High Society: Grace Kelly and Hollywood Read Online Free PDF

“I am so proud of my niece Grace,” he said toward the end of his life. “She is not only a very fine actress but is a human being with considerable qualities. Had she stayed on the stage and continued her career, I think we would have seen some very fine performances from her.”
    Even on his deathbed, George could give quite a performance on his own. When another niece came to visit him, he addressed her with words worthy of Oscar Wilde: “My dear, before you kiss me good-bye, fix your hair—it’s a mess.”
    “To me, he was the most wonderful person,” Grace said. “I could sit and listen to him for hours, and I often did. He introduced me to all kinds of things I would never have consideredor been exposed to—classic literature, poetry and great plays. He loved beautiful things and refined language, and these he shared with me in ways I never forgot. He was also one of the few people who stood up to my father, disagreed with him, contradicted him. I thought Uncle George was fearless.”
    George spoke to Jack about allowing Grace to act in local amateur productions: her grades at school were fine, so why should she not indulge her love of the theatre? And so, soon after she entered Stevens, Grace was seen in a one-act comedy, now forgotten, called Don’t Feed the Animals , written by Bob Wellington and staged by the Old Academy Players on Indian Queen Lane, East Falls. It was no coincidence that the Players—a group that had performed every season since 1923 (and still maintains an impressive schedule)—were passionate partisans of George Kelly, with repeated productions of his works already in their history.
    Uncle George remained Grace’s favorite member of the family. She persuaded the entire Kelly clan to travel to New York on February 12, 1947, for the opening night of a Broadway revival of Craig’s Wife , which George directed. (The title role was played by Judith Evelyn, who later assumed the role of “Miss Lonelyhearts” in Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window.)
    Grace’s teenage scrapbooks, which she preserved and which her children placed on exhibit in 2007, give some idea of her love of theatre during her school years. On December 9, 1943, for example, she saw F. Hugh Herbert’s comedy Kiss and Tell , at the Locust Theatre in Philadelphia, and she went to as many productions of Uncle George’s plays as she could.
    I N 1943 , Grace’s social life flourished. At that time, the word “dating” did not imply a casual sexual affair, but innocent activities like moviegoing, dancing and parties. According to hermother, “Grace’s first date was with a young man named Harper Davis, who went to the William Penn Charter School and often took her out to a basketball game or a dance.” Three years older than Grace, Harper was one of the most popular and handsome young men in her social orbit, and her scrapbook includes many souvenirs of her dates with this good-looking teenager. He gave her a bottle of perfume at Christmas and signed the gift card, “To Grace with love, Harper.” She pasted into her scrapbook the school dance programs for which Harper was her date, a stick of the chewing gum package he gave her on New Year’s Eve, and the business card from the store at which he bought her a silver charm on Valentine’s Day. She also pressed into her memory book remnants of the flowers he brought her on this or that occasion. Grace’s passion for floral arrangements and preservation dates from these early years and was later the subject of her volume My Book of Flowers , published in 1980.
    At that time, dating among polite young people was conducted according to a complex etiquette that was in fact a subject taught at schools like Stevens and William Penn. Girls and boys learned to dance and were told which subjects were appropriate for civilized conversation. Young ladies were instructed on proper posture, how to walk and sit, how they should hold their white-gloved hands, and what to say to a