Random Fascinating Facts About Grace Kelly, The Movie Star Who Became A Princess (14 items)

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  (#1) She Had To Pay $2 Million And Take A Fertility Test To Marry Prince Rainier

  Marriage to Prince Rainier III of Monaco meant observing some eccentric and outdated traditions, to put it mildly. In 1956, for example, not producing an heir was not an option, so Kelly was required to take a fertility test. She also had to give up her American citizenship.

  Moreover, Kelly's family was required to pay a dowry of $2 million. Kelly's father was outraged by this demand and initially refused to pay up, allegedly saying, "My daughter doesn't have to pay any man to marry her." However, Kelly eventually prevailed upon him ... and reportedly ended up forking over half of the dowry herself. (Rainier's friend Aristotle Onassis supposedly chipped in as well).
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  (#2) She Came From A Family Of Olympians And Artists

  The Kelly family was quite athletically accomplished. Grace's father, Jack Kelly, won three Olympic gold medals as part of the U.S. rowing team, and her mother coached the women's teams at the University of Pennsylvania.

  The family also had its share of cerebral and artistic talent: Grace's uncle George Kelly (to whom she is thought to have been particularly close), was a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, and uncle Walter C. Kelly was a vaudevillian performer who encouraged and mentored his niece throughout her career.
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  (#3) She Wasn't Considered Beautiful In Her Younger Years

  Throughout her adult life, Kelly was frequently cited as one of the most beautiful women in the world – but she wasn't considered particularly attractive in her younger years, even after landing some work as a model. According to an A&E biography, her family and friends, who had never thought of her as being anywhere near movie star material, were stunned when they saw her on the big screen for the first time.

  As one of her childhood friends recalled, "We had no idea she was as beautiful as she was. Grace always a bandana on, and had the glasses, and the sweater, nothing glamorous. And when she went to New York and we started to see her on television, and in magazines, it was, 'My heavens! That's our Grace?'"
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  (#4) She Rebelled Against Her Strict Parents

  Despite her patrician on-screen demeanor, Kelly had rebellious streak .... one that would later serve to mesmerize audiences with its fire-and-ice dichotomy. She moved to New York City to pursue her dreams of acting, and, at her parents' request, moved into the Barbizon Hotel for Women, where "young ladies were supposedly protected from big city temptations." However, she soon grew tired of living within the limitations of her upbringing. According to biographer James Spada, "Grace's rebellious streak really showed up at the Barbizon. She broke a lot of the rules."

  Her parents didn't take this well. When Kelly struck up a romance with one of her instructors at New York's American Academy of Dramatic Arts, for example ... and brought her new lover home to meet her family ... it was "a disaster," as Spada put it; and "only one in a series of relationships [Grace's parents] effectively destroyed. They just did not give Grace any freedom as to what man she would become involved with romantically, unless he was exactly what they wanted for her."
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  (#5) She Gave Up Acting For Her Husband, And Regretted It

  According to various sources – including J. Randy Taraborrelli in his book Once Upon a Time: Behind the Fairy Tale of Princess Grace and Prince Rainier – Kelly struggled with some aspects of her royal marriage. In particular, she missed being able to continue her acting career ... especially after Prince Rainier went so far as to ban her films in Monaco. (She did continue to support the arts in various other capacities, however).
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  (#6) She Had A Tumultuous Love Life

  Kelly was something of an early bloomer when it came to romance; her now legendary love life began in her teens. While in acting school, she had her first serious relationship with Don Richardson. Her parents were scandalized by her choice of partner – Richardson was older, separated but not divorced from his wife, and Jewish. What's more, he carried condoms.

  After she began working in the film industry, Kelly reportedly had a string of affairs with her usually older co-stars. She fell for the married Gary Cooper on the set of High Noon, dallied with Clark Gable while filming Mogambo, hooked up with Ray Miller while making Dial M for Murder – and more followed. Gossip columnist Hedda Hopper labeled Kelly a home wrecker and a nymphomaniac, but even such flamboyantly lurid branding didn't stop Kelly from continuing to date her leading men.

  One of Kelly's most serious relationships was with designer Oleg Cassini. The two were reportedly engaged, and Kelly was rumored to have gotten pregnant by him and had an abortion. However, she was apparently ultimately looking for a husband who wouldn't feel threatened by her fame ... and Prince Rainier, whom she would meet at the Cannes Film Festival in 1955, would fulfill that criteria.
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  (#7) Her Father Thought Acting Was Barely Better Than Prostitution

  Kelly's dreams of becoming an actress were met with disapproval by her father, who had decidedly old-fashioned views about the "vulgarity" of the stage and screen. When she decided to enroll in New York's academy of Dramatic Arts, her father hit the roof, declaring that being an actress was merely "a cut above being a streetwalker."

