Tand the girl, it seemed, had absolutely everything: phenomenal beauty, talent, money, and if that were not enough, success came to her with annoying ease. She flowed through life lightly, gracefully and without trying too hard.
Her father was a national hero. I had no shortage of anything growing up, at a time when most Americans were struggling with the Great Depression. Her first film won several Oscars and is still considered the best Western in history. In just six years of her career, she reached the top of Hollywood: she could choose roles and directors, she had a golden statuette on the mantelpiece, and her name was the first on the poster.
And then she met the prince and gave up everything for him. The wedding of the century was watched live by 30 million viewers, and the bride’s dress was copied by thousands of girls. And then they lived happily ever after.
At least that’s the story of Grace Kelly, the Hollywood star who became a princess. The real story I tell in the first episode of the Women’s History podcast is more complicated, darker – and much more interesting.
Grace Kelly. Have your cake and eat it too
Grace spent her entire life trying to win her father’s approval, but she never succeeded. Jack Kelly was an expert at clipping his daughter’s wings. When she received the Oscar, her father said, “I can’t believe it. Of our four children, I suspect she would be the last and the one who would support me in my old age.” When her partner was not accepted by her father, Grace dutifully broke up with him. And when she finally married the prince—he could no longer hold on to him—and gave birth to a son, daddy was not happy that it was a girl. He was counting on a grandson.
Kelly did not conform not only to her father’s high standards, but also to the demands of her time regarding how a young woman should behave and what she wanted. With white gloves, pearls around her neck and a skirt that fell below her knees, and perfectly coiffed blond hair, with a look that could freeze you at will, she seemed the epitome of a good housewife. Behind this good-girl facade lay a temperament that women were not even accused of in the 1950s.
Grace Kelly was loving and didn’t think marriage should be about holding hands. She regularly had affairs with her co-stars, often much older than her. “What can you do with Clark Gable in a tent in Africa,” she shrugs. It was MGM that covered up and cut off these relationships: the studio couldn’t afford a star with a reputation for hunting other people’s husbands. At that point, Hollywood was willing to swallow all transgressions—cheating, abortion, heterosexual relationships—as long as they were done discreetly, but punished blatant sin mercilessly. Kelly seemed the epitome of class and cleanliness, so she got away with it.
But she didn’t fool Alfred Hitchcock, a director obsessed with cool blondes…
Grace Kelly wanted to have her cake and eat it too: to be a good girl and a liberated woman, a daddy’s girl and an aspiring actress, a Hollywood star and a princess, and she almost succeeded.
In the second episode I will talk about her career as Hitchcock’s muse, the comedy of errors that was her first meeting with the prince and the price Grace Kelly paid for her fairy tale.
“Women’s History”
“Women’s History” is a podcast about women who changed the world while also pushing the boundaries of what is permissible and appropriate. Queens and courtesans, revolutionaries and cyclists, scientists, politicians and scandalous women – each episode is a story about a fascinating heroine who would not normally fit into a history book. The podcast showcases the challenges and triumphs, the passion and hard work of women who dared to step outside of their assigned roles and pursue their own dreams.
A new episode premieres every Friday at 8am on Newsweek.pl and Onet Audio.
The podcast is hosted by Katarzyna Wężyk
Katarzyna Wężyk is a columnist for “Newsweek”, a podcaster, and the author of the book “Aborcja jest”, which won awards from two major presses, and “Canada. The world’s favorite country”, nominated for the Gryfia Prize.
Graduated in political science and postgraduate in American studies, she is a fellow of the Kościuszko Foundation and the Vienna Institute for the Study of Humanities. She has worked for Panorama TVP, the tvn24.pl portal and the “Gazeta Wyborcza”. She co-hosted the “Herstorie” format. She hosts the “History of Women” podcast on Onet Audio.
