Publisher: Dey Street Books
Release Date: October 24, 2017
A Conversation with Manoah Bowman & Jay Jorgensen
“Mr. Hitchcock taught me everything about cinema. It was thanks to him that I understood that murder scenes should be shot like love scenes and love scenes like murder scenes.” -Grace Kelly
The creative relationship between Grace Kelly and Alfred Hitchcock was one of the most mutually beneficial in the history of cinema. It’s nearly impossible to even discuss the director’s work without mentioning Grace Kelly’s name. However, she was so much more than the master’s temporary muse. No movie star of the 1950s was more beautiful, sophisticated, or glamorous than Grace Kelly. The epitome of elegance, the patrician young blonde from Philadelphia conquered Hollywood and won an Academy Award for Best Actress in just six years, then married a prince in a storybook royal wedding. Today, more than thirty years after her death, Grace Kelly remains an inspiring fashion icon. This book by Jay Jorgensen and Manoah Bowman is being promoted as “the definitive visual biography of Grace Kelly’s unforgettable Hollywood career,” and we are happy to report that this isn’t merely hype. Filled with a dazzling array of photographs (many of which are quite rare), Grace Kelly: Hollywood Dream Girl showcases the legend’s brief yet significant acting career as never before.
Alfred Hitchcock Master is honored to have had the opportunity to interview both Jay Jorgensen and Manoah Bowman about their work, and we are proud to present that interview here for your reading enjoyment.
AHM: Tell us a bit about GRACE KELLY: HOLLYWOOD DREAM GIRL. How is this book different from previous books about the actress’s life?
Manoah Bowman: Thank you for asking. This is a very important question. The answer is in the title — GRACE KELLY: HOLLYWOOD DREAM GIRL. This is the first book to focus on Grace Kelly the actress. Practically every biography and coffee table book splits her life into two equal size sections due to the relatively short time she worked in Hollywood. Often her contribution to the movies gets shortchanged outside of the Hitchcock films so we made an effort to delve not only into these films but also her process as an actress. This book takes a more “behind the scenes” approach than any other book on her has ever attempted. Basically what you are getting is a lot less Monaco and a lot more of the movies.
AHM: I think that the book more than lives up to your intentions. How did the original idea for such a book arise, and what were the biggest challenges in making it a reality?
Manoah Bowman: This is a book I have wanted to do since I saw the Hitchcock reissues in the early 1980’s. Some of those films had been out of circulation for many years and I was particularly impressed by Rear Window. Having only been exposed to Princess Grace at that point I was awestruck by Grace Kelly the movie star, and her eye-popping introduction in that film is burned into my subconscious for life. The greatest challenge in making the book a reality was two-fold. One, finding a publisher that was okay with making the book about her movies and not her time as a real-life princess. And two, finding any photo of her that was previously unpublished. Fans are so hungry for photos of her that there are literally Tumblr pages, Instagram accounts, and Pinterest walls with every clipping, photo, and magazine cover ever taken of her. The fans have infiltrated every photo agency around the world and left virtually no stone unturned. We were fortunate to have a large collection of Grace material between us that we had been archiving for many years prior to the internet so we do have quite a few images unavailable anywhere else…at least in good quality.
AHM: The photographs are really quite remarkable. In fact, some of the publicity stills are better than the films that they were supposed to promote! Which of the eleven films made during her brief career stands as your personal favorite, and why does this film win out over the others?
Manoah Bowman: Rear Window is my personal favorite because it is a virtually perfect film and she is perfect in it. Though I may actually enjoy watching To Catch a Thief more because she seems to be having a better time with the part.
Jay Jorgensen: I think Rear Window is her best film, but I return to To Catch a Thief more often. Grace takes a character for which the audience really shouldn’t have much sympathy, and has us eating out of her hand. While Rear Window may boast a better script, Thief has the more glamorous locations and more opportunities for humor. I think by that time Grace also knew exactly what Hitchcock expected of her, and is a lot more at ease in her role.
AHM: One notices that there is a bit more material in the book about the three films that she made with Alfred Hitchcock than is included for her other films. For example, the section about REAR WINDOW includes an additional essay entitled “Dangerous Female” by Sloan De Forest, the publicity campaign manuals for all three films are included, and there even seems to be a few more photos available for these chapters. Why did you decide to include more material for these films?
Manoah Bowman: This was completely calculated on our part. Not only do we agree that these are the films she is most remembered for today, it is also readily apparent how Alfred Hitchcock and his work continues to amaze and inspire. To make this book appeal to a wider group of fans and scholars we took aim at the Hitchcock crowd as well. Our chapters on these films are more photographically in depth than any other Grace Kelly or Alfred Hitchcock photo book previously published.
AHM: How do you think working with Hitchcock influenced the actress personally, and how did this association change the public’s perception of her? Did this have any effect on the films that she made for different directors?
