Trashing Grace

BOOKS OF LOCAL INTEREST

TRASHING GRACE

True Grace – The Life and Times of an American Princess

– (Thomas Dunne/St. Martin, March, 2007, 307 pgs.) by Wendy Leigh.

We could have expected an indignent media blitz on the 25^{th anniversary of the death of Grace Kelly, but instead we got some refined retrospectives, among them - Life photographs by Howell Conant (Remembering Grace 25 Years Later), a book by Tommy Hilfinger - Grace Kelly – A Life in Pictures (Pavillion, 2007), and public shows in New York in conjunction with the Princess Grace Foundation Awards.}

The only real exception to these refined retrospectives is Wendy Leigh’s True Grace The Life and Times of an American Princess," which is described as "a haunting celebration of a life that ended far too soon, starring a heroine whose dramatic, star-crossed story is both tragic and inspiring."

While Grace Kelly’s life and times were certainly dramatic and star-crossed, tragic and inspiring, it’s a shame that this generation is left with such a lame portrait of America’s true princess. Grace Kelly is a featured character in a story that should be told like it is - a unique, incomparable and outrageous family dynasty; instead we get a tabloid tattler.

As the tie that binds the Kelly and Grimaldi families, Grace is the most visible of the lot, at least to Americans, and though she has been dead for twenty-five years now, her influence is still widely felt throughout the world, in film, fashion, dance and especially in Monaco itself, her adopted home.

Of course Grace Kelly’s real hometown is the East Falls neighborhood of Philadelphia and Ocean City, New Jersey, where she spent part of every summer of her life except her last one.

Though Leigh's book may be targeted to the gossop mongers of the world, there’s really very little she can tell us, other than who Grace slept with after she left the hood, and the dark side that you really have to look for, but neighbors and friends politely ignore. Although a dozen bios have already been written, it was surprisingly easy for Leigh to come up with 100 new sources, each with a little tidbit to paint her black.

Leigh even warns you in the preface to stop reading if you don’t want to know what would "preclude her from being nominated to sainthood."

Give us a break. Nobody’s ever suggested she was a saint, so Leigh, before sticking pins into her Grace Kelly doll, starts out insulting a non-existent constituency, as nobody believes she was a saint. Rather than write the real biography of Grace Kelly that’s still yet to be written, Leigh warns us going in that she’s writing with a Black Ink 40.

Having already made the best seller lists with some of her eleven books on Prince Charming – JFK, Jr. and The Secret Love Letters of Marilyn Monroe and Jacqueline Kennedy, Leigh seems to focus on celebrities who will provide a ready market for whatever she writes. She comes from the sensationalist school of literature that professes that if it’s not shocking it’s not newsworthy.

So it’s not surprising that Grace Kelly’s local living relatives, Grace’s sister Lizanne LeVine and cousin John Lehman, would have nothing to do with Wendy Leigh.

Leigh did come poking around Ocean City though, and got Bob Harbough and Dick Boccelli to talk, as they certainly wanted Grace's story accurate, and didn’t know of the families’ brush off of sensationalist writers like Leigh.

Harbough’s Bob’s Grill, on the boardwalk at 14th street, was a popular place for all the kids to hang out, and Dick Boccelli dated Grace when they were teenagers. Boccelli, who went on to become a drummer with Bill Haley’s Original Comets, met Leigh at the Four Seasons in Philly and gave her a drive-by of Kelly’s East Falls home.

Harbough has a letter Grace wrote to Lizanne, which he offered to Leigh to use but it wasn’t because of copyright issues.

Leigh writes that, "Grace dated a succession of boys from Penn Charter – all jocks, none alienating her father in any way. She was winning his approval and having a good time in the bargain. Not surprisingly – given her background, her father, and her brother – she had a taste for sportsmen, and one of her more serious teen romances was with Dick Boccelli, starting guard for the West Chester State Teacher’s College, whom she met on the beach in Ocean City."

"Boccelli, who later became the drummer for Bill Haley and the Comets – had a six-month relationship with Grace after one of her ex-boyfriends introduced them with the words, ‘I just broke up with a great gal, and I’d like you to meet her.’"

"Grace really was a lovely girl. I used to play basketball with her brother, Kell. I took her out in my father’s Lincoln, so her father thought I had money,’ he said. ‘Grace knew I didn’t, but it didn’t matter to her. I took her to shows in Atlantic City, to Vaughan’s Comfort Club, where the waiters sang to us and we sang along. She had a great personality, a good sense of humor, was bright, sharp and fun to be with.’"

"’Grace didn’t have any pretensions. Although she grew up with a silver spoon, she wasn’t in the least bit spoiled. I could have fallen in love with her, but luckily I didn’t because just after my graduation I took her up to West Chester College and introduced her to a football player friend of mine, Joe Mustin. He was the most handsome man ever and could have been a movie star. He took over from me.’"

"Grace’s relationship with Joe Mustin also would be short-lived, not because she rejected him but because, as he puts it today, ‘She was too rich for my blood.’ Joe took her to a restaurant in Summers Point, Ocean City. ‘Then she said she had to go home and asked if I would like to go with her, so I did. When we got there, her father put me through the third degree, asking what I did and what my father did. I wasn’t welcome with open arms because I was clearly below Grace’s class. She didn’t think so, but her family obviously did. We dated a few more times, but I was out of her league, and after a few dates, I broke it off.’"

"Summers Point, Ocean City"?

If she gets one tidbit wrong, how accurate is the rest of the book?

Then Leigh gets into the obligatory connections between Grace, her father, John B. Kelly, and Skinny D’Amato, the 500 Club and the Atlantic City Race Track.

It’s a shame she didn’t know that Sinatra, said to be one of Grace’s later paramours, tried out for a job as a singing waiter at Vaughn Comforts in Somers Point, where she dated Boccelli, but Sinatra didn’t get the job because he couldn’t sing loud enough.

In the last chapter, "About the Book," Leigh writes, "During my research for the book, following in Grace’s footsteps, I traveled to Philadelphia, where I stayed at the Bellevue Stratford, and was delighted to celebrate the birthday of Grace’s still beautiful bridesmaid Maree Frisby Rambo with her. Richard Boccelli, who dated Grace when she was in her late teens, had tea with me at Philadelphia’s Four Seasons and drove me to Henry Avenue, where I was able to view the exterior of the Kelly home…..

In Ocean City, Bob and Sally Harbaugh were most hospitable and gave me a guided tour of Ocean City and showed me the letter Grace’s sister Lizanne wrote to Bob when she was with Grace in Hollywood during the making of High Noon, kindly granting me permission to quote the context in full in this book. However, copyright laws have precluded me from doing so."

Well it's a shame that we can't get a more clear picture of Grace Kelly, as she really was, instead of the trash that's been written, and maybe someday we will.

[For a portrait of Grace Kelly at the Jersey Shore read Bill Kelly’s The Princess Next Door, originally published in Atlantic City Magazine. ]