Sean and I originally came up with something like a half-dozen subjects, probably more, for this miniseries, including a few actors from Saturday Night Live who made the jump into films. But ultimately it became kind of unwieldy, so we limited ourselves to two full episodes.
Hollywood and show business fame in general can be a brutal place, and careers can end for all kinds of reasons. Sometimes actors just fall out of favor (Uma Thurman or Orlando Bloom, perhaps). Sometimes they say/do something controversial (Will Smith, Wesley Snipes). Sometimes—often the case with child actors—they decide they just want to do something else and leave the industry (Peter Ostrum, Mara Wilson).
And some actors leave for more noble reasons. Rick Moranis retired for several years to raise his children after his wife died. Phoebe Cates married Kevin Kline and chose not to return to acting even though the opportunities were still coming.
Then there was Grace Kelly. Grace Kelly got involved with an honest-to-god prince, Rainier of Monaco, and simply walked away from the industry. She made eleven films (not counting documentaries), and about a month after finishing her last film, High Society, she married Rainier and that was pretty much that.
So in today’s episode we’ll be looking at two of Kelly’s films. We begin with 1954’s Rear Window, directed by Alfred Hitchcock and co-starring James Stewart. It’s a taut thriller that maybe had the unfortunate side effect of making voyeurism look attractive.
In 1955, Kelly paired up with Alfred Hitchcock again, to make To Catch a Thief, co-starring Cary Grant. Grant plays a retired cat burglar who is suspected of committing a new series of robberies, so he sets up a big job as a kind of sting operation to nab the person who’s making him look like he’s returned to a life of crime.
Grace Kelly plays one of his potential victims in this scheme, and there are all kinds of interesting twists that, when viewed through a modern lens, you may see coming, but then again you may not.
COMING ATTRACTIONS:
In our next episode we continue the series with a career cut short by tragedy. River Phoenix was an actor with a great deal of promise who unfortunately couldn’t control his demons. We begin with Stand By Me from 1986 (which has a second tragedy attached to it by now, but we recorded this long before Rob Reiner’s death), and then peek at one of his lesser-known—but of similar quality—films, Running On Empty, from 1988. Join us, won’t you?
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