IF YOU GO
WHAT: “From Philadelphia to Monaco: Grace Kelly — Beyond the Icon.”
WHEN: Oct. 28-Jan. 26.
WHERE: James A. Michener Art Museum, 138 S. Pine St., Doylestown.
HOURS: The exhibit will be open 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. weekdays (until 8 p.m. Thursdays), 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturdays and noon to 5 p.m. Sundays.
ADMISSION: The exhibition will be using a timed ticket system. Tickets are available at www.michenermuseum.org or (800) 595-4849. Cost is $18, $17 for seniors, $16 for students, $8 for ages 6-18. Advance tickets will not be sold at the museum. Museum members do not need timed tickets.
DOYLESTOWN — “From Philadelphia to Monaco: Grace Kelly — Beyond the Icon” will make you nostalgic for a time before celebrities got rewarded for bad behavior, and when fashion wasn’t quite so disposable.
Opening this week at the James A. Michener Art Museum in Doylestown — the only U.S. venue to display the exhibition — museum director and CEO Lisa Tremper Hanover said, “Her style and elegance still resonates today. She made it look effortless.”
A quote painted on one of the exhibit walls from the Philadelphia native, movie star, fashion plate of the ’50s and ’60s, and Princess of Monaco, speaks to the ladylike manner that Kelly carried herself.
“I would like to be remembered as someone who accomplished useful deeds, and who was a kind and loving person. I would like to leave the memory of a human being with a correct attitude and who did her best to help others,” she said.
Kristina Haugland, author of two books on Kelly, and the Le Vine Associate Curator of Costume and Textiles and Supervising Curator for the Study Room at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, noted that because Kelly didn’t blatantly play up her sex appeal, as many other movie stars did, “she was able to get away with much more onscreen.”
For example, she said, her prolonged kiss with Jimmy Stewart in Alfred Hitchcock’s “Rear Window,” “for most actresses, that would be vulgar.”
That so many of Kelly’s conservative-yet-classic dresses, suits, movie costumes, evening wear — even bathing robes — are available to display comes from what Haugland described as Kelly’s “attitude toward clothes.”
“She was as loyal to them as she was her old friends,” she said.
She became such a fashion icon that a certain style of handbag became known as “the Kelly bag.”
Among Kelly’s old friends were Cary Grant, Alfred Hitchcock — for whom she was the leading lady in three of his movies — and singer Bing Crosby, Kelly’s co-star in the movie “High Society.”
A handwritten note to Kelly from Crosby, which is featured in the exhibit, expresses warm Christmas wishes and hopes that “1955 brings you even greater personal satisfaction than 1954, like maybe an Oscar.”
Shortly thereafter, Kelly won the Academy Award for Best Actress for the film “The Country Girl.” Her Oscar trophy and the 22-inch waist gown she wore to the ceremonies are a highlight of the exhibit.
A 1965 letter from Hitchcock asks a favor from Kelly to pull some strings with the palace guards of Monaco to play a joke on the legendary director’s vacationing secretary.
“The master of suspense” closed his letter with: “I long to see you again so that we can have a few jokes (clean ones!).”
Kelly first met Prince Rainier III of Monaco during a photo shoot for “Paris Match” magazine (the cover is included in “Beyond the Icon”). They married in 1956. Some of the correspondence from their budding relationship makes it into the exhibit.
According to Haugland, Kelly agreed to donate her wedding dress to the Art Museum, even before the wedding took place, as a sort of apologetic gesture to those disappointed that she chose to get married in Monaco, instead of Philadelphia.
Although that dress is too fragile to leave the Art Museum, the dress and headpiece from the civil wedding ceremony, plus the shoes and headpiece from the Royal Wedding are on display at the Michener.
Among several of the video vignettes scattered throughout “Beyond the Icon” is color film footage of the wedding.
There are also home movies that reveal Kelly to be a princess comfortable with being a mother with a domestic home life.
Other items from the archives of the Palace of Monaco and the Grimaldi Forum, include eye-catching photographs; clips and posters of Kelly’s films, including “Mogambo,” “The Swan,” “High Noon” and “The Bridges at Toko-Ri” (which was based on a James Michener novel); even a 45 rpm single she recorded with Crosby, “True Love.” Bring your cell phone to “Beyond the Icon” to dial up more information on these Princess Grace artifacts.
“Most art museums take a broad view of cultural arts. Grace Kelly and fashion fall into that,” said Hanover, adding that Kelly’s fashion sensibilities and collaboration with designers like Dior, Chanel and Givenchy, classifies as textile arts.
As a tie-in to “Beyond the Icon,” the Michener Museum also features the exhibit “Local Mill Makes Good: Celebrating 75 years of American Theater at the Bucks County Playhouse.” Kelly’s first acting appearances were on the stage there. Open through March 2, you can learn how Kelly and other well-known actors appeared at the Bucks County Playhouse, including Robert Redford, Liza Minnelli, Helen Hayes, Walter Matthau, Angela Lansbury and Shirley Booth.
“Go see where (Kelly) performed at the playhouse, and go see her movies,” said Paul Bencivengo of Visit Bucks County, mentioning that the County Theater in Doylestown was going to be showing “Dial ‘M’ for Murder,” “To Catch a Thief” and “Rear Window.” Visit www.countytheater.org for more information.
He encouraged those visiting the area to see “Beyond the Icon” to make a weekend out of it by visiting the shops in downtown Doylestown, plus Peddler’s Village, Bucks County’s nine wineries and more. Check www.visitbuckscounty.com.
A sample of special ticketed museum programming in conjunction with “Beyond the Icon” includes:
• “Adorning Grace: Jewelry Fit for a Princess,” noon to 5 p.m. Nov. 3.
• “Grace Kelly: 1950s Fashion Star, 7 p.m. Nov. 7.
See more at www.michenermuseum.org/events.
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