PARIS EXHIBITION:SHE WAS A princess of American society, a princess of the silver screen and then a serene princess. Grace Kelly, the Philadelphia-born daughter of Irish ancestry, was the fairytale princess of the 20th century, and her story, in all its detail, is being told this summer in Paris.
Les Années de Grace Kelly, Princesse de Monaco, opened in Paris last week at the Hôtel de Ville, the city hall. The exhibition, curated by Frédéric Mitterrand, tells her story in rich personal detail.
"Prince Albert was very helpful in putting together the exhibition. He gave me free rein. There was no censorship, though when I came across a photograph of her in the bath he asked, 'Is it really necessary to see my mother in the bath?'" Mitterrand said.
Bath time aside, the level of detail in the exhibition is fascinating. It traces Kelly's life as a girl in Philadelphia, through her career as an icon of the 1950s and through to her fairytale marriage to a real prince and her life as royalty and as a mother.
Here you will find the childish scrapbooks of a young woman, tickets stubs and matchbook covers, gum wrappers and event programmes, with little notes of the memories they are preserving.
The career that began after drama school in New York is outlined in film posters, theatre programmes, advertising shoots and some great photographs, particularly those taken by Howell Conant in Jamaica in 1955.
There is plenty of correspondence from her Hollywood friends on show, including a letter warning her of the attentions of one Jack Nicholson.
The correspondence between Kelly and Alfred Hitchcock is charming in that it shows the obvious fondness they had for one another. She was Hitchcock's image of the perfect ice blonde and appeared in several of his films.
The wedding details are all here, too: the seating plan for the cathedral in Monaco, telegrams, notes and love letters from Prince Rainier, and her wedding dress.
That she took to the life of a princess is obvious from the diaries, and in the details she put into planning life at the palace.
The 1960s were the Monaco's heyday, with the golden couple putting it on the social map. Princess Grace revived the principality's greatest balls - the Red Cross and the Rose Ball - and transformed them into major events.
In fashion, Kelly was elegant and understated, as evidenced by the selection of her dresses on show.
The happiness of her family life is obvious in the films, which she herself shot, appearing, like Hitchcock, only in cameos. Some of the happy holidays are filmed in Ireland during family trips here.
• The exhibition Les Années de Grace Kelly, Princesse de Monaco is free, and runs at the Hôtel de Ville in Paris every day except Sundays from 10am to 7pm (doors close 6.15pm) until August 16th