Grace Kelly’s real-life Cinderella story continues to intrigue hundreds of thousands, and now a trove of her private letters that draw again the curtain on her early days and her journey to changing into the Princess of Monaco will quickly be auctioned.
Handwritten and typed letters, postcards, pictures and different ephemera that Kelly despatched to her former roommate and private secretary Prudence Smart Kudner will go beneath the gavel at Doyle on Thursday, Nov. 14. Along with a years-long friendship, they spell out Kelly’s ambition, ascent and engagement to the late designer Oleg Cassini.
“What’s wonderful is the great arc of her being this unknown, proficient and clearly fairly lovely younger girl, who arrives in New York hoping to turn out to be an actress, and finally ends up being married to the Prince of Monaco,” Peter Costanzo, Doyle’s director of uncommon books, autographs, maps and images division, stated on Friday. “It’s a fairy story and it’s all performed out in these letters.”
Kelly died unexpectedly on the age of 52, after struggling a stroke whereas driving along with her daughter Stephanie within the Cote d’Azur. That tragedy solely enhanced the lore.
With a pre-auction estimate of $60,000 to $80,000, the bounty is a part of Doyle’s “Stage & Display” sale. The lot contains many gadgets which can be believed to have by no means been printed or seen publicly and could also be unknown to biographers. Different tons will embrace sketches of Edith Head’s designs for Kelly from “To Catch a Thief,” which have estimates of $5,000 to $8,000.
Spanning from 1949 to 1956, the letters make clear her private {and professional} life. “In these early years, it goes with out saying that Grace Kelly was being pursued by many suitors,” Costanzo stated. “Lots of these early letters regard the assorted efforts of gents of all ages to win her hand in marriage, together with the style designer Oleg Cassini. One thing that you just see time and again [in the letters] is the suitors searching for out Grace, then Grace getting extra severe with them and introducing the boys to her mother and father. And her father had a harsh response to a number of of those gentleman who needed to marry her.”
The marriage of Prince Rainier III of Monaco and Grace Kelly.
Getty Photographs
Earlier than Kelly wed Prince Rainier III of Monaco in entrance of 700 folks in a Helen Rose-designed lace robe, she gave her good friend permission to pen a play-by-play account. “It’s alright with me if you wish to write an account of the marriage,” Kelly suggested Kudner, including, “so long as it’s not on-the-spot reporting and written afterwards as I’m not presupposed to have any press on my listing of invites.”
That union to Cassini by no means transpired however Kelly wore a Cassini-designed costume when she set sail for Monaco to marry the prince. And all through his lifetime, Cassini regularly spoke of Kelly fondly and his affect on her everlasting type. The designer, who had beforehand been married to the actress Gene Tierney, stated of wooing Kelly, “It was to be the best, most exhilarating marketing campaign of my life.”
In her pre-stardom days in New York Metropolis, Kelly lived with Kudner, Sally Parrish and Carolyn Scott on the Barbizon Resort for Girls on the Higher East Facet of Manhattan. Remnants of that point may be present in a snapshot of some of them and a telephone message jotted down on Barbizon stationery. The lot’s first substantial letter — eight pages written in pencil on delicate stationery — was postmarked April 1949, seven months earlier than Kelly’s Broadway debut in August Strinberg’s “The Father.” In her letter, Kelly regaled Prudy about how an abysmal introductory dinner along with her mother and father and her then-suitor Don Richardson led to a breakup and an argument along with her mother and father. However on the upside Richard had helped Kelly make some theater connections.
Grace Kelly, en path to Hollywood for film work, exhibits off her engagement ring in January 1956.
Bettmann Archive
After some well-received modeling work and her Broadway debut, Kelly did her first movie “Fourteen Hours” in 1951 after which “Excessive Midday” and “Mogambo.” Of capturing the latter in Africa, Kelly talked about in a letter to Kudner of a five-day getaway with Frank Sinatra, Ava Gardner and Clark Gable to Malindi on the coast, and the way there had been “a horrible champagne binge for about ten days over Christmas…all of us went on the wagon till Rome. Ava and I at the moment are nice buddies…”
In a 1953 submit written from the Savoy Resort in London whereas “Mogambo” was being edited, she reported that Gable and director Sam Zimbalist have been “slicing the image to items which breaks my coronary heart — I’m not talking to Clark as of late and neither is Ava — however don’t inform anybody that.”
The previous actress additionally autographed a photograph for her good friend.
Picture Courtesy Doyle
After that Oscar-nominated efficiency, Kelly established herself as a sought-after Hollywood actress and style-setter. From mid-1953 to her 1956 fairy story marriage ceremony to Prince Rainier, the Pennsylvanian starred in “The Nation Lady,” “Dial M for Homicide,” “Rear Window” and “To Catch a Thief.” In July 1953, Kelly clued Kudner into how she had met the director Alfred Hitchcock, whereas filming “Dial M for Homicide.” Kelly talked about how certainly one of her arms was sore from enjoying tennis, because of her position because the spouse of an expert participant. Curiously, the quintessential type arbiter wrote, “Tomorrow I take a look at my wardrobe and see the way it will all end up in 3D.” That was the medium meant for the movie, however it wound up being proven in most theaters as 2D. She additionally wrote, “They’re nonetheless debating the colour of my hair. It comes out brilliant crimson in WarnerColor and Hitchcock is having a match.”
An Edith Head sketch for Grace Kelly in “To Catch a Thief.”
Courtesy Doyle
After taking on non permanent residency on the Resort Bel-Air in early 1954 Kelly described spending a day swimming in its pool with the esteemed costume designer Edith Head. She additionally talked about new paramour Cassini, who had procured for her a typewriter, “the one one in Beverly Hills.” The letter described their spectacular outings collectively, akin to “final Saturday we went to a giant get together at Jack Warner’s…and the weekend earlier than we went as much as Hitch’s ranch in Santa Cruz…We had dinner with Bing [Crosby] one night time…My father isn’t very blissful over the prospect of Oleg as a son-in-law…however the plan now’s to be married the primary a part of October…”
Images of Princess Grace’s kids are additionally a part of the lot.
Picture Courtesy Doye
Strategically, Costanzo reached out on to a Grace Kelly Fan Membership in regards to the upcoming sale “however that they had already discovered it on [the] web site.” “They’re over-the-moon about this,” Costanzo stated. In a full-circle second, one of many letters reveals that the actress-turned-princess advised Kudner how she had fielded a name from the Grace Kelly Fan Membership on its first anniversary, and had taken the time to talk with all 15 members.
Bidding for the gathering of Kelly’s letters and ephemera opens Thursday, Nov. 14 at 10 a.m.
