by Aliya Whiteley
Alec Guinness was a big actor . He was also a vivid diary keeper and writer . In his autobiography , blessing In Disguise , he recounted the story of a practical joke he played on none other than Grace Kelly , and the way it developed into an unspoken biz between them that stretched over 26 years .
In 1956 , the role player appear together inThe Swan , a romantic drollery that was filmed in North Carolina , and the first movie Guinness made in the United States . During motion-picture photography , he was given a hatchet as a gift by a local Native American , and — being on the mischievous side — he tipped the porter at the cast ’s hotel to dislocate the tomahawk into Grace Kelly ’s bed .
She never once observe the jape . year passed , during which time she married Prince Rainier of Monaco and gave up film acting . Then , one night in London , Guinness returned home from giving a theatrical performance and found the same tomahawk between the sheet of his own bed . Nobody , include his married woman , had any idea how it got there .
A few more years decease before it was herald that Kelly would be doing atour of poetry readingsin the U.S. with doer John Westbrook . Guinness did n’t know Westbrook , but arranged for a common friend to demand for his service , and then cede the tomahawk to him , which was placed in Kelly ’s seam once more . She gave no preindication of having found it there , but only ask Westbrook in passing if he had ever met Guinness , to which he could truthfully answer that he had n’t .
In 1980 the hatchet reappeared once more , in Guinness ’ bed at California ’s Beverly Wilshire Hotel , after he receive an honorary Oscar at the Academy Awards ceremonial occasion . Kelly did n’t attend the ceremony , and how the hatchet found its mode back to him on that social occasion remains a mystery .
More time passed . Kelly traveled to Chichester , England to give a reading with Westbrook once more . The tomahawk found its way into her open travelling bag upon her comer , buried within her intimate apparel , and Westbrook reported hearing a “ solid shriek ” upon its discovery . She returned to Monaco , with the hatchet , but died in a railway car chance event shortly thereafter , on September 14 , 1982 .
Guinness continued to solve in film for many more old age , making classic such asA Passage To India(1984 ) andLittle Dorrit(1987 ) , until his own passing in 2000 . But he never did make a Western , and so it ’s unknown that a tomahawk should be the point that gives us a lasting insight into what an interesting and good - humored person he was .
This Wiley Post originally appear onour UK situation .
