Alfred Hitchcock’s Legendary Leading Ladies: The Lives of Grace Kelly, Ingrid Bergman, Joan Fontaine, and Kim Novak

Summary

Considering that her film career lasted just six years, it would seem as though the reputation of Grace Kelly far outweighs her actual output. Indeed, from the time of her arrival in Hollywood in 1951 through her final film, High Society, in 1956, Kelly acted in just 11 films, leaving viewers to wonder whether Kelly was still in the beginning of her career or whether High Society was a proper culmination to an extraordinarily brief stay in the film industry? Ultimately, it is might be most accurate to state that Kelly was still in the prime of her career, but it’s unclear what direction her career would have taken, as well as who inherited the void she left.

Ingrid Bergman’s fame cannot be doubted, but the international quality of her career has prevented most people from gaining a complete understanding of her filmography. Moreover, the immense success of her most famous films obscured her other achievements; one of Bergman’s persistent lamentations late in her career was that even though she appeared in other films she deemed more significant, the only film of hers that people wanted to discuss was Casablanca. 

Although Fontaine and de Havilland would make history by becoming the only sisters to both win an Academy Award for Best Actress, that anecdote was just one of the various stories about the siblings that has shed light on their notoriously contentious and complicated relationship. As Fontaine once put it, “I married first, won the Oscar before Olivia did, and if I die first, she'll undoubtedly be livid because I beat her to it!"

Kim Novak’s most famous role was as one of Alfred Hitchcock’s legendary “icy blondes” in Vertigo (1958), beguiling Jimmy Stewart’s character to the point of madness in what is widely considered one of the greatest films ever made. The girl who originally wanted to be an artist reached the upper echelon of Hollywood itself before she had even turned 30.