In its current series of films featuring Leading Ladies, Tryon Fine Arts Center will screen the 1955 romantic thriller, “To Catch a Thief,” starring Grace Kelly and Cary Grant on Tuesday at 7 p.m.

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock, “To Catch a Thief” was filmed in the principality of Monaco in 1955, where, the following year, Grace Kelly would become its glamorous real-life princess.

It is the story of a reformed cat burglar, John Robie, played by Cary Grant, who is suspected of perpetrating a string of recent jewel robberies and has to find the real robber in order to prove his innocence and redeem his reputation. Posing as a tourist, Robie meets Francie, the daughter of a wealthy widow, played by Grace Kelly, who becomes his accomplice in solving the crimes.  (Watch for Alfred Hitchcock’s signature cameo appearance.)

Robert Burks received the Academy Award for cinematography and costume designer Edith Head was responsible for Grace Kelly’s attire.   

Grace Kelly was born in 1929 to very athletic parents: her father Jack Kelly won two gold medals for sculling in the 1920 Olympics, and picked up a third in the 1924 games.

Grace studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York and had a brief five-year career as an actress on stage, television and films. She was in 11 films, her first notable role being the shy, young wife of Gary Cooper in “High Noon.”

She won a Golden Globe Award as Best Supporting Actress and an Academy Award nomination for her role in “Mogambo,” starring Clark Gable.  She later assured her stardom in three Hitchcock films — the other two being “Dial M for Murder” and “Rear Window,” and ended her career with Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra and Celeste Holm in “High Society,” before taking up her royal duties in Monaco.

The final film in TFAC’s Leading Ladies film series will be Audrey Hepburn’s “Roman Holiday” on Tuesday, May 1, which will be preceded by an appropriately Italian gala.

For reservations to this event and other information about events at Tryon Fine Arts Center, visit tryonarts.org or call the box office at 828-859-6820.

-Submitted by

Michelle Fleming