In this debauched era where rehabbed reality stars and washed-up celebrities are rewarded for spitting and swearing and dangling their children from balconies, it is a comfort to rediscover a star of grace, elegance, and style.
That would be Grace Kelly, the subject of Montreal’s McCord Museum‘s exhibition “From Philadelphia to Monaco: Grace Kelly – Beyond the Icon”, a woman who, apart from her life as an Oscar-winning Hollywood film star and the Princess of Monaco, took great delight in coloring Easter eggs with her children and making home movies of their childhood games.
(Source: © McCord Museum, Marilyn Aitken)
With its focus on Kelly’s multiple roles and personae throughout her life, the exhibition includes more than 100 objects and archives on loan from the Grimaldi Forum Monaco, including Kelly’s best actress Oscar for “The Country Girl” and 40 dresses from designers such as Balenciaga, Chanel, Dior, and Yves Saint Laurent, as well as love letters from Rainier III, Prince of Monaco.
The film clips from Kelly’s partnership with director Alfred Hitchcock are particularly riveting, with crowds gathering in front of the screens as if they were witnessing “Rear Window” and “To Catch a Thief” for the first time. The scenes showcased from Kelly’s films are a touching reminder of Kelly’s gifts as an actress, particularly the heartwrenching clip from “The Country Girl.”
(Source: © McCord Museum, Marilyn Aitken)
Perhaps even more poignant are the home movies that Kelly shot of her family life in Monaco: at the castle, on the royal yacht, her children at the beach or emerging from teepees dressed as little Indians.
Throughout the exhibition, people move through the rooms as if mesmerized into a reverent state, whispering to one another, eyes slightly misty, perhaps provoked by the heartwarming letters from friends such as Cary Grant, Hitchcock, and Josephine Baker, for whom Kelly led a boycott of the Stork Club after Baker was denied entrance due to her skin color.
(Source: McCord Museum)
The daughter of an Olympic rower and a phys-ed teacher, and blessed with a transfixing all-American beauty, Kelly became a fashion icon for women around the world. Based on an exhibition by the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the McCord Museum exhibition features the legendary Hermès “Kelly” handbag, as well the famous evening dress designed by Edith Head that Kelly wore to the Academy Awards, which was later featured on the cover of “LIFE” magazine.
(Source: © McCord Museum, Marilyn Aitken)
Why Montreal for this exhibition? In 1967, Princess Grace arrived in Montreal for her public appearance at the Monegasque pavilion at “Expo ’67” – and by the time of her arrival, the crowd had swelled to an almost unmanageable size. In commemorating this historic visit, a Grace Kelly Barbie doll wears the Marie-Thérèse of Nice dress covered in three-dimensional flowers.
Without dwelling on Kelly’s untimely and tragic death, the exhibition ends in a room with several large portraits of that beautiful face and a quotation from Victor Hugo about inner beauty, a reminder for us all.
(Source: © McCord Museum, Marilyn Aitken)
