CELEBS « In Which All Of Grace Kelly's Looks Were Too Sad »
Tuesday, December 8, 2009 at 10:47AM 
Amazing Grace
by ALMIE ROSE
I just found out that Grace Kelly was a slut and this has to mean something.
Maybe I should clarify (or not, it’s Manhattan, who gives a fuck): I had heard the old Hollywood rumors that Grace Kelly was not as pristine as her cool Hitchcockian image would have one believe. But the recent biography True Grace is quite revealing.
Grace Kelly would sleep with a guy on the first date. I find this shocking considering the era. And also considering that in those times, dates were dates. You wouldn’t spend the evening “watching a movie” on some guy’s couch; you’d get dressed up and go dancing at the Stork Club. You’d sit at a table in front of Bobby Darin while he sang about love and later he’d try to grab your ass but that would be OK. These were simpler times. But for all the decadence and politeness people still did it, and sometimes that’s easy to forget, which is why it’s so surprising to hear that Grace Kelly put out on the first date or Peggy on Mad Men asking her date, “Do you have a Trojan?”
One of Kelly’s signature moves was to emerge totally naked. I don’t mean at Bergdorf’s or on the street, I mean after she was alone with her date. She would excuse herself into the bathroom and come back naked, or if he went to the bathroom he would come back to find her naked. I can see her doing this but only posing as though she were a store mannequin, one perfectly manicured hand on her hip, the other lifted into the air as if to say, “Why not take a gander at my vagina?”
According to Leigh, the night Kelly won the Academy Award (for The Country Girl) she also won Marlon Brando, taking him back to her place, where their adult plans were interrupted by a scathing phone call from Judy Garland shouting, “This is Judy Garland, Judy Fucking Garland. You bitch! You took what was rightfully mine. [Garland was also nominated for “Best Actress” for her work in A Star Is Born, and favored to win.] Tonight was my last chance for the Oscar. You’ll have many more chances in your future. This was it for me. I’ll never forgive you.” Or in other words, “What don’t you fucking understand? You and me are done professionally.” In this way, Garland was clearly the Christian Bale of her time.
But as it would turn out, Kelly did not have “many more chances”; not long after she married the Prince of Monaco in a move that made her family and contemporaries say, “WTF LOL WHUT.” Prince Rainier was a far cry from Marlon Brando or John F. Kennedy, who Kelly also “dated” (and by dated I mostly mean slept with.) And Kelly’s father literally bought Grace the title, with a dowry of $2,000,000.
Maybe Kelly was sick of falling for married co-stars and wanted a real Prince and not a man like Bing Crosby, who appeared princely on the screen, but in real life broke Kelly’s heart after changing his mind about leaving his wife and beat his children with sweet Valenica oranges. I know, right, Bing Crosby? What on earth is sexy about Bing Crosby? Grace Kelly had a thing for older men. Unresolved Daddy issues? You bet. Her father often said that his youngest daughter was his favorite and was openly vocal about this and his surprise in that Grace amounted to anything other than a housewife. So Grace Kelly found her solace in old grizzled men like Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, and Jimmy Stewart.
A lot of people think of Gwyneth Paltrow as the modern day Grace Kelly, but the truth is, it’s more like Sienna Miller.
She was known for having affairs with all of her costars and didn’t let a marriage stop her, though Jimmy Stewart is apparently the only married co-star she didn’t sleep with, maybe because Stewart’s wife, knowing about Kelly’s reputation, visited the set every day. Kelly would move from man to man holding her steel-cut jaw high, rarely getting heartbroken, with the exception of Gable, who she practically had to beg to sleep with her, because Gable was more interested in Ava Gardner, but didn’t care to cross Sinatra. Kelly was clingy around Gable and desperate to capture his attention and hold onto it. Hey, we’ve all been there, right? I can’t tell you how many times I’ve romanced an old Hollywood legend only to think, "Does he really like me for me or for the publicity?" You know, that age-old dilemma.
My point though is not to shun Kelly for her wanton ways. But rather instead I’m suggesting that we step a little further from our romantic notions of old Hollywood and see that era for what it really was. Just because couples didn’t sleep in the same bed in film or television in those times doesn’t mean that they weren’t screwing like mad. Also, that bitch Grace Kelly got everything she ever wanted through family connections, money, and impeccable features. Fuck her and the pristine horse she rode in on.
Almie Rose is the senior contributor to This Recording. She writes here.
