Recent Exhibit: Grace Kelly: From Movie Star to Princess

Anyone who attended the Toronto International Film Festival would have seen the trailer for the TIFF Bell Lighbox fall exhibition about Grace Kelly. The swelling music, the comparisons to Diana and Kate Middleton, the promise of showing her dresses and "yes, even her Oscar".

Now would I have normally paid 15$ to see this (let's admit, fluffy) exhibit? Well, no, but after recently purchasing a discounted TIFF staff membership, I had free admission. And I have always liked Grace Kelly. I actually read a biography of her back in my younger days, and I very rarely read Hollywood biographies. I had seen a good handful of her movies. So really, why not wander over and see what they have?

This was my second time in the exhibit space at the Lightbox and again I hated it. You enter the exhibit through an awkwardly large glass door that looks like an exit. Inside there is one large room, and it's never clear which way to go through - last year I walked through their Tim Burton exhibit backwards. For this exhibit, you walk into a large introductory room, but then are given a choice of paths - and I again took the wrong one. It didn't make too much difference, but I can't imagine it's just me who finds it very unclear.

There is also a separate room off to the side, again with large glass doors that are always closed. It worked well for this exhibit, as it featured one of their prized possessions - a recreation of Kelly's wedding dress. But again, it's not very welcoming and interrupts the flow of the exhibit.

In general, I had two complaints about the exhibit. The first isn't too surprising, once it's clear that one of the organizers is the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco. The point of the exhibit is to celebrate Grace Kelly, and how wonderful she was. It is to marvel at her transformation from upper-class all-American girl to Hollywood leading lady to actual royalty. The exhibit is possible because the archives in Monaco lent her personal items - we see telegrams she received early on in her acting career, clothing she wore, letters she received from close friends such as Alfred Hitchcock, and even home movies she shot of her young family in the 1960s. These are all wonderful artifacts, but it also means that anyone looking for a hint of scandal will leave disappointed. Not that there was ever much gossip about Grace Kelly (she left Hollywood quite young, at the age of 26), but there was nothing negative about her at all. We are meant believe she was the epitome of style and grace, and never made a mistake or had a difficult moment in her life.

There is one letter that stands out among all the others on display. Most are congratulatory, discussing film roles or her Oscar nomination and win in 1955. One, however, is from her father. He writes what he describes as a painful letter, telling her that he and her mother are very disappointed about her relationship at the time with fashion designer Oleg Cassini. This British Vogue article mentions a 2003 biography of Kelly that argues she and Cassini never married because her parents disapproved (he was older, foreign and divorced). Her father, for that matter, was never supportive of his daughter's acting career either. While the exhibit briefly mentions she dated Cassini, it basically discusses how it affected her personal style. And while it describes in great detail her first meeting with Prince Rainier of Monaco (She wasn't wearing a designer dress! The power was out at the hotel so she couldn't blow-dry her hair!), it glosses over how their relationship grew, how they kept in touch, and why they got engaged so quickly - only about six months after meeting.

My second complaint was a complete lack of Kelly's own voice in the exhibit. The only words from Kelly's own mouth were a few quotes on the walls of the exhibit. Everything else - the telegrams, the letters - are written to her. The exhibit does a fine job of taking us through her early days in show business (modeling photographs, magazine covers) to her days as a top actress (movie posters, shooting scripts, film clips) to her days as a royal princess (archival footage of her arrival in Monaco, her clothing) but nothing gives the audience the sense that they know this woman more than any other fan would have in the 1950s. As the TIFF website states, the exhibit wants to celebrate "a figure sure in her own self-creation, fully aware of her consecutive, iconic roles as movie star, bride and Princess of Monaco." And that's what we see throughout the exhibit - the glossy creation known as Grace Kelly, superstar. The young woman who went through these transformations might have been more interesting.