Has Grace Kelly Found Her Man?

Until a few months ago Grace Kelly, Hollywood’s current sensation managed to mix business and pleasure on every film.

When the ladylike blonde from Philadelphia was making Mogambo with Clark Gable she dated Gable. When she was co-starring with Ray Milland in Dial M For Murder, she dated the tall Welshman,who at one time was so smitten that he was contemplating breaking up his long-standing marriage. And when Grace Kelly was working with Bing Crosby on Country Girl, she dated him.

For a year or so, all of Grace’s dates were with her leading men.

When other actresses wondered what Grace had that they had not, they were told that “Kelly is quietly beautiful. She isn’t obvious in her display of her physical charm. Kelly is refined and soft-spoken. Kelly is a lady. Kelly’s father owns an $18,000,000 contracting outfit in Philadelphia, and rich girls have always attracted actors, maybe because most of them were poor in their boyhood days.”

As to the concentrated demand by Hollywood studios, it was explained further, “Every few years Hollywood gets the demure, wholesome, refined actress. Twelve years ago it was Greer Garson; six years ago it was Deborah Kerr—both English girls. Now it’s Grace Kelly. She’s hot right now because she’s the first American lady-type actress in more than a decade.”

At twenty-six, there is no doubt that Grace Kelly is a lady. Most important of all she looks like a lady, talks like a lady, dresses like a lady and acts like behavior.

The only unlady-like behavior attributed to her concerns her quick romance with Ray Milland. Grace was under the impression that the Millands were separated when Ray became infatuated with her. This was incorrect, and she diplomatically got rid of Milland.

As for her other leading men, her dates were for friendship, not love. And then, too, there have been those she definitely did not date—such as Stewart Granger, with whom she made Green Fire for MGM and equally happily married Jim Stewart.

Love did not enter Grace Kelly’s life until last summer when Oleg Cassini, forty-two, dress designer and former husband of Gene Tierney, attracted her attention. Then Grace dropped her leading men out of her private world and began to concentrate on Cassini.

Oleg has long been in demand as an ardent, witty, charming and intelligent escort.

He also has an affinity for romance, so last August when Grace had to journey to the French Riviera for location shooting on To Catch A Thief, Oleg found that he had business on the Riviera, too.

At Cannes, Cassini and Kelly were virtually inseparable. When Grace was gambling for small stakes at the Monte Carlo casino, so was Oleg.

Always poised, Grace is as reluctant to talk about romance with Cassini as she was to publicize dates with Crosby, Milland, Gable. Friends, however, don’t hesitate to say they disapprove of Oleg as husband material, hope they aren’t already married.

On Carleton Beach, Grace and her mustached friend sunbathed together, swam together, went boating together.

GRACE, WHO GOES swimming in a conservative bathing suit, explained at the time that she and Oleg were merely acquaintances.

“Right now,” she said, “I don’t feel that I can combine marriage and a career. My career is just beginning and it requires constant care and attention. The same thing, I think, is true of marriage.

“At the moment my career is getting most of my attention. Certainly I’m interested in marriage. What single girl isn’t? But I don’t think I could mix them at this particular time.”

THAT’S WHAT Grace said in Cannes. And oddly enough, no one believed her. According to one European, “Kelly claims she isn’t interested in marriage. But Cassini certainly is. He is occupying the room directly across from her in the Carleton Hotel. He has admitted to friends that he is crazy about her and hopes to marry her.

“Kelly is not well known here. Only High Noon has been released. But she is very striking and unusually ladylike. She and Cassini are inseparable. No doubt this is a serious love affair, as Cassini is not the type to go chasing rainbows. He probably will leave for Paris a day ahead of her.”

Grace with Cassini (Gene Tierney’s ex.)

From Paris, the same man observed, “No doubt now about Kelly-Cassini entente Seems he knew her back in New York when she was a struggling young TV actress. Then he was still married to Gene Tierney but separated. Currently Cassini is showing Kelly most of Paris. Yesterday he took her to the Jacques Fath party. She dressed very simply, as usual. She is such a fresh. clean-looking girl, she looks as though she spent the night on a bed of mint. Cassini confided that he will drive her to Le Havre when she sails for New York (then flies to Hollywood). She is joining Cary Grant and Betsy Drake at Le Havre. Probably Cassini will not sail with her.

“He is very shrewd and diplomatic about the press. Undoubtedly, he will join her in Hollywood where she goes to finish the Hitchcock picture. My guess is that Cassini will wear her down, probably marry her before the year is out. The Paris reaction to Kelly was very good, although the men were surprised to see an American actress who isn’t built like Monroe.

“Hitchcock says Kelly is a fine actress who has many of Ingrid Bergman’s qualities. Newsmen find her careful and unresponsive. She is a tough interview, no anecdotes, no color, speaks in measured sentences. Cassini is hitting forty, tops her by fifteen years. He is the first Hollywood and New York figure younger than her father to get serious about her. . . . She definitely appeals to older, sophisticated men. We hear she has a younger sister very pretty, more flesh on her bones.

“She and Cassini have worked out a travel system whereby he arrives in town a day before or a day after she does. Then they get together. There has been absolutly nothing between Kelly and Cary Grant, despite some rumors.”

WHEN GRACE KELLY arrived in Hollywood to complete To Catch A Thief, Oleg Cassini (Grace calls him “Oleeg”) was not far behind.

Cassini told reporters he had come to Hollywood on business. He has been a studio dress designer for many years.

“Who’s he kidding?” asked one reporter. “Everyone knows his business is Kelly.”

