Grace

by Thilo Wydra

  At the end of To Catch a Thief, Grace finally took a long-overdue, recuperative vacation for the remainder of 1954. She traveled immediately from Los Angeles to New York. In the winter of 1954–55, Grace moved into a seventh-floor apartment with a private elevator and original furnishings from 1925. From here, she had a view of Central Park. The apartment was located in the exclusive 988 Fifth Avenue building, near the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The rent was also quite expensive. Grace hired the interior designer George Stacey to design her new home, which incorporated the entire seventh floor and was divided into various spaces, rooms, halls, and bathrooms. It was actually more suitable for more than one tenant, but nevertheless she had this apartment designed to her individual wishes. She was especially taken with French furniture from the 1700s, and she wanted to furnish her apartment in this style. Her desk, her chaise lounge, and her chairs were found in various antique shops. George Stacey helped her with this. Grace wanted to finally find her footing, not just professionally, but also geographically. Above all else, privately and emotionally. This was her yearning for a safe harbor. Her desire to find a partner and to be in a solid, stable, long-term relationship grew substantially.

  A year later, on June 25, 1955, Grace’s younger sister Lizanne married stock market trader and horse trainer, Donald Caldwell LeVine, in the Kelly’s home church of St. Bridget’s in Philadelphia. Grace was one of Lizanne’s bridesmaids. Since her older sister Peggy had already married her first husband George Davis, Grace was the only unmarried member of the Kelly clan. (Peggy and George divorced in 1959, and Peggy later married Eugene Conlan.) This caused Grace to think even more seriously about her romantic prospects.

  On November 12, 1954, Grace celebrated her twenty-fifth birthday. This was an occasion and cause for her to again consider her life. She was aware of the fact that the constant flying back and forth from film site to film site stood in the way of her having a halfway stable private life. She was not doing well that winter. She was listless, tired, exhausted. Although it was not an actual state of depression, in addition to her typical cheeriness, she now also tended strongly toward melancholy. Her normal, radiant, hopeful nature, now had a recognizably gloomy edge.

  As a result, Grace rarely appeared before a camera for almost an entire year. Only for The Swan, her next-to-last movie, did she enter a film set again, in the fall of 1955.

  Because of the number of her movies, the American press called 1954 “A Year of Grace.” She even appeared on the cover of the June issue of Look magazine. And perhaps either despite or because of her extensive and intensive work as an actress, the year 1954, excepting the personally difficult months in fall and winter, was Grace Kelly’s annus mirabilis, year of wonders, more so than 1956, the year of her marriage.

  When Oleg Cassini saw Mogambo with his good friend, Bobby Friedman, Cassini immediately came to the personal, self-assured conclusion that the woman he had just seen up on the screen would be his next liaison, if not much more. Over time, it became clear that since the filming of Dial M for Murder, Ray Milland had not been the only man in Grace’s life. She had also become seriously involved with the French actor Jean-Pierre Aumont. Soon, William Holden himself would enter Grace’s life in the upcoming weeks of January 1954. He too would play a role in Grace’s private life.

  At the conclusion of the Mogambo premiere, Bobby Friedman and Oleg Cassini went out to eat at the well-known French restaurant Le Veau d’Or on 60th Street in Manhattan’s Upper East Side. It could only be coincidence, or fate, that only half an hour after he had seen her on the screen, Oleg Cassini recognized her sitting at a nearby table with the French actor Jean-Pierre Aumont (1911–2001). Cassini, the fashion designer, and Aumont, who was known from various films such as Marcell Carnés’ Hôtel du Nord (1938), knew each other from Hollywood. And close to Aumont at the table sat Grace Kelly.

  “I saw her only in profile. I saw the utter perfection of her nose, the long elegant neck, the silky diaphanous blonde hair. She wore a black velvet two-piece, very demure, with a full skirt and a little white Peter Pan collar. Later, when she stood, I saw that she had a pleasing figure, tall, about five-foot-eight, good broad shoulders, subtle curves and long legs—a very aristocratic girl, not the sort you simply called for a date.”169

  Full of charm and self-confidence, Oleg Cassini went to the table, and after greeting and chatting a little with Aumont, he exchanged a few words with Grace Kelly.

