FACTBOX: Life of America's princess, Grace Kelly

(Reuters) - The world was stunned when 25 years ago, former Hollywood actress Grace Kelly and wife of Monaco's Prince Rainier, died following a car crash.

Here are some details about her life.

* EARLY LIFE:

- Kelly was born in November 1929 into a wealthy Irish Catholic family in Philadelphia and was educated in convent and private schools.

- She attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City in 1947, working as a photographer's model to pay her tuition. After several seasons of acting in summer stock, she made her Broadway debut in November 1949 in August Strindberg's "The Father".

- She appeared in a number of television dramas in the early 1950s. Her first film role, a small one, was in "Fourteen Hours" in 1951.

* FAME IN HOLLYWOOD:

- In 1952 she appeared as Gary Cooper's Quaker wife in "High Noon" and her career began to blossom.

- Kelly appeared in such films as "Mogambo" (1953), opposite Clark Gable, and "The Country Girl" (1954), for which she won an Academy Award for best actress as Bing Crosby's dowdy wife.

- Perhaps her most memorable roles were in such Alfred Hitchcock films as "Dial M for Murder" (1954), "Rear Window" (1954), and "To Catch a Thief" (1955).

- Kelly was the perfect Hitchcock heroine, epitomizing what he called "sexual elegance." After making "The Swan" (1956) and the musical "High Society" with Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra in 1956, she retired from the screen for marriage.

* MARRIAGE:

- The U.S. actress brought Hollywood glamour to the tiny Mediterranean state of Monaco in April 1956 when Prince Rainier married Kelly in a glittering ceremony. They had three children.

* TRAGEDY:

- It ended with her tragic death on September 14, 1982, after she suffered a stroke while driving and her car plunged over a parapet on a steep winding road behind Monaco.

- Rainier, heartbroken, never remarried. He died in April 2005.