for: Grace Kelly (song)

Grace Patricia Kelly (later Princess Grace of Monaco; November 12, 1929–September 14, 1982) was an Academy Award-winning American film and stage actress and fashion icon. Upon marrying Rainier III, Prince of Monaco in 1956, she became Her Serene Highness The Princess of Monaco, but was generally known as Princess Grace of Monaco. Princess Grace maintained dual American and Monegasque citizenship after her marriage. The principality's current Sovereign Prince, Albert II, is the son of Prince Rainier and Princess Grace. The American Film Institute ranked Kelly #13 amongst the Greatest Female Stars of All Time.

Family

Grace Patricia Kelly was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to John Brendan Kelly, Sr. (usually known as Jack Kelly), the son of Irish immigrants and Margaret Katherine Maier Kelly (1899–Jan 6, 1990) daughter of German immigrants. She was named after her father's sister, Grace, who died at a young age. The family lived in a house at 3901 Henry Avenue in the East Falls neighborhood of the city. Margaret studied Physical Education at Temple University and later became the first woman to head the Physical Education Department at the University of Pennsylvania. Jack Kelly was a local hero as a triple Olympic-gold-medal-winning sculler. Kelly's brick business was the largest on the East Coast and he was a self-made millionaire. He ran for mayor of Philadelphia as a Democrat in 1935 and lost by the closest margin for any Democrat in Philadelphia. He later served on the Fairmount Park Commission. President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed him National Director of Physical Fitness during World War II.

Kelly's siblings,

• Margaret Katherine (Peggy), born June 13, 1925, in Philadelphia – died November 23, 1991, at 66 years of age in Philadelphia
• John Brendan Jr. (Kell), born May 24, 1927, in Philadelphia – died May 2, 1985, at 57 years of age in Philadelphia
• Elizabeth Anne (Lizanne), born June 1933 in Philadelphia - 75 years old

In 1925 at Margaret's christening Mary Costello Kelly (Grace's grandmother) was disappointed that the baby was not named Grace after her last daughter, who had died at a young age. The following year Mary Kelly died and John Sr. vowed that the next girl he had would be named Grace to honor his late mother's wish. On November 12, 1929, John B. Kelly, Sr., honored his mother's wish with the arrival of Grace Patricia Kelly.

John Jr. won the James E. Sullivan Award in 1947 as the top amateur athlete in the country. As a wedding gift, he gave Grace his bronze medal from the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne, Australia. He was a Philadelphia city councilman, and Kelly Drive there is named for him.

Two of Kelly's uncles (her father's brothers) were prominent in the arts: vaudevillian Walter Kelly and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright George Kelly, who was estranged from his family because of his homosexuality.