The 72nd Best Actress of All-Time: Grace Kelly

best film:  Rear Window is Grace Kelly’s finest film. She is very strong in a top 100 all-time film from the great master Alfred Hitchcock, so this category is a strength for Kelly. Her second best is actually Fred Zinneman’s western High Noon over the other two Hitchcock collaborations.

Grace Kelly in high gloss in an unforgettable close-up from Hitchcock’s Rear Window

best performance:  Rear Window – and it is just by an eyelash over To Catch a Thief. She swallows up the scenes (in a positive way) in both films with her with her undeniable screen presence. Thelma Ritter (talk about scene-chewing) is a fantastic actor to play off of and Jimmy Stewart is one of the all-time greats of course, but there is no mistaking who owns the screen when Grace Kelly is a part of Rear Window.

stylistic innovations/traits:  Born in 1929 in Philadelphia, Grace Kelly went from debut (1951) to first archive able film (1952) to massive Hollywood star and Oscar-winning actor (1954) in just a few short years. She retired in 1956 to become Princess Grace – marrying the prince of Monaco just one year after James Dean’s career (and life in his case) was cut tragically short. Kelly left perhaps the most promising start to a career in Hollywood history at the ripe old age of twenty-seven (27). In retrospect, what a blow to the art form and industry to lose both of these mid-1950s icons and talents. She appears in just a total of eleven films (many more than Dean certainly- and her per/film average is not as high) with a startlingly impressive (especially for such a short career) seven (7) total archiveable films. The depth is decent, too – any time a lead actor Oscar win is not one of an actor’s four best performances … well … that is a good sign. Kelly exuded intelligence, style, and goodliness. She may also be the most beautiful woman in the history of Hollywood (or planet Earth). Kelly is solid in a masterpiece western, was nominated twice, and worked with the greatest director of all time three times.

High Society – her final film in 1956.  The film is a very solid remake of George Cukor’s 1940 film The Philadelphia Story. Grace Kelly plays the Katharine Hepburn role, Bing Crosby plays the Cary Grant role and Frank Sinatra plays the Jimmy Stewart role. It is a testament to the three actors in the 1956 version that they follow up the legends of the 1940 so well.  The only one of the six  actors (three from the 1940 version, and three from the 1956 version) with no acting Oscar is actually Cary Grant.  Kelly is the epitome of chic in the film. Unlike Cukor’s version in black and white, this is in Vistavision, color and this one includes original music by Cole Porter. A great bonus to getting the music of Cole Porter is we get three of the best musicians of the century (Louis Armstrong, Crosby and Sinatra) working together. 
Kelly had starred with Crosby in The Country Girl before just two years prior.

directors worked with:  Alfred Hitchcock (3). It is a shame to think of what they could have kept doing together if she had not retired. Fred Zinneman (1), John Ford (1)

Kelly in To Catch a Thief – her third and final Hitchcock collaboration

top five performances:

1. Rear Window
2. To Catch a Thief
3. High Society
4. Dial M For Murder
5. The Country Girl

archiveable films