Oleg visited her on the Paramount lot practically every day. They lunched and talked and tried to dodge the questions of more inquiring reporters.

“You and Grace going steady?” Cassini was asked one afternoon.

“We’re friends,” he admitted.

“When do you friends plan on getting married?”

Cassini smiled. He is thin, dapper and pleasant.

“That sort of question,” he said, “has to be answered by the lady in question.”

The lady in question was in her dressingroom. The reporter said, “I assume you’re gone on her.”

Cassini grinned. “Yes.” He nodded. “She is certainly beautiful. Grace has a classic beauty and depth—much depth. She is really a very fine person.”

“When do you think you’ll make her Mrs. Cassini?”

Oleg shrugged. He made no secret of his love for Grace. He admitted that he was hanging around Hollywood just to spend his time with her.

But Kelly parried most of the questions about Oleg with practiced verbal agility. “He is a good friend. . . . No, I’d never think of eloping. . . . Quite naturally I like him. . . . Any wedding announcements will come from my parents in the proper manner.”

One afternoon when she was showing her young sister around the hotel grounds, Grace was asked how she had liked her business trip to the Riviera.

“I had a fine time,” she said.

“What is this about you and Oleg Cassini? Anything serious?”

“The weather in France wasn’t too good,” Grace said. “But we all managed to have fun.”

“After you finish Thief,” she was asked, “what do you do?”

“I’m going back to New York, and for six months I’m going to do all the things I haven’t had time to do. I’m going to rest and shop and sleep and—”

“Get married?” she was interrupted.

“I really must be going,” Grace said.

‘Two DAYS LATER, however, when Cassini was with her on the set, a reporter said to Grace, “Now, tell me, what is there about Cassini that you really like?”

For the first time in her Hollywood career, Grace stammered and lost her poise.

“I—I don’t know what you mean.”

“It’s very simple,” the reporter said. “You like Cassini. Everyone knows that. Why do you like him?”

Grace looked at Oleg, and her face reddened. Oleg chuckled.

“I haven’t even told Oleeg why I like him,” Grace said. And then quickly, “My, I’m late now. [ve got to change.”

That week end Grace and Oleg attended the Sonja Henie party, and to the 300 guests it was apparent that what Oleg and Grace felt was love, pure and simple.

One actress remarked, “Those two behave as though they are already married, And they make a very handsome couple, Oleg with his dark hair and dark mustache and Kelly with her blonde loveliness.”

A few days after that party, Grace packed her bags and with Liz Taylor and Laraine Day caught a TWA plane to New York. Cassini had pulled out of Hollywood a day before. His friends said that next time he returned to the coast he would return with Grace Kelly Cassini.

Love being a mercurial, unpredictable quality, Grace Kelly and Oleg Cassini may be man and wife as you read this. If they are not, they soon may be unless, of course, they have found some major disagreement.

It seems unlikely, since Cassini is not the type of fiercely independent man who would insist that Grace give up her acting.

Grace has a long-term contract with MGM, and while she has only made one picture for that studio and, in confidence, she regrets signing that contract, she is nevertheless a professional actress who would not like the idea of abandoning a career that has just rolled into high.

ON OF HER Close friends says, “Grace has reached the age when she needs a husband. She is twenty-six. She comes from a large family and has always wanted a family of her own.

“She has also wanted to prove that she could carve out a career for herself. She’s proven that very nicely, I think. Hers is the most sensational start of any young actress in years.

“She comes from a wealthy Irish family, and she didn’t need to become an actress because she needs the money. She wanted to prove to herself that she could make it on her own. And she has. Whether she will marry Oleg Cassini I don’t know. But if she does, I believe that she will probably make one good picture a year.”

A NEW YORKER who knows Cassini and his brother Igor (who writes a society column under the name of Cholly Knickerbocker) says, “Oleg has always been attracted to young women of beauty and wealth.

“Many years ago he married patent medicine heiress Madcap Mary Fahrney. I think they eloped to Elkton, Maryland. It was around 1938 and Oleg was the Madcap’s fourth husband. He was only a kid at the time, twenty-five, I think, and after the elopement, there was a remarriage, a regular Russian Orthodox affair.

“Mary sued him for divorce, charging infidelity. The next time I heard of Cassini he was out in Hollywood, running a dress shop or something. Gene Tierney fell for him and they eloped on a plane to Vegas. I don’t think it was a long courtship.

“I don’t know what loused up Cassini’s marriage with Gene. I know she offered to give up her career to save their marriage but a mutual friend quoted her as saying, ‘Oleg doesn’t want me without a career.’ Anyway, Gene filed for divorce in California. I guess it was in April of 1952. There were all sorts of jealousy charges. Gene won the divorce and Oleg agreed to pay $63 a week for the support of his two daughters, plus 10% of anything he earned over $10,000 a year. Gene waived alimony; she said she didn’t want a cent for herself.

“If Gene marries Aly Khan and Oleg marries Grace Kelly, I don’t want to be a killjoy, but I don’t think either of those matriages will work out.

“My reasons? Very simple. Gene and Grace are American-born and American-bred. Khan and Cassini are Europeans with European attitudes. And I’ve yet to meet the European who looks upon his wife as an equal.

“Kelly and Tierney are proud and independent. They won’t take a back seat to anyone. Besides, there’s another thing about European husbands; once their wives start growing old and losing their beauty, they start looking around.”

In any case, Grace Kelly is no child. At twenty-six, after years of working, she should know her own heart and mind.

THE END

—BY STEVE CRONIN

 

It is a quote. MODERN SCREEN MAGAZINE DECEMBER 1954