Grace Kelly shortly before she met her husband in 1955
Admirers recognise her as the embodiment of royalty in any sense – a critically-acclaimed actress and the elegant consort of Monaco, as well as a loyal friend, loving mother, and stunning style icon.
Ms Kelly was born to a wealthy family in Philadelphia in 1929, and went on to quickly climb the ranks of Hollywood, starring in Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window and High Society, a musical.
She won the Oscar for Best Actress for her work in the 1954 film The Country Girl, beating out fellow star Judy Garland. She also another nod for her supporting role in 1953’s Mogambo.
At the 1955 Cannes Film Festival, Ms Kelly met Monaco’s Prince Ranier III. After exchanging letters in a hushed romance, he asked her to marry him days after Christmas that year.
During what reporters called ‘the wedding of the century,’ then 26-year-old Grace Patricia Kelly became Her Serene Highness Princess Grace of Monaco in an intricate lace dress designed by MGM costume designer Helen Rose.
In the years following their wedding she admitted that it was difficult separating Grace Kelly the actress and Princess Grace, the wife of a head of state.
She had three children with the prince – Albert II, Stephanie, and Caroline.
Princess Grace died on September 14, 1982 as she was driving along a hairpin bend above the Mediterranean principality with her daughter, Princess Stephanie, though the circumstances of that day are still cause for speculation, even three decades after her death.
Initial reports said that she suffered a stroke, though there is still speculation of how the Rover P6 she was driving plunged 45 feet down.
There are rumours that Princess Stephanie was quarrelling with her mother, and that she was even driving the car.
It was the same hairpin curve that she zoomed around in the 1955 film To Catch A Thief. In the film, Ms Kelly gushed: ‘Have you ever seen any place in the world more wonderful?’
Guillaume Rose, Monaco’s head of tourism, told the AFP news agency that the classic movie is ‘the best advertisement we ever had.’