By 1956, Grace Kelly was calling it quits after a movie-acting career of only five years—but what a career it was. Her 11 films included the 1952 classic High Noon, the 1956 musical High Society, and the Alfred Hitchcock-directed masterpieces Dial M for Murder, Rear Window, and To Catch a Thief. She had won an Oscar for her role in 1954’s The Country Girl—and all this before her twenty-seventh birthday. She was already Hollywood royalty, to be sure. But on April 19, 1956—50 years ago today—she became a true princess: Her Serene Highness, Princess Grace of Monaco.
Continue reading about America’s Own Princess from American Heritage.