  Even Kelly's eventual success never quite brought Jack Kelly around. After Grace won an Oscar for The Country Girl, her father supposedly said, "I though it would be [eldest daughter] Peggy. Anything Grace could do, Peggy could always do better. I simply can’t believe Grace won. Of my four children, she’s the last one I’d expect to support me in my old age."
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  (#8) She Loved Dirty Jokes

  Rumor has it that Kelly wasn't quite so regal and composed behind closed doors. According to Louisette Levy-Soussan Azzoaglio, who served as her personal assistant for years, the Princess had a decidedly bawdy streak:

  "She wasn't stuffy. She had a mischievous sense of humor, a glint of naughtiness in her eye and a great passion for limericks – even saucy ones. The actor David Niven shared her love of banter. There were gales of laughter every time he visited the palace."

  Azzoaglio says that Kelly also favored a more casual look at home, swapping out her glamorous gowns for simple trousers.
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  (#9) She Almost Starred In On The Waterfront

  Kelly once said no to a surprising role: Edie Doyle in Elia Kazan's 1954 classic On the Waterfront. (She opted out so she could play the enigmatic Lisa Carol Freemont in Rear Window instead). The choice ended up working out for everyone: the Waterfront role went to Eva Marie Saint, who of course knocked it out of the park, and Window became one of Kelly's most celebrated films.
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  (#10) She Was The Black Sheep Of Her Family

  Kelly's parents and siblings may have been avid athletes, extroverts, and social climbers, but Kelly herself was none of the above. As biographer Gwen Robyns puts it, "[Kelly's father] was determined that all the children would have beautiful bodies. And there was little puny Grace, with her sniveling and her asthma, and little skinny legs, and he just thought this was the runt of the litter... introspective and timid, she contented herself in a world of make-believe."

  However, Kelly was far more determined, and driven, than her timidity suggested. As Robyns explains, "Very early on in life, she decided to get away from this pack of wonderful, healthy, German-inspired people, and find a way she could live within herself."
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  (#11) She Was Supposed To Be Marnie

  Though the terms of her marriage to Prince Rainier had already essentially ended her film career, Alfred Hitchcock nonetheless offered Kelly the lead role in Marnie, the story of a beautiful kleptomaniac with a troubled past. Though Rainier himself apparently had no problem with his wife taking the role, the citizens of Monaco protested the idea of their princess playing a "compulsive thief," and the role went to Tippi Hedren.

  Marnie wasn't the only film Kelly had to turn down. Hitchcock also wanted her for 1963's The Birds – another gig that went to Hedren.
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  (#12) She Took Voice Lessons To Get Rid Of Her Philly Twang

  After she enrolled in acting school in 1947, Kelly's instructors began working avidly to "correct" what they called her "Philadelphia twang." As biographer James Spada explains, "one of the first things her instructors at the Academy of Dramatic Arts told her is that she had to work on her elocution. So Grace developed this almost British way of speaking... very measured, the vowels very well rounded." (The resulting affectation placed her "somewhere between Philadelphia debutante and British schoolgirl").
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  (#13) Her Final Film Project Was Cut Short By Her Death

  Despite the fact that most people considered her to be essentially retired from film, Kelly was, in fact, planning a comeback of sorts shortly before her death. She narrated a documentary on a Russian ballet school, and was set to play herself in a film called Rearranged. (The movie was intended to be a comedy of manners, and was set at the Monaco Flower Show).  However, the project was never finished because of her untimely death, and her husband (who had also been involved in its making) opted not to release the existing footage.
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  (#14) She Died In A Tragic Accident

  On September 13, 1982, 52-year-old Kelly suffered a stroke while driving on the cliffside roads of Monaco. She plunged over a 120 foot mountainside with her 17-year-old daughter, Stephanie, beside her. Her injuries proved to be grave, and Prince Rainier chose to take her off life support the following day. Stephanie suffered comparatively minor injuries and made a full recovery.

  Kelly was interred in the royal family crypt. Sources say her car was crushed into a small cube and taken out into the Mediterranean, where it was sunk beneath the waves.

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