Grace Kelly

Born into a prominent Catholic family in Philadelphia, Kelly graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in 1949 and quickly moved through New York stage work into film. Her debut came in 1951's Fourteen Hours, but stardom arrived with High Noon in 1952 and Mogambo the following year, which earned her a Best Supporting Actress nomination. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1954 for The Country Girl, then became Alfred Hitchcock's coolest blonde in three suspense films - Dial M for Murder, Rear Window, and To Catch a Thief. At 26, after High Society wrapped in 1956, she married Prince Rainier III of Monaco and retired from acting. She had three children and poured herself into charity work: founding the Princess Grace Foundation in 1964 to support local artisans, and building AMADE Mondiale into a children's rights organization with consultive status at UNICEF and UNESCO. Her only return to film was narrating the 1977 documentary The Children of Theatre Street, which earned an Oscar nomination. She died at 52 from injuries sustained in a car crash in Monaco.