Jay Jorgensen: I think working with Hitchcock made all the difference. Before Hitchcock, I am not sure that any director had really taken the time to teach Grace how to act specifically for the camera. High Noon had to be shot very quickly because of the budget, and on Mogambo, John Ford was managing an enormous production on location. But Dial ‘M’ for Murder was filmed on one soundstage, and Hitchcock saw that Grace needed a lot of direction and taught her how to modulate her performance. But it was Rear Window that really put Grace on the map in the mind of the public. Grace may have had very definite ideas about the types of roles she wanted to play, and sometimes about her wardrobe, but the script and the director were the blueprints to her performance. It’s why so many people wanted to work with her. There was no temperament on the set. I think it’s a big part of why she won the Oscar over Judy Garland.
AHM: I also wanted to touch upon something that is discussed briefly in the book regarding a performance that she was never able to give. Hitchcock had originally intended to pull Princess Grace out of retirement so that she could star in MARNIE—a role that eventually fell into Tippi Hedren’s lap. What qualities do you think Grace Kelly would’ve brought to the role, and how do you think this would have changed the finished film?
Manoah Bowman: One of the single greatest regrets of my life is that I don’t live in a reality where Grace Kelly played Marnie. Marnie is my favorite Hitchcock film and I can only imagine how I’d love it even more if Grace had gotten to star in it.
Jay Jorgensen: I think just by virtue of the mystery in Marnie hinging on sex, it may have presented some problems for Grace after it was released. But both Grace and Rainier had read the script, and they trusted Hitchcock’s taste. Grace may have brought more of a warmth to the character and made her more sympathetic. But I think Hedren perfectly captured a woman who is cold and doesn’t understand her own motivations.
AHM: The book mentions Grace Kelly’s fondness for practical jokes. It was apparently a trait that she shared with Alec Guinness—but Alfred Hitchcock was also notoriously fond of pulling elaborate practical jokes on people. I couldn’t help but be curious as to whether she and Hitchcock pulled jokes on each other.
Jay Jorgensen: Hitchcock enjoyed telling bawdy stories in front of Grace to try to chip away at her ladylike demeanor. Grace was nonplussed and told him that she’d already heard all those stories when she was growing up at girls’ school.
AHM: Right. I think the book actually mentioned that and discusses her sense of humor. I think that her sense of humor (or appreciation for humor) is why she was able to work with Hitchcock so effectively… Going beyond your interest in her film career, which aspects of Grace Kelly’s life do you find the most interesting?
Jay Jorgensen: For a woman born into wealth, Grace Kelly had an amazing work ethic. It’s tough to imagine now, but things did not come easy for her. She had to really apply herself in sports at school; she worked very hard to overcome speech problems when she became an actress; when she was so unhappy with her performance in High Noon, she sought out one of the best acting teachers in New York; and she listened and learned from every director she worked with—especially Hitchcock. This discipline served her well when she got to Monaco. She could have spent her days only entertaining society ladies, but she worked hard to make Monaco a better place for its residents—especially the poor and the aged. She was an especially compassionate and empathetic person, for someone who could have rested on her wealth and beauty.
AHM: Nicole Kidman portrayed Princess Grace in GRACE OF MONACO—a film about her marriage to Prince Rainier III. I don’t believe that it was well received, but I was wondering what your opinions about that film might be. Have either of you seen the film?
Jay Jorgensen: I don’t know if the problems with that film are specifically in Kidman’s performance. The filmmakers chose to focus on a time in Grace’s life where Monaco was being threatened by a blockade from France, and Grace was also being offered the role in Marnie by Hitchcock. Then they threw in a misplaced intrigue where Princess Antoinette tries to dethrone Rainier, and a fabricated showdown between Grace and de Gaulle, and it’s all a jumbled mess. To me, the real tragedy of Grace’s life was that after serving Monaco so honorably, and raising her children, it appeared that she was just about to get her creative life back when the accident happened. Kidman didn’t try to mimic Grace, and that must have been her conscious choice as an actress. Had the film been historically accurate, or if Kidman had delivered a performance that really evoked Grace, perhaps the film might have had a chance. But Grace’s real life was almost unrecognizable in the film.
AHM: Worse, the changes didn’t result in a dramatically compelling film… How does Grace Kelly’s style differ from other actresses from that period? For example, how would it compare to Audrey Hepburn’s influence on fifties fashion?
Jay Jorgensen: I believe Audrey’s collaboration with Givenchy, beginning with Sabrina, showed she was more forward-thinking in terms of fashion than Grace. Grace was very concerned about appearing as a serious actress in Hollywood, and not a fashion plate. Therefore the “Grace Kelly look” she influenced in the fifties was a more casual or tailored look. However, when Grace began dating designer Oleg Cassini, he convinced her that dressing well off-screen helped display a certain versatility as well. So while Grace was keenly aware of what worked for her onscreen in Rear Window (made in 1954) her off-screen fashion sense was pretty conservative until 1955. But the clothes in Rear Window and To Catch a Thief look as fresh today as when they were designed. That is a tribute not only to Grace but to designer Edith Head, who had to make sure that clothes didn’t appear dated between the time a film was made and the time it was released.
Interview by: Devon Powell
