The Girl in White Gloves

by Kerri Maher

  Then, a few days before her audition for Cyrano, she woke up with a nasty cold, and no matter what she did—and she tried everything, including hot baths every night, metallic-tasting medicine, cups and cups of hot water with lemon and honey, and even a wretched little contraption called a neti pot that Don swore by but made her gag and splutter as vile goop poured from her sinuses—her voice still was not right the day of her audition. Plus she was even more blind than usual from the lack of sleep. She didn’t even get a callback.

  Was God punishing her for her wayward behavior? Her Catholic upbringing suddenly made her feel abjectly guilty. Was it possible she wasn’t getting Broadway parts because of the way she was conducting her personal life? But that was ridiculous, she countered inside her own head. Look how morally bankrupt half the leading lights on Broadway were! By comparison, her limited dalliances with married men seemed positively innocent; besides, she told herself for the umpteenth time, once she was married, she’d never cheat. So what was the problem? Why couldn’t she just get a damn part?

  While she was in this low mood, Oleg—handsome, single (if formerly married), artistic Oleg—sent her another heavy vase of fragrant blooms, and this time he included a funny poem: “Roses are red, violets are blue, please, Grace Kelly, do give me a clue.” And below it he wrote, “Hope you’re feeling better and that we can have dinner soon.” Doubled over, Grace laughed until she coughed and had to sit down. Goodness, she liked him. More than she’d liked anyone in a long time. And perhaps God was sending her a man instead of a part on Broadway for a reason.

  She planned to proceed with caution. This was not some on-set fling. Oleg’s star was rising in the fashion world, and his movements were carefully monitored by New York socialites and artists alike. And she was gaining fame, too, what with Mogambo movie posters with her face plastered everywhere she looked. New York reporters weren’t as intrusive as their Hollywood counterparts, but they would have a field day with a relationship between a fashion designer and a movie actress.

  So she said yes to dinner with Oleg, but—enjoying the sense that she held all the cards for once—she wrote him a note explaining that their date would have to wait until she felt better and until after the Mogambo premiere.

  Then she was presented with the most wonderful choice of her career—it was so wonderful, Grace couldn’t help but feel that God must not only have forgiven her sins but entirely approved of her choices.

  Jaybird called to tell her she’d been offered two parts, and she had to choose one or the other because the filming for each would happen at the same time: Edie Doyle opposite Marlon Brando in a screen adaptation of On the Waterfront, which Elia Kazan was shooting himself in New York City. Or Lisa Fremont opposite James Stewart in Hitch’s next movie, a thriller called Rear Window, which would take place in New York but be filmed in a Hollywood studio. Hitch was planning to build the largest set ever created just to make an authentic facsimile of the backs of two apartment buildings with a shared courtyard.

  What a decision! She couldn’t sleep or eat for thinking about it. Her heart was not a reliable source of information, as it beat faster when she thought of both films.

  She discussed it with everyone—Don, Rita, Sandy, Josephine, Judy, Jay, Maree, and even Peggy while she sizzled pork chops for her family on the other end of the line. There was a fifty-fifty split vote on which movie she should do. Actually, Jay and Sandy refused to vote—they told her to take the part that spoke to her most. Initially, that was impossible to discern. So she read and reread the scripts, and began to feel a stronger affinity for Lisa Fremont in Hitch’s movie.

  This surprised her. She was certain that had Jay given her this choice a year ago, she’d have chosen On the Waterfront in a heartbeat. Without even thinking. It was based on a successful Broadway play, after all, and she’d get to study with the legendary Elia Kazan. And it would also give her the opportunity to play a hardscrabble working-class girl, against type.

  However, the role was much smaller than that of Lisa Fremont. And when she read Hitch’s script, she actually heard her own voice speaking Lisa’s words. It came naturally. Though the challenge of playing Edie appealed to her, Grace couldn’t quite see herself playing the part. Plus, she could see her performance getting utterly eclipsed by Marlon’s. If she was going to pick a movie to further her career, Hitch’s was the right choice.

  She’d just about made the final decision when Hitch tipped the scales by calling her directly.

