Full of … Grace

Grace Kelly, the Monaco Years, at the Grimaldi Forum, Montecarlo

Grace Kelly – The Monaco Years, an exhibition marking the 25th anniversary of her death, eclipsed attempts by all others to do the same, which was, of course, the point.

Her dresses were later passed to London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, but Monaco’s most memorable and moving exhibits were letters that the then Princess Grace exchanged with Alfred Hitchcock.  Ironically, these mourn the passing of her Hollywood years; the ultra-conservative Grimaldi and his Monégasques would have absolutely no truck with their Princess playing a psychologically damaged femme fatale, being ravished by Sean Connery, or otherwise cavorting around L.A. as in her days of yore.

Princess Grace writes that she was “heartbroken” to give up the role of Marnie – again, an ironic choice of words for a newlywed. Hitchcock’s compassionate reply suggests a tenderness for which he’s not usually remembered.

Clearly, the princess discovered too late that she’d chosen a crown over an acting career, distracted perhaps by the enormity of her choices. Years later, her 21-year-old daughter Caroline would blurt that she couldn’t “stand to carry the burden of her [mother’s] unrealized ambition”.

And ambitious she was: Oleg Cassini, her erstwhile fiancé, claimed Kelly said she’d “rather be a princess than a countess,” maybe forgetting for a too-long moment that, perhaps, what she wanted all along, in fact, was to be what she was — an actress.