

There were packing boxes, and movers working with quiet efficiency, and my tape recording of that afternoon indicates that there were only three brief interruptions in our long conversation.įirst, an elderly attendant, the only servant I saw that day, inquired what he might offer for refreshment, and Grace asked if I would like tea and biscuits. At our introduction, at her home in Paris, she was preparing to relocate from her apartment on the Avenue Foch to another residence nearby. I spent many hours with this remarkable woman over several years, beginning with our first meeting during the afternoon of Septemin a short time she offered me a friendship that deepened over the years. Without any hint of a dark premonition, she then added, "Donald, you really ought to wait until twenty- five years after I'm gone, and then you tell the whole story." I have honored her request for a delay: Grace left us in September 1982, and I started work on this book early in 2007. "I'd like to think I'm still too young for that!" she said with a laugh. Read the excerpt below, and then head to the "GMA" Library to find more good reads.ĭuring our last meeting, I asked Grace Kelly Grimaldi if she planned to write an autobiography or to authorize a writer to compose her life story.

The noted film biographer draws on his hours of face-to-face interviews with the Academy Award-winning actress and her co-stars, including James Stewart and Cary Grant. She died in a car crash at the age of 52. She enjoyed a rich life as a royal, raising three children and working hard for the arts.

4, 2009 - Donald Spoto gives readers a fresh look at Grace Kelly (1929–1982) in his new book, "High Society: The Life of Grace Kelly." Spoto chronicles her early years in an affluent Philadelphia neighborhood and moves on to her glamorous Hollywood career, which lasted until she became the wife of Monaco's Prince Rainier.