  “This is your part, Grace,” he said, his low voice carrying all the way across the country. “No one else can play it but you. I know you have another opportunity with Elia, and I can’t say a word against him, as I have nothing but the utmost respect for his talent. But you are Lisa Fremont.”

  Everyone, including Jay and Sandy, was so pleased when she took the part in Rear Window, it was like they’d all been holding their breath, hoping she’d make that very choice. Judybird and Jaybird toasted her in their cozy apartment a few days before she left to go back to Hollywood, and Jay said, “Hitch is going to make you a star, Grace. I’m glad you didn’t take the risk with Kazan.”

  “Don’t say that, Jay. She’d have been terrific.” Judy waved her husband’s comment away.

  “She would have, of course,” Jay agreed, and Grace could tell he meant it. “But I think audiences would have been confused. They would have asked, Who is Grace Kelly? Hitch will make it easy for them to answer that question.”

  Not too easy, Grace hoped, for there was something in Jay’s excitement about Alfred Hitchcock making her into Grace Kelly that made her grind her teeth and want to change her mind.

  But the part of Edie Doyle had already been accepted by Eva Marie Saint, and it was gone.

  * * *

  On the red carpet for Mogambo on a chilly autumn night, Clark Gable was effusive in his praise of Grace to the press, and Ava wrapped her in a tight hug. For once the photographers were restrained and complimentary, and Grace felt glamorous and desired. “Can you believe we started filming a year ago?” she remarked to Ava, as they sipped champagne from gold-rimmed coupes.

  “I know. Can you believe we were in Africa?” Ava replied.

  “From Africa to King Arthur’s court for you,” laughed Grace. “I can’t wait to see you play Guinevere.” Ava’s next movie, Knights of the Round Table, would be out by the end of the year.

  “And back into Hitchcock’s den for you,” said Ava. “I heard you’re going to do a second one with him?”

  The two of them chatted excitedly about their upcoming projects. Ava even said to Grace, “You know, I’m a bit jealous. Hitchcock hasn’t had a muse since Ingrid Bergman. And look what he did for her career.”

  Grace blushed and felt hot inside her head and chest. She hadn’t thought of Ingrid Bergman when she was making her choice, but Ava was right, which only reinforced her decision.

  Then Frank came over and put his arm around Ava, planting a warm kiss on her cheek. But Ava didn’t break eye contact with Grace, and appeared annoyed at the sudden affectionate appearance of her husband. The three of them made some small talk; then it was time to see the movie. Clark, Grace noticed, continued to keep his distance from her. After his initial greeting and kiss on the cheek, he’d steered clear of her. Inwardly, she shrugged. She saw now that his avoidance was a confirmation that something had sparked between them.

  As the lights dimmed in the theater and the jibber-jabber of the audience dwindled to silence, Grace felt excitement rise in her chest. She had to admit she enjoyed being part of an audience viewing her work, as she could never be onstage. Not only could she experience the part as an actress; she could enjoy the other performances as an audience member.

  Watching herself in her third feature film, on-screen with Clark and Ava, stirred something in Grace. There I am. And her performance was good. Though she could remember what had been going through her mind right b
efore and after each and every scene, she could also remember how her mind had cleared while the camera spun its celluloid from one reel to another, how she’d become Linda Nordley in those moments. And the results of that discipline were clear: the audience was rapt. Even her father would have to admit that this time, Grace had done well. Surely.

  Cyrano and the stage seemed very far away from the comfortable movie theater seat in which she watched herself that night. And her first date with Oleg was in just a few days’ time. Then another movie with Hitch was just around the corner. Was that happiness she felt flutter inside her? Butterflies hatching from cocoons they’d been trapped inside too long.

