Living with Grace: Life Lessons from America’s Princess

Mallory, a motion picture archivist and historian, delivers a lighthearted account of American actress Grace Kelly’s rise to stardom. Mallory describes Kelly as a “shy and insecure... pudgy teenager” who developed a passion for storytelling and acting. Fueled by her parents’ ambition, Kelly developed her talent through hard work—incessantly studying vocal inflection, for example, to achieve a sophisticated transatlantic accent. Mallory also shows how Kelly was surprisingly down-to-earth for a Hollywood star and princess. Unlike many actresses of her era, she shopped at department stores and rarely threw out her clothes. The book is enhanced with dozens of stunning photographs of Kelly’s ad campaigns, head shots, and candid snapshots on set, paired with boxed quotes of the actress’s own encouraging words (“The more you learn about yourself, the easier it is to put your best foot forward, showing your best qualities and overcoming your bad ones”). There are certain points, such as how Kelly was choosy about her film and theater roles, that Mallory makes over and over, and she only scratches the surface of Kelly’s life as a princess of Monaco, but readers will still come away with a new appreciation for Kelly as an ordinary person turned starlet. (June)