This was a bit of a departure from my standard choice of reading material. When reading biographies I normally stick to persons who lived hundreds if not thousands of years ago. However Grace Kelly has always fascinated me. In my opinion she was the most beautiful woman who lived in the 20th century, with her gorgeous well balanced face, innate elegance and well, grace!
J. Randy Taraborrelli’s, Once Upon a Time, focuses mainly on the marriage and reign of Grace as Princess of Monaco. While outsiders viewed it as a fairy tale come to life, the truth was anything but that. Grace’s choice to marry Rainier and forsake her acting career was one that she would have a very hard time adjusting to, taking years to finally accept her fate. Taraborrelli’s writing was amazing, I felt as if it were almost fiction, the scenes taking place in Grace’s life were described with such vividness. He also showed a real respect for his subject. It’s well known that Grace’s life in Hollywood was not exactly virtuous, she had several affairs, often with married men. While Taraborrelli probes deeply into her life, it’s never salacious or for the sake of being sensational, in fact he refuses to delve deeply into her affairs because it doesn’t really contribute to the goal of his book.
Although real life, Grace’s story has all the elements of a novel. She has a difficult time transitioning to her new life and marriage, accepts it, becomes somewhat embittered to her fate and finally just about two years before her death regains her joy and peace and falls in love again with her husband and he with her. Learning about how Grace and Rainier found love again in their marriage made her sudden death even more tragic. When I read the chapter that described her accident and subsequent death, my heart sank and I actually had to take a break and pause in my reading because it was so sad. I’d never been touched before in that way by a biography.
My only complaint is Taraborrelli’s mysterious glossing over of the first years of the marriage. The events leading up to the wedding are described in minute detail, the then after the ceremony we jump four years ahead to 1960! We miss the critical first months of the marriage and the birth of Grace and Rainier’s first two children. However I still immensely enjoyed this book and highly recommend it to anyone interested in the enigmatic woman who was Grace Kelly.
I really love Grace Kelly too and I’ve been wanting to read a good biography. I haven’t started this one yet but as soon as I finish Lipstick Jihad I will!