Saturday, I met Anna and some other students to go to the Grace Kelly Exhibit. Anna was very stressed about taking the bus and knowing where to get off. I told her that I knew where to go but she still wanted to figure it out herself. I hope I can do what she is doing when I am 88 years old.

The exhibition was very interesting. I really enjoyed seeing it with her. We had very interesting discussions about fashion in the ’60s and about Grace Kelly’s life. Anna has a great memory of the time. It brought back some good memories for me from the time when I sewed. In high school and college, I used to sew most of my clothes. It was great fun.

There were many of Grace Kelly’s letters from her days as a star, from her courtship and from her time as Princess. Who thought to save all the letters, telegrams and scripts? There were also the gown from her movies, from her wedding and the balls. The gowns from the 50’s were very elegant. You could still wear them today and be in style. There were also many gowns from the late ’60’s and ’70s. They were not as interesting. That was a bad fashion time.

The most interesting letters were from Alfred Hitchcock. She did three movies with him. She was one of his favorite actresses and he was very disappointed when she had to give up acting to be a Princess. He was very bizarre. There was this one letter where he wrote that he saw a picture of her with a hat adorned with flowers. She loved hats. Hitchcock wondered what happened to the insects that were attracted by the flowers. Would they die in her hair? Such a bizarre thing to write.

There was not much said about her death. She died on Sept 14, 1982. I guess that makes this the 25th anniversary of her death. Near the end of the exhibit there was a film where she was asked if she was happy. Her answer was very telling. She said she had many happy moments in her life but that she did not think happiness was a constant state. It was a very melancholy.

It took us over three hours to see the whole exhibit. We spent a lot of time reading the letters and watching the movies about her life. We had just a little time to grab a salad before the restaurants closed. We did have a chance to also go to the Casino but we didn’t pay the entrance fee to go in and gamble. The Ferrari cars outside were pretty impressive as was the Hotel de Paris next door.