  Chapter 15

  Edith Head was Grace’s new favorite person in Hollywood—maybe anywhere. The designer with the thick black glasses, severe bangs, and dark hair was nearly the only person Hitch trusted with his costumes, and Grace could see why. Edith was practical and no-nonsense, and she had an impeccable eye. Over lunch at Musso & Frank, they discussed the upcoming scene in Rear Window in which Grace’s Lisa Fremont would inform Jim Stewart’s Jeff Jefferies that she’d be spending the night in his tiny apartment, and what the sartorial needs of the scene were: Lisa had to be seductive but ladylike, cosmopolitan but girlish. The Mark Cross overnight bag that Edith had found was a stroke of genius in Grace’s opinion. It gave Grace’s character the opportunity to show her practical side in precisely the superficial way her boyfriend could not abide, which made him even more skeptical of Lisa’s ability to tag along while he took prizewinning photos around the world because, as his character put it, “You don’t sleep much, you bathe even less, and you’d have to eat things that you wouldn’t want to look at while they were alive.”

  Grace and Edith had a good laugh about that over steak and salad at lunch.

  “Why is the poor son of a bitch going out with Lisa anyway?” Edith mused.

  “Lust,” said Grace.

  They both laughed.

  “Maybe the better question is why Lisa wants to be with Jeff,” said Edith. “What does he offer her, besides a bohemian life she doesn’t really want? And he’s constantly putting off her advances—he hardly seems like a man consumed by lust.”

  “Oh, that much I can understand,” said Grace. “Haven’t you ever wanted someone who keeps you at arm’s length? It can be a very effective method of seduction.” She thought of Don and Gene. Clark.

  “No,” said Edith emphatically.

  “Well, then, maybe I should be taking more than clothing lessons from you.”

  In truth, though, Edith took a few cues from Grace, and Hitch let the two of them create Lisa Fremont together. Grace encouraged Edith to make Lisa’s dress as frothy as possible for her first scene in the movie, and so she’d designed a stunning black-and-white dress with a gorgeous bell of a skirt that swirled like fairy dust around her legs, and rustled just so, then wrapped tightly around her waist and shoulders and gave her the stature of a ballet dancer. Grace added her own pearl choker and earrings, and “Voilà!” Edith exclaimed. “Lisa Fremont. In this dress, no one will even notice how flat-chested you are.”

  “Well, you added just the right amount of padding, magician that you are,” said Grace, feeling curvy and sultry in Edith’s concoction.

  “No magic here,” said Edith. “I prefer to think of myself as a sartorial surgeon.”

  Grace shivered. “I don’t like scalpels,” she said. “I prefer to think of you as my fairy godmother.”

  “You won’t call me that out loud if you value your career,” said Edith, pointing her shiny stainless steel scissors at Grace.

  “Bibbidi-bobbidi-boo,” teased Grace.

  “You! No one would guess what a little insubordinate you are, Grace Kelly,” Edith said, and though her surface tone was irritated, beneath that were musical notes of respect and surprise, and Grace beamed inside.

  She also took an apartment with Rita on Sweetzer Avenue in West Hollywood, and the two of them spent many hours between Grace’s shoots and Rita’s work and auditions taking long walks through the hills around the nearby Chateau Marmont, sweating out the industry tension that permeated their skin. In the simple flat, one of hundreds of similar apartments in low, square buildings on a street lined with purple flowering jacarandas and miniature palm trees, they took turns cooking simple meals and taking each other’s telephone messages on a yellow pad of paper in a red pen that they kept by the phone in the kitchen. They’d draw little happy faces and dancing stick figures for people they liked, and angry faces and pots of wet noodles for people they didn’t. Rita didn’t discuss it, and Grace didn’t pry, but Sidney was living in New York. She rarely took messages from Rita’s husband on their pad. But there was an increasing number from Oleg Cassini for Grace.

  In addition to writing letters once or twice a week, he also called and entertained her with tales about the Persian Room and the Copa, ice-skaters in Central Park, and the Christmas windows at Macy’s. Every time they hung up, she felt a tightness in her body that rarely loosened on its own—she always had to do something, like take a walk or read a consuming novel or go to work. Though she recognized the feeling as longing, she wasn’t entirely sure what it was she wanted: Oleg or New York.

