Audrey Hepburn and Grace Kelly backstage at the 28th Annual Academy Awards on March 21, 1956. Neither Grace Kelly nor Audrey Hepburn were nominees at the event in RKO Pantages Theatre. Grace Kelly presented Best Actor Oscar to Ernest Borgnine for Marty, and Audrey Hepburn presented the Best Picture to the same film. That year, Anna Magnani won the best actress award for The Rose Tattoo, and Jo Van Fleet won the award for best supporting actress for East of Eden.

Grace Kelly had won the best actress Oscar the previous year for her role in The Country Girl, and the year before that Audrey Hepburn had won the Oscar for best actress in Roman Holiday (1954). Although you can feel the tension in the above photograph by Allan Grant, two leading ladies got along perfectly in real life. In a month’s time, Kelly will marry Monaco’s Prince Rainier and become Princess Grace.

Allan Grant (1919-2008) was a Life magazine photographer–the last photographer to photographer Marilyn Monroe before she died on August 5, 1962, and the first to photograph Marina Oswald after the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963.