43 Iconic Photographs of Grace Kelly, Princess of Monaco

It is easy to describe Grace Kelly’s life as a fairytale: she was a one of the great beauties—and talents—of the Golden Age of Hollywood before leaving California behind to marry the dashing Prince Rainier of Monaco. Yet it’s a notion that Princess Grace herself dismissed: “The idea of my life as a fairy tale is itself a fairy tale,” she once said.

Born on November 12 1929 in Philadelphia, Kelly moved to New York City in 1947 to study at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. To pay her tuition, she modeled. It was a worthwhile investment: two years later, she made her Broadway debut.

Her breakout role on the silver screen was as Gary Cooper’s wife in High Noon in 1951. In 1954, she won her first Oscar for The Country Girl. Yet the films that made her a true icon were those of Alfred Hitchcock: Kelly, a muse for the horror director, starred in Dial M For Murder, Rear Window, and To Catch a Thief.

On April 18 1956, she married Prince Rainier of Monaco in a royal wedding watched around the world. Costume designer Helen Rose created her dress using 300 yards of antique lace and 150 yards of taffeta along with tulle and silk. It took 30 seamstresses and three weeks to make. She dedicated the rest of her life to civil service and charity work as Princess Grace of Monaco. Although, she never could kick the acting bug: rumor has it she almost agreed to star in the 1964 Hitchcock film, Marnie.

She and her husband spent much of those final years at their rustic villa in the French Riviera, seeking solace and simplicity. They had three children: Princess Caroline, Prince Albert II, and Princess Stéphanie. On 13 September 1982, while driving her daughter Princess Stéphanie along a mountainous road, Kelly suffered a cerebral haemorrhage, lost control of the vehicle, and plunged into a ravine. While her daughter survived, Kelly passed away in hospital.

Her death, on 14 September 1982 at age 52, sent shockwaves around the world and transformed Monaco into a public spectacle of grief—the somber event was attended by former cinematic colleagues and world leaders (from Princess Diana to Nancy Reagan, and actor Cary Grant), watched on television by an estimated 100 million people. She was interred to the Grimaldi family crypt, lying there with her husband who died in 2005. Today, her memory lives on as an icon of cinema, royalty, and style.

On what would have been her 95th birthday, Vogue revisits 43 striking pictures of Grace Kelly, from her days as an Oscar-winning MGM movie star to a Monegasque royal.