James Robert Parish

Princess Grace and her bizarre birthday party You might think that Grace’s 700-strong wedding ceremony to Prince Rainier of Monaco in 1956 was the apex of her social legacy. But 13 years later, on November 15, 1969, the film star-turned-princess threw one of the most peculiar and extravagant birthday parties in history. “The Scorpion Ball,” the Princess’s horoscope-themed 40th, was held at the opulent Hotel Hermitage in Monte-Carlo. Grace’s fascination with star signs was public knowledge; in 1956, Hollywood astrologer and columnist Carroll Righter was photographed visiting Kelly on the set of one of her last films, “The Swan.” Shortly after her engagement to Rainier, Righter dedicated one of his articles to the pair’s astrological compatibility, providing details of Kelly’s horoscope. (Given the way their marriage turned out, he can’t have read the stars with much acumen.) Centred around her astrological sign, Grace’s party had iron-clad rules; only Scorpios could attend. These included David Niven’s wife, Hjordis, pictured below, film star Virna Lisi, and Rock Hudson. Mercifully, spouses of Scorpios were also permitted, as were Grace’s family members. Elizabeth Taylor was one of the guests (along with Niv) whose attendance was allowed through marriage. Her husband, Richard Burton, was born on November 10, 1925. Taylor did not take the party’s theme lightly. She arrived in a sumptuous black Tiziani cloak embellished with two scorpions embroidered with real diamonds. (The evening cape fetched $80,000 when it was auctioned by Christie’s in 2011.) As well as setting a dress code of red and black for her guests - the colours most associated with the Scorpio sign - waiters wore powdered wigs, scarlet suits with stars, in keeping with the celestial theme, and carried silver candelabras blazing with red candles. The Princess herself appeared in a couture off-the-shoulder black Balenciaga gown. The dress was adorned with two ruby and diamond brooches, which were detachable pieces from Grace’s Bains de Mer tiara, by Cartier - a wedding present from Prince Rainier. Lining the walls of the Hermitage were portraits of other famous Scorpios, from Edgar Allen Poe to Marie Antoinette. The meticulously planned event was topped off with a gigantic fuschia cake, weighing 166 pounds, and decorated with a ring of gold scorpions as well as a giant version of the arachnid. The cake was so enormous that it had to be cut in half in order to fit through the doors to the dining room. It was her Grace’s last birthday after all, or as she said on the night: “The last one I’ll admit to.”

The indomitable Katherine Hepburn sits among the wreckage of her family home, Old Saybrook, Connecticut, in 1938. The waterfront house had been hit by a category 5 hurricane on September 21st. Hepburn recalled: “God, it was something devastating and unreal, like the beginning of the world–or the end of it. I slogged and sloshed, crawled through ditches and hung on to keep going somehow. I got drenched and bruised and scratched and finally got to where there was a working phone and called Dad.”