  Starting the next day, Cassini sent a bouquet of a dozen red roses to Grace’s apartment every day for ten days. He always had the same card and cryptic message sent with the flowers. All it read was “The Friendly Florist.” On the tenth day of the rose siege, Cassini was walking past the New York Plaza Hotel. In the display window of a boutique there, he spotted a stuffed animal made to look like the Big Bad Wolf from the Walt Disney animated film, The Three Little Pigs (1933). He bought this and sent it to Grace.

  On the following day, he called her, and when she answered, he said: “This is The Friendly Florist calling.”170 After a pause on the other end of the line, he heard Grace start laughing. It was now clear to the charming Cassini that he could win Grace. However, he did not know at this moment how many other competitors there were for her hand. There were those who had already been involved with her and wanted to renew old relationships and those who were currently connected to her. These suitors included Jean-Pierre Aumont, Ray Milland, William Holden, and Bing Crosby. And later, while Grace was living in New York, there was David Niven (1910–1983) in the spring of 1955. With Oleg Cassini this made a half a dozen men—and an illustrious group at that.

  With London native David Niven, Grace eventually established a close, long-term friendship that lasted until their deaths. According to some sources, this friendship had a romantic element, even after the New York period.171 However, Robert Dornhelm has denied this. He explained that David Niven and his wife Hjordis enjoyed visiting Monaco and were often guests at various occasions. Sometimes they were officially invited to the palace, and sometimes they were privately invited by the princess. For this reason, Dornhelm could not imagine an affair between Grace and Niven.172

  Having become quite famous for starring in such films as Otto Preminger’s adaptation of Françoise Sagan’s Bonjour Tristesse (1958) and Blake Edwards’s comedy The Pink Panther (1963), in early 1962, Niven bought a villa on the French Riviera, on the idyllic Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat peninsula located between Nice and Monaco. Cap Ferrat is gloriously surrounded on three sides by the sea and is the location of various expensive mansions, including the Villa Rothschild, a favorite film location. Cap Ferrat is supposedly the most expensive place to live in the world. Grace and Niven became neighbors, and Niven and his wife were frequent guests at the royal palace. Grace died before her friend did. At the time, he was seriously ill and could no longer manage the few miles between Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat and Monaco. His wife attended Grace’s funeral on September 18, 1982. Less than a year later, on July 29, 1983, Grace’s good, longtime friend also died at the age of seventy-three.

  The Bridges at Toko-Ri

  (1954)

  What man wouldn’t be overwhelmed by her?

  —William Holden173

  As soon as Grace wrapped up Hitchcock’s Rear Window, she had to leave the Paramount studios immediately to start on her next film project. Based on James A. Michener’s novel and adapted as a screenplay by Valentine Davis, the war film The Bridges at Toko-Ri, under the direction of Mark Robson, was filmed from early January through mid-February.

  The plot revolves around events in late 1952 that were linked to the Korean War. Considering the time in which this movie was made, it was highly contemporary subject matter. The war between North and South Korea broke out on June 25, 1950, and ended on July 27, 1953. China fought as an ally to the People’s Republic of North Korea, while UNO, and especially the United States, supported the Republic of South Korea. Once again, the Korean War reflected the power balance between East and West, between c
ommunism and capitalism. Unfortunately, the state of things at the end of the war matched those that had existed before the war’s outbreak. If anything, things were now worse. The division between a northern and a southern part of Korea were now politically cemented in place. Furthermore, the Korean War caused the final split between the former World War II Allies. Almost one million soldiers, as well as three million civilians, perished in this war. A senseless loss.

  Grace Kelly played Nancy Brubaker, wife of American attorney Harry Brukaber, who one year ago had been drafted to the 77th Pacific Division. Because of his experiences in the horrors of World War II, Harry loathes anything connected with the military. He is embittered. The young husband and wife have not seen each other for a year. Grace’s role is fairly small, lasting about twenty minutes. It is among two roles (if one excludes the two very short appearances in Fourteen Hours) that she did not value much in hindsight. The other role was that of the coffee plantation owner Catherine Knowland in the Latin American epic Green Fire (1954).

