LONDON -- Grace Kelly had a healthy sexual appetite and counted Clark Gable and Ray Milland among her lovers, according to a new biography published in London this week.
'But she was not promiscuous. Each affair was a love affair, a starry-eyed romance which justified her following her instincts,' said author Sarah Bradford in her book, 'Princess Grace,' published by Weidenfeld and Nicolson.
'She had a normal sexual appetite and she was liberated enough to defy her middle-class Catholic Philadelphia upbringing,' the book said.
The late Hollywood star was no innocent when she married Prince Rainier of Monaco in 1956, according to the book.
Her affair with Gable when they starred together in Mogambo was one-sided and ended with 'a physical affair behind her that was also her first, and last, experience of being dropped by a man,' the book says.
Milland, who filmed with Miss Kelly in Alfred Hitchcock's 'Dial M for Murder,' was 'gaga over Grace' but she 'dropped Ray like a hot potato' when his wife threatened divorce, it says.
The book says there was no truth to allegations reportedly made by gossip columnist Hedda Hopper to Bing Crosby that Miss Kelly was a nymphomaniac.
'Bing was mad for her, really mad for her' -- and so was William Holden, but their feelings were not reciprocated. However, Miss Kelly spent weekends with French actor Jean-Pierre Aumont, the author claims.
The book also recounts that when Miss Kelly telephoned her clothes designer, Oleg Cassini, to invite him to California, he got so excited he dived into his swimming pool -- empty at the time -- and broke his nose.
'The cool blonde in white gloves was an image which suited Grace perfectly, a protective shield behind which the real, warm sexy Irish Grace could operate in privacy,' the book says.
She died in September 1982 in the crash of a car she was driving when she suffered a brain hemorrhage.
