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Grace as an
Actress After graduation
from high
school in 1947, while attending the American Academy of Dramatic Arts,
a prestigious acting school in New York, Grace moved to Manhattan and
tried supporting herself as a model. She modeled for
companies such as Old Gold cigarettes and the Bridgeport Brass Co. Two
short years later Grace debuted on Broadway but was not
pleased with her work in New York. The growth of her
modeling and stage work helped her to get appearances in New York,
which helped put a foot in the door for offers from Hollywood.
 She moved to
Southern
California to break into a more prestigious part of acting: motion
picture. Often she was offered typical starlet roles,
but held back. For the 1951 film entitled Fourteen Hours, Grace
was giv en a small role, but the role
nonetheless sent her from unknown
into a lead in High Noon,
her next movie in 1953.
In her acting career, she came
across as very shy and rumors say she had intimate romances with many
of her co-workers. Some of these men included Clark Gable, Bing Crosby,
Ray Milland, William Holden, Oleg Cassini, and Jean-Pierre
Aumont. Even
though she came across as a shy person, this was not
true on stage. Jimmy
Stewart, one of her co-workers, said, “If
you’ve ever played a love scene with her, you’d know she’s not cold [.
. .] besides, Grace has that twinkle and touch of larceny in her eye.”
The movie, Mogambo, which Grace led opposite Clark Gable, led into a seven year signing with MGM Studios as well as an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her third movie role. Grace received yet another Oscar, this time for Best Actress in The Country Girl with Bing Crosby. Grace  became one of Alfred Hitchcock’s favorite
actresses. Twenty-six years old now, Grace worked on
her
third Hitchcock project,
To Catch A Thief. Filmed in the French Riviera, To Catch A Thief featured an exciting car chase through Monaco and was one of the biggest hits of the 1950s. The film also changed the course of Grace’s life and career. One year after the release of To Catch A Thief, Grace completed The Swan, in which she starred as a woman who marries an older Prince. |
