Grace Kelly Tours in Boston

Grace Kelly appeared as an ingénue in the play “To Be Continued”, which opened in Boston April 8, 1952.

She began her auspicious acting career in summer stock and regional theatre, and eventually had a crack at the Great White Way. Her experience there was brief, and nothing compared to the meteoric rise in fame she would achieve in Hollywood.

Her first attempt at Broadway was in November of 1949, when she appeared at the Cort Theatre in a revival of “The Father”, which starred Raymond Massey. Her role was “The Captain’s Daughter”, but her nameless role earned her the praise of reviewer Brooks Atkinson, who noted,

“Grace Kelly gives a charming, pliable performance of the bewildered and broken-hearted daughter.”

The play did not run long, and her next big break at storming Broadway was “To Be Continued”, where she played the equally anonymous-sounding “A Young Woman”. After its tryout in Boston, the play moved a couple of weeks later to the Booth Theater in New York on April 23, 1952. (Have a look here for our recent post on Edwin Booth, for whom that theater was named.)

Here her performance again was noted as promising, but the play closed within weeks.

It was back to her hometown of Philadelphia that summer, where she played starring roles at the Playhouse in the Park. But, also that summer, "High Noon" was released, and in the autumn came her role in the film “Mogambo”, and the rest, as they say, is history. Her career as a stage actress never took off as she had hoped, but other achievements she could not have imagined were on the horizon.

Have a look here at Grace Kelly's performance in "The Country Girl" (1954) from Monday's post on my Another Old Movie Blog.