  Her costar in The Bridges at Toko-Ri was the ladies’ man William Holden (1918–1981). Although married since 1941 to actress Brenda Marshall, Holden had a taste for the young, classical beauties who acted alongside him. His marriage lasted until 1970, and it had to survive his numerous affairs. Grace and Holden fell head over heels in love with each other. Previously, the thirty-six-year-old Holden, the youngest of Grace’s married lovers, had had a passionate affair with Audrey Hepburn with whom he had acted beside in Billy Wilder’s Sabrina (1954). In the neighboring studio, Hitchcock had been making Dial M for Murder with Grace. Already an alcoholic at this time, Holden transitioned straight from his affair with Audrey Hepburn to Grace Kelly. The relationship between Grace and her new film partner ultimately did not last any longer than the three weeks that Grace stood in front of the camera. It was love at first sight, which from Grace’s side quickly cooled after the filming—for the time being that is. Holden’s problems with alcohol reminded her of Gene Lyons and of how she did not want to live with the long-term consequences of such a struggle. In contrast to some of the other relationships, the affair with Holden is one of the relationships, like the one with Oleg Cassini, that has been officially substantiated by Grace Kelly’s son Prince Albert.174 What Grace did not yet know was that in a short time she would again meet Holden in the spring of 1954 for the filming of The Country Girl. Allegedly Holden and Grace grew closer again, although former fling Bing Crosby was in the movie as well. She and Crosby had been involved with each other a year and a half before. Crosby had also been an alcoholic, in earlier years. What happened in the fictional film paralleled real life. And he too again fell in love with Grace.

  The plot of The Bridges at Toko-Ri is simple. It is November 1952. Because of the Korean War, Harry Brubaker (William Holden) has been serving with the navy on an aircraft carrier in the Pacific for one year. Brubaker is one of the most prominent fighter pilots. He knows that he must complete the mission given to him by Admiral Tarrant (Fredric March). His mission is to destroy the bridges over the Toko-Ri. Nancy Brubaker (Grace Kelly), caring wife and mother, stays at home. It will not end well. After successfully bombing the bridges, Harry Brubaker and his two comrades are shot down by the Koreans on his return flight. The film does not show how his wife Nancy reacts or what happens to her. It seems as if she is forgotten for the remainder of the film. Except for the quiet moment, the day before his attack at Toko-Ri, in which Harry writes a poignant letter to his Nancy from the ship’s cabin. He never returns from this flight.

  In part, The Bridges at Toko-Ri served as a propaganda film for the US Navy and Air Force, which both endorsed the movie. It is not without reason that the following lines were included in the film’s opening credits: “We proudly present this motion picture as a tribute to the United States Navy and especially to the men of the Naval Air and Surface Forces of the Pacific Fleet whose cooperation made this picture possible.”175

  The movie’s inside scenes were filmed in the Paramount Studios in Japan on the Yellow Sea, as well as on the USS Oriskany, an aircraft carrier. In various longer scenes, military procedure was meticulously depicted, which is why Robson’s naval and air force films seem to almost be documentary in nature. The final fifteen minutes of the movie portrays the preparations and implementation of the attack on the Korean bridges. Cinematically, these shots are very realistic. For all this, the film received the 1956 Oscar for Best Visual Effects, as well as two other Academy Award nominations.