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Reader Comments (65)
The second is Grace's disgusting professor at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Spurned loves ALWAYS tell the truth! Once Don Richardson had said something, it became canon. He said things to Robert (hack!) Lacey and after that, any book written would say, "Well, it was in Lacey's book!"....
Grace was insecure. She was near-sighted. She was also very down to earth, fiercely loyal, and in my opinion after decades of honestly researching her life, never received as much love as she gave. Not from her family of origin, who all thought her elder sister Peggy - who died due to actually being an old drunk - was The Very Best Kelly. Not from Rainier, who only seemed to get how wonderful his wife was the day after she died, not from her kids...
But hey, if you all need to run down a decent human, i clearly can't stop you. I just wish you would all read 25 books about Her Serene Highness in English and 25 in French (She lived exactly half of her life in a mostly French speaking Principality and half in a county where English was spoken, so it seemed like a good idea), like i did. Talk to people who really knew her. Read real things. Grace herself once said that Hollywood was "A town without pity", and refused to live there because of how badly she was treated by bitchy women (my words). She demanded that her contract allow her to live in NYC. It is sad to see how some things never, ever change - except now it is the Internet that is a town without pity - or facts. Look into some of the quiet good works Grace did - i think some minds might be changed.
Today it's so easy to throw mud and ignominy on who's no more. Someone who marked hollywood golden era in the best way. Someone who arrived winning an Oscar and was hated by all Garland's fans, somenone who retired herself from acting when she was at the peak of her career, just to marry the man she fell in love with trhough a corrispondence of letters. That's life. Fairy Tales don't exist. They live in the immagination of a fiction world. Grace was the great character of this romance. She was the most regal woman ever, the epitome of royalty. Over the years she showed the whole world how impeccable and amazing as a princess she was. She was a very talented woman. She, Grace the epitome of beauty and perfection was the picture the camera worlwide loved to take over and over again, on every occasion. When she was alive no one doubted about her reputation. Once she passed away the result is: Grace was a slut, she was a drunker, she was upset for a lifetime,, she wa a prisoner etc etc. Wasn't she happy she could have escaped away from Monaco, especially during the 70, when she was still stunningly beautiful and she has could back to cinema world. She loved her children, she loved her new country and her subjects and she loved Ranier. Any couple may pass trhough troubles of different kind, this doesn't mean they were not in love. And Grace married the man, not the Prince, for she was much more famous than Ray. Grace was the main attraction of this marriage. Where's the scandal in all this story?? Grace's father had to pay a drowry, in royal family it worked that way. Please it's hightime to let Grace rip in peace. Just rember her as the decent human being she loved to be remembered like.
I just wonder if it's true that she went after her friends husbands or lovers. That would show an unhealthy need to be irresistible and 'fairest of them all', resulting in an inability to have close female friends.
As to the dad pulling strings because of his money connections: Grace's Dad was not Philadelphia Old Money, they were not Main Line stock. So I don't know which particular connections the dad had that got her work in Hollywood. She modeled in NYC before she went west, did he have connections in the Manhattan ad world? Because really, being a Brickworks Kingpin wasn't all that in the world of 1950s High Society. Lauren Bacall got noticed when she was on a LIFE magazine cover, but because her family wasn't rich she doesn't get painted with the "daddy's connections did it all for her" brush.
I love watching Grace Kelly in the movies because of her beauty and the way she wore clothes. What a great body, very...graceful. She did have a contrived way of speaking though, it wasn't a British accent. Guess she had to lose any trace of the awful Philly dialect. Who could blame her?
Did you know that Grace's father was rejected from the Henley Royal Regatta in 1920 because he had done manual work as a bricklayer in the past? It is not a rumour, it was stated in the rules to enter the race, although other speculations exist. I don't know to what extent was John Kelly able to use his money to and connections to influence his daughter's career, except for perhaps, helping her to pay for the Barbizon Hotel were Grace first stayed while studying acting. It seems, for what I have read, that she used the money she earned as a model to support herself, if not wholly at the beginning.
As for her "British accent", did you know that to be able to increase her prospects in the movie and theatre industry she had to change the tone of her voice, which was high pitched. For this she attended a phonetic school, were she learned to control her voice and improve pronunciation. In her childhood, by the way, Grace used to get sick with colds frequently. Maybe she got part of the voice problem due to her sinusitis.
Please, do some research before you publish anything. Check up your facts.