page_title: Grace Kelly
section_title: Princess of Monaco
hierarchical_section_title: Grace Kelly / Princess of Monaco
caption_attribution_description: English: The Prince and Princess of Monaco arrive at the White House for a luncheon.
context_page_description: Grace Patricia Kelly, also known as Grace of Monaco, was an American film actress who, after starring in several significant films in the early to mid-1950s, became Princess of Monaco by marrying Prince Rainier III in April 1956.
  After embarking on an acting career in 1950 when she was 20, Kelly appeared in New York City theatrical productions and more than 40 episodes of live drama productions broadcast during the early 1950s Golden Age of Television. From 1952 to 1956 she starred in several critically and commercially successful films, usually opposite male romantic leads 25 to 30 years older than her. In October 1953, she gained stardom from her performance in director John Ford's African-filmed adventure-romance Mogambo, starring Clark Gable and Ava Gardner, which won her a Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. In 1954 she won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her deglamorized performance in the drama The Country Girl with Bing Crosby.
context_section_description: Kelly headed the U.S. delegation at the Cannes Film Festival in April 1955. While there, she was invited to participate in a photo session with Prince Rainier III, the sovereign of the Principality of Monaco, at the Prince's Palace, about 55 kilometers away from Cannes. After a series of delays and complications, she met him at the Prince's Palace of Monaco on May 6, 1955. At the time of her initial meeting with him, she was dating the French actor Jean-Pierre Aumont.
  After a year-long courtship described as containing "a good deal of rational appraisal on both sides", Prince Rainier married Kelly in 1956. The Napoleonic Code of Monaco and the laws of the Catholic Church necessitated two ceremonies – both a civil ceremony and a religious wedding. The 16-minute civil ceremony took place in the Palace Throne Room of Monaco on April 18, 1956, and a reception later in the day was attended by 3,000 Monégasque citizens. To cap the ceremony, the 142 official titles that she acquired in the union (counterparts of her husband's) were formally recited. The following day the church ceremony took place at Monaco's Saint Nicholas Cathedral, before Bishop Gilles Barthe. The wedding was estimated to have been watched by over 30 million viewers on live television and was described by biographer Robert Lacey as "the first modern event to generate media overkill". Her wedding dress, designed by MGM's Academy Award-winning Helen Rose, was worked on for six weeks by three dozen seamstresses. The bridesmaids' gowns were designed by Joe Allen Hong at Neiman Marcus. 
  The bridal party included the bride's sister, Margaret (Peggy) Kelly Davis, as maid of honour, and Judy Balaban and Rita Gam who were among the bridesmaids. The bridegroom was attended by Count Charles de Polignac, Lieutenant Colonel Ardant, and the bride's brother, John (Kell) Kelly. The child attendants were Meg and Mary Lee (the bride's nieces); the groom's nieces and nephew (Princess Antoinette’s children) Christian, Christine, and Elisabeth; and the groom's cousin Sebastian Von Furstenberg.
  The 700 guests included several famous people, including Aristotle Onassis, Cary Grant, David Niven and his wife Hjördis, Gloria Swanson, Ava Gardner, Aga Khan III, Gloria Guinness, and many others. Frank Sinatra was invited but did not attend. Kelly and Rainier left that night for their seven-week Mediterranean honeymoon cruise on his yacht, Deo Juvante II.
  The couple had three children:
  Princess Caroline, born January 23, 1957
  Prince Albert, born March 14, 1958, current Prince of Monaco
  Princess Stéphanie, born February 1, 1965
caption: The Prince and Princess of Monaco arrive at the White House for a luncheon, 1961
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "600", "Image YResolution": "600", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS2 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2014:12:11 12:03:49", "Image ExifOffset": "164", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "302", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "7247", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "748", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "748"}