  She’d signed the lease for Sweetzer on something of a whim, in a fit of pique, fed up with living in a hotel all the time and anxious to make her own coffee and oatmeal every morning, to keep a few photos and personal items she wouldn’t have to schlep coast to coast every time she had a job. But once she had actually brought her suitcases to the bedroom and unpacked them into the dresser she’d gotten at an antique store in the Valley, Grace felt suddenly winded, and had a hard time catching her breath. Sinking down on the bed, she felt the fear and sadness build in her chest.

  She told herself she was being silly. An apartment in Los Angeles was a practical decision. It didn’t mean she wasn’t going back to New York. In fact, she was lucky that she had the means to make her life more comfortable this way. What did it matter how much time she would actually spend in this apartment? What mattered was that it would make her happier to shoot movies if she knew she had a place with a friend that felt a little more like home.

  And she did love working with Hitch. Every day on the set was an affirmation of that; she was learning as much from him about craft as she had at the Academy or from Sandy. Hitch taught her about restraint, about the power of silence in a scene and in a movie overall, and how to show just enough—never too much—emotion for the camera. But their relationship wasn’t merely a teacher-student one; Hitch treated her if not as an equal (for he considered no one his equal, and in a strange way, this was part of his charm), then at least as a trusted professional whose ideas mattered to him. They’d also developed a ritual of trading Catholic jokes when they greeted each other in the morning. Hitch was always delighted when she delivered one he’d never heard. His favorite was “The Mother Superior went to the corner market and asked for a hundred ten bananas for herself and the other nuns, and the salesman told her it would be more economical to buy a hundred twenty-five. The Mother Superior replied, ‘Ah well, I suppose we could eat the other fifteen.’” Then, when he told her the one about two nuns cycling down a cobbled street, and she replied, “Oh, Hitch, I went to a girls’ convent school. You’ll have to try harder than that,” he laughed so hard, she thought maybe he would choke.

  Grace reveled in reliving these details with Uncle George on her days off. Now that Grace had moments of her own to offer, their conversations felt more balanced instead of sounding like a dialogue between an instructor and his protégée. “Oh, Grace,” Uncle George said one cool November day over Thanksgiving leftovers at his Palm Springs house while William took a nap, “I am so glad you’ve finally found someone who appreciates your considerable talents.”

  “You mean someone other than you,” she said.

  “Well, yes. One never believes one’s family in the s
ame way as a stranger. Correction,” he quickly added. “We never believe the good our family says of us. We’re only too quick to believe the bad things they say.”

  “Mmmm.” Grace nodded, feeling warm with bread stuffing and understanding. Too bad you’re not my father, she almost said. Instead, she wondered, “Maybe those bad things they say about us are what make us want to be different from them.”

  “I know that’s true for me,” said George, “but I always thought in your case it was different.”

  “How?”

  “You still want their approval.”

  “How could I not?” she asked. “They’re my parents, my sisters and brother.”

  “Perhaps it was my . . . other choices that helped me shut out their voices in my head,” George mused. “Perhaps it’s different for you because you’re a woman who wants the things women have been told to want.”

  Grace sighed, glancing down at her hands, her naked ring finger. “Sometimes I wish I didn’t.”

  “Never wish away your truth,” he said. Then, without waiting for her to reply, he picked up the bottle of white wine and refilled their glasses. “This goes well with the last of the pumpkin pie. And I want to hear more about Jimmy Stewart.”

  Another happy surprise on the picture was that her relationship with Jim was mercifully drama free. He’d been extremely professional from the start, shaking her hand and telling her how much he’d enjoyed her performances in High Noon and Mogambo.

  “If you thought she was good in those, wait till you see Dial M,” Hitch had interjected, for that film still hadn’t been released.

  Grace wasn’t sure if it was because Jim was so engrossed in the acting, and his character did indeed hold hers at arm’s length, or if it was because he was such a gentleman, but he never once suggested the two of them be anything other than colleagues. He had been married to Gloria McLean since 1949, but that hardly meant anything—Grace had to look no further than Don, Gene, or Ray Milland for proof of that. And yet, when Gloria visited the set and Jim greeted her with an affectionate kiss on the cheek, Grace had the sense that this couple had found the real thing in each other, a love and companionship that would endure.