love all the time” before she married Prince Rainier of Monaco. But falling in love did not always mean falling into bed. I have tried to correct the record on this and other more important issues, without fudging the truth—she would have hated that.

  Grace’s achievements were singular in several ways—not least in the sheer volume of her movie work within a very short period. She worked for two days on a film during the summer of 1950, and then—from September 1951 to March 1956—she appeared in ten films in just four years and six months. But there was a one-year hiatus during this period, so it is more accurate to state that she made ten films in forty-two months. By
any standard of assessment, that is a formidable record. In addition, she also appeared in no fewer than thirty-six live television dramas and two Broadway plays between 1948 and 1954.

  High Society: The Life of Grace Kelly has been a privilege to write, for it is both a testament to our friendship as well as a biography. To exploit a cliché: Grace was far more than just a pretty face.

  “The idea of my life as a fairy tale is itself a fairy tale.”

  —GRACE KELLY GRIMALDI, PRINCESS OF MONACO, TO DONALD SPOTO

  PART I

  Fade-In

  1929 — 1951

  As a New York fashion model, age 18 (spring 1948).

  ONE

  Off the Main Line

  I never really felt pretty, bright or socially adept.

  —GRACE

  IN THE LATE 1920S, THE HAHNEMANN MEDICAL COLLEGE, at the corner of Broad and Vine Streets in Philadelphia, was one of the largest private hospitals in the United States. Unusual luxuries characterized the private rooms: a telephone and radio were installed at every bedside; nurses could be summoned and addressed by call-buttons and two-way speakers; and high-speed elevators whisked visitors to the wards. Although Hahnemann accepted emergency cases from every socio-economic class, it catered, unofficially but famously, to the demands of the rich from the counties of eastern Pennsylvania.

  Early in the morning of Tuesday, November 12, 1929, John B. Kelly escorted his wife, Margaret Majer Kelly, to Hahnemann, where, after an unexceptional labor, she bore her third child and second daughter. On December 1, the Kellys took the baby to St. Bridget’s Roman Catholic Church, a three-minute, half-mile drive from their home in the upscale neighborhood of Philadelphia known as East Falls. The infant was baptized Grace Patricia, in memory of an aunt who had died young, and (so Grace Kelly believed) “because I was Tuesday’s child”—who, according to Mother Goose, was “full of grace.”