Grace Kelly's Real Name: Grace Patricia Kelly

Quick answer: Grace Kelly was born Grace Patricia Kelly on November 12, 1929, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She won the Academy Award for best actress for The Country Girl (1954), starred in three Alfred Hitchcock films, and gave up acting to marry Prince Rainier III, becoming Princess Grace of Monaco in 1956. She died on September 14, 1982, after a car accident (Britannica; Princess Grace Foundation-USA).

Real name and early life

The Princess Grace Foundation-USA gives her name as Grace Patricia Kelly, with the dates November 12, 1929, to September 14, 1982. The Library of Congress name authority files her under her royal title, "Grace, Princess of Monaco, 1929-1982," with the cross-reference "Kelly, Grace, 1929-1982." An LOC citation notes she was "also called (from 1956) Princess Grace of Monaco."

Britannica says she was born into a wealthy Irish Catholic family. Her father, John B. Kelly, was an Olympic gold-medal-winning oarsman, and her uncle was the playwright George Kelly. Biography.com adds that her father won three Olympic golds and built a successful brick business. Kelly was educated in convent and private schools and entered the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York in 1947, working as a photographer's model to pay her tuition.

Career highlights

After summer stock, Kelly made her Broadway debut in November 1949 in Strindberg's The Father and appeared in early-1950s television dramas. Her first film role was a small part in Fourteen Hours (1951). Her breakthrough came as Gary Cooper's Quaker wife in High Noon (1952). John Ford's Mogambo (1953), with Clark Gable and Ava Gardner, brought her first Oscar nomination.

Cast against type as the dowdy wife of an alcoholic actor played by Bing Crosby in The Country Girl, she won the best actress Oscar. Britannica says her most memorable roles were arguably for Hitchcock: Dial M for Murder (1954), Rear Window (1954) with James Stewart, and To Catch a Thief (1955) with Cary Grant. She was widely regarded as the perfect Hitchcock heroine. After The Swan and High Society (both 1956), she retired from the screen.

Kelly married Prince Rainier in a civil ceremony on April 18, 1956, followed by a religious ceremony the next day. They had three children, Caroline, Albert, and Stéphanie. As princess she was active in charitable and cultural work and in 1976 joined the board of Twentieth Century-Fox. On September 13, 1982, she suffered a stroke while driving at Cap-d'Ail, France, and her car went down an embankment. She died the next day. Stéphanie, who was in the car, suffered minor injuries.

Name notes for searchers

Patricia is her middle name. She was credited as Grace Kelly throughout her film career. After 1956 she was formally Princess Grace of Monaco, which is why some catalogs list her under "Grace" rather than "Kelly."