Everybody has an accent. Even if you think you don’t, you do. If you think you don’t have an accent because you sound exactly like the “default” American accent used by newscasters and such, you still have an accent: the General American accent, as it’s called. And the General American accent is (or was, anyway) a regional accent, developing in parts of the Midwest.
Decades ago, the default accent used in films and by radio announcers was the Transatlantic Accent, or sometimes the Mid-Atlantic Accent, according to The Intrepid Guide. But here’s the thing about that particular accent: it is not “real.” Accents develop naturally among people living and working together, according to Scientific American. The Transatlantic Accent, however, was specifically built from the ground up and taught to schoolchildren (in particular, children at snooty boarding schools). It was intended to represent the “best” of the American and British accents — representing class and dignity — while not favoring either of them. As such, it became the default accent used by radio announcers and, as it relates to Grace Kelly, actors on the screen.
Kelly’s natural accent was probably a Philadelphia accent since that’s where she was born and raised, according to Britannica. But once she got into acting, she used the Transatlantic, and she kept it whenever she spoke to the cameras (it pays to stay in character).