  The character of the wife Nancy Brubaker is a thankless and relatively small supporting role. Grace Kelly is not seen until the film’s twenty-fourth minute. She is down in the Tokyo harbor, where she is waiting for the arrival of William Holden on the aircraft carrier. He has one week of leave, which he can spend with his wife and their two little daughters. There are five scenes in all, in which Grace appears: the reunion at the harbor; the meeting with Admiral Tarrant at the hotel bar; the conversation between Nancy and Harry in bed; the visit of the four Brubakers to the Japanese Yakuzi Baths; and the farewell at the harbor. She did not have much to work with, acting-wise. The longest and most demanding of the scenes was the conversation in bed. At Nancy’s request, Harry talks for the first time in some detail about the war and about his upcoming attack at Toko-Ri. He opens up after first avoiding her questions and preferring to discuss the children’s piano lessons. She presses him stubbornly. Before now, Nancy was unaware of the level of risk and danger that will be facing her husband. In this conversation, she first grasps the possible consequences. Already in the fiftieth minute of the film, Grace is seen for the last time, standing on the quay and waving at the departing ship.

  For this film, Grace Kelly was again dressed by costume designer Edith Head. In the scenes at the harbor, she is wearing a heavy, light-brown coat with a light hat adorned with a brown hat band and pale, not-quite-white gloves. Underneath she is wearing a dress that is a somewhat lighter brown than her coat. For the first time ever on screen, she appears lying in bed (excepting the short scene in Dial M for Murder in which she is seen asleep in bed before the telephone rings and she wakes up). When Harry later returns to the hotel, after having to care for his friend Mike (Mickey Rooney) who had gotten into a fight, she is wearing a thin, pale blue nightgown, which is somewhat more chaste than the one she was wearing in Dial M for Murder. In several moderately close shots, the camera shows her listening to William Holden explain his upcoming mission. She looks enchantingly lovely in her attention to the serious topic at hand. Perhaps it is not inconsequential that her film partner and costar was her lover on the other side of the camera. Sometimes the boundaries between fiction and reality are fluid. An inner glow streams from Grace’s face. Her eyes are deep blue, her lips are dark red. As always, her face is genteelly pale.

  Another first-time occurrence took place in the Japanese Natural Hot Springs Hotel pool. Here she is seen in the water. This appearance caused ripples among both the critics and the public. Her neck, arms, shoulders, and occasionally almost visible chest are bare. When the film premiered in New York at Radio City Music Hall on January 20, 1955, and then opened across the country, this scene received much attention in the reviews and commentaries. In the scene that takes place in the hotel bar, Grace is dressed in a dark blue evening gown with a plunging neckline. It shines like silk, and around her neck hangs a strand of glowing white pearls. With this image, she comes the closest to the picture of herself that she was always striving to establish. Thus, in this war film, which was otherwise not well suited to her, for a few short moments, she projects something noticeable, something that is commonly called the Kelly Touch.

  The Country Girl

  (1954)

  Grace is like a kaleidoscope: one twist, and you get a whole new facet.

  —George Seaton176

  In March 1955, this film earned Grace Kelly an Academy Award for Best Actress. Before that, in January of that same year, she received a Golden Globe as Best Actress in a Drama.
Eventually, in 1956, she was also honored with a BAFTA nomination as Best Foreign Actress. Thus, in hindsight, The Country Girl can be viewed as her most important film, considering the critical acclaim and honors given within the context of her acting career.

  Besides Fred Zinnemann’s High Noon and her brief appearance in Henry Hathaway’s noir Fourteen Hours, this is her third and last film made in atmospheric black-and-white.

  When MGM announced that it would not loan her again to Paramount, Grace told her agent that she was breaking with Hollywood and returning to New York. The studio could henceforth send her Christmas cards to her home address. This made an impression on MGM. The studio heads, including studio boss Dore Schary, wondered why other studios, particularly Paramount, were trying to poach their actress. Over the six years of her acting career, MGM had actually used her very little. Despite her seven-year contract, Grace only made three of her eleven films with MGM: Mogambo, Green Fire, and High Society. Furthermore, she only agreed to make Green Fire so that she could gain permission to film The Country Girl. She viewed the former as the low point of her career, as an involuntary concession to Hollywood’s studio system. As her sister Lizanne Kelly LeVine recalled, Green Fire “wasn’t one of her favorite films. She was tired when she started. She had done about six pictures in a row and she had to go to South America . . . But she did it in order to get the part in The Country Girl.”177