GRACE KELLY: movie star, princess, tabloids. Her dad an Olympic rower with three times gold, her mama from Germany. Or so they say. In reality Grace descended from a long line of Brabant families.
Her time in Hollywood lasted only five years, yet she played opposite all the famous men of the time: David Niven, William Holden, Gary Cooper, Bing Crosby who, in their off the set spare time, all ended up in her bed. Not Clark Gable, after filming he simply went home.
A rebel consequence of a strict upbringing, people figured, and strict it was. Grace hailed from a range of Anabaptist generations, followers of Menno Simonsz from Friesland. Ancestors such as Harmen Harmensen from Brabant, Pieter van Sintern, Jan Hermans, Jaap de Vlieger, and Hans, Ellie, Herman, and Willem Goverts, and Saartje Roosen.
She was good at acting, which helped in more than one way. She had learned it on Broadway, where she was directed by a manager at the Waldorf-Astoria (built by John Astor who not only drowned with the Titanic, but was the son of Caroline Schermerhorn). When she came to Cannes one day to pick up some film awards, she played a flirtation with Prince Rainier of neighboring Monaco. Bull’s eye. A year later, she became Princess Gracia.
Had she not suffered a stroke behind the wheel in 1982, Grace Kelly of Brabant would have turned 95 this year.
