Grace Kelly and Alec Guiness Promo Photo (1956)

Original photograph #S1684-126 from the studio, used for press release and promotions at the time "The Swan" was released.

Size: 8" x 10"

Origin: Metro Goldwyn Mayer

Date of Image: 1956

Present status: Part of the Sapphire Guardian Collection

The Tomahawk Story:
There is a great backgound story about their friendship, the "Tomahawk story" what they've played for about 25 years (And this picture may describe their friendship the best.). When both of them was filming "The Swan" in North Carolina in 1955, someone gave Alec a tomahawk purchased at a local fairground. He thought it too heavy to take with him, so as he was departing he paid a porter to slip it into Lady Gracie’s bed. Years later, while performing in London, he found the tomahawk in his own bed.

This meant war. Guinness bided his time until the princess visited America on a poetry tour, then he contacted the English actor with whom she was traveling and persuaded him to leave the tomahawk in her bed. “Do you know Alec Guinness?” she asked him the next day. “No, I’ve never met him,” he said. Guinness thought no more about it until 1980, when he visited Hollywood to accept an honorary Oscar and found the tomahawk in his hotel bed. He waited until Kelly’s next tour of England and arranged to have it left in her suitcase. Grace died in 1982, so that was the last laugh.