by Donald Spoto
For one thing, she was entering a world whose ways were completely different from everything familiar. Grace was moving to a place where a foreign language was spoken, to a royal life where strange, ancient customs not only prevailed but were held in reverence, where formalities ruled all but the most private moments and where demands were made that often outweighed the privileges. After years of effort, she later came to consider herself a working woman—someone like a public relations manager whose “boss” just happened to be her husband, the monarch of a small but self-sustaining parcel of Europe.
Those first days in April 1956 fueled the fame she had so much distrusted in Hollywood—in fact, her marriage made her an international celebrity. But she took her responsibilities with the utmost gravity, finding—as Alfred Hitchcock told me with a sly grin—“the best role of her life.” Hitchcock was right, except that now there was nothing separating the role from the player. Grace had pretended to be Amy Kane, Lisa Fremont, Georgie Elgin, Tracy Lord and the others—but Grace was a princess, and princesses do not live happily ever after, except in fairy tales. “I certainly don’t think of my life as a fairy tale,” she said not long before her sudden death. “I think of myself as a modern, contemporary woman who has had to deal with all kinds of problems that many women today have to deal with. I am still trying to cope.”
The marriage of Miss Grace Patricia Kelly to His Serene Highness Prince Rainier III of Monaco was universally described as “the wedding of the century” (a phrase repeated twenty-five years later, when Prince Charles married Lady Diana Spencer). It could not be described as an intimate event, with 1,600 reporters and photographers (more than the number who covered all of World War II) flooding into Monaco, six hundred guests jammed into a small cathedral that holds only four hundred, and 1,500 guests invited to the palace reception. “Most of them,” according to Grace, “wanted extra tickets for the balls and the dinners and the two weddings. To make everything worse, the weather was just foul, and the palace wasn’t ready to be lived in yet.” In addition, there were thousands of gate-crashers everywhere, and jewel thieves invaded every Monte-Carlo hotel.
Her wedding was, Grace said, “so hectic and so quick and frantic—there was no time to think about it. Things just happened, and you reacted on the moment. It’s hard to describe the frenzy of it all—it was really kind of nightmarish. I remember looking at those first weeks as if I was just a visitor, a guest at my own wedding—but unlike guests, I couldn’t go home when all the fuss and furor became too much.”
“They told me that they just hated their wedding day,” said their daughter, Princess Caroline, “and they never looked at any photographs of it. They had wanted a small wedding with just the families present. But they couldn’t do that, and it turned out to be a mob scene.” That was true, Grace said: “I didn’t even read a press clipping for over a year, because the whole thing was just a nightmare, really. A few private moments, of course, were marvelous. But it was a difficult time to go through, for the prince and myself.” Rainier agreed: “If it had been up to me, the wedding would have been held in the palace chapel, which seats twenty-one people.”
When the turmoil of the wedding was over, a long and difficult period of adjustment began. First, she was enormously homesick for her friends and family, and for the familiarities of the American way of life. Then there was resentment from the traditionalists, from the Court and from the palace employees, who were committed to a rigid protocol. The people of Monaco were polite but wary of an American from Hollywood, and Grace found that, for a long time, her liberty was greatly curtailed—she could not, for example, simply go out for a stroll in the village. Tourists crowded her, and in the 1960s, the worldwide epidemic of kidnappings made it impossible for her to enjoy outings with her children unless they were accompanied by a phalanx of bodyguards.
Grace’s friends remained precious to her throughout her life. Judith Quine might have spoken for many when she wrote of Grace’s friendship: “No admonitions for not writing, though letters from her pals were very important to her. No questions asked. No explanations required. No judgments passed. Forthcoming expressions of sympathy and unity when most appropriate. Instant invitations to visit when most feasible. Offers of fun and friendship when both were most needed. Though Grace’s position had become more elevated since we first met, the gifts of her friendship were no less exalted than they had always been. We did not use the expression ‘unconditional love’ in those days, but that’s what Grace was good at giving.”
“She came back from our honeymoon to what must have looked rather a grim situation,” Rainier recalled, “but she faced up to it marvelously. There was not only the challenge of turning a palace into a home, but the very big problem of becoming accepted, liked and respected by the Monégasques and other local residents. Then there was the language difficulty. And it was hard for her to be cut off from her family and friends. She was very homesick for a long time, and even now [in 1974], she still finds it difficult to make friends. Looking back, I was probably too impatient that she should fit in and feel at ease. Often I didn’t understand her outlook on things.”
“I had always lived in big cities,” Grace said. “I had also spent nearly ten years acting—so it was quite a change from an actor’s life to civilian life, so to speak. My real difficulty was to become a normal person after being an actress for so long. For me, at that time, a normal person was someone who made films!”
“We do not do it that way” was a response Grace heard repeatedly from one or another staff member when she made a decision or a suggestion about something as minor as a table setting or the arrangement of flowers. She needed several years to find her own voice, and to be able to reply gently, “Well, we will do it this way now, thank you.” Especially during the first year, when she was virtually cold-shouldered by the entire palace staff, Grace might have felt like the second Mrs. de Winter in Rebecca, and only after a long and awkward period was her word or request taken seriously by her staff. For a very long time she felt like a displaced person, not just an expatriate.
By palace custom—to her astonishment—no man was permitted to visit her in the private apartments. Hence, when, for example, a dress designer or perfumer arrived, the representatives had to be women. This was outrageous to her, for she felt that she was under suspicion of impropriety. No, Rainier replied, this has been a palace regulation since … forever. It took her eleven years to change that custom.
Grace’s common sense told her that many centuries-old traditions were absurd—like the requirement that every woman coming to see her had to wear a hat. “I thought it was ridiculous, that a woman would have to go out and buy a hat just to come to lunch. So I abolished that custom—and what a stir that caused. People were just appalled!”
But the biggest adjustment, she said, “was being married to a foreigner. There were so many changes to be made all at once, and at first I missed the easier American attitude toward things.”
Years later, Grace was forthright about the early years in Monaco. “I had to separate myself from what had been Grace Kelly, and that was very difficult for me. But I could not be two people—an American actress and the wife of the Prince of Monaco. So, during those first years, I lost my identity. My husband and his life absorbed me until the children came, and it helped when I began service work in Monaco. Then, gradually, I joined up with myself again.”
Contrary to the swirl of wild rumors during the rest of her life, the marriage was a success. “Of course there were stormy periods, as there are in any marriage,” Grace said. “But we discuss things, and neither of us broods or sulks.” Close friends like Judy Kanter recalled that “Rainier was moody and quick-tempered, and he took some of that out on Grace, because he knew that she would still love him. He once said that a good marriage was not an eternal romantic liaison, but a long conversation.” Grace loved her prince: “I married the man, and not what he represented. I fell in love with him without giving a thought to anyth
ing else.”
“She came here with fresh ideas,” said her husband, “and these were not necessarily the views I always had. Sometimes this caused difficulties. One example: My staff had never done a buffet or a dinner with small tables as she suggested, instead of the big, formal table. I hadn’t imagined anything ever changing, but there it was. Eventually, I thought this was a good idea—but the staff, oh …!” After twenty years, Rainier thought Grace enjoyed “some parts” of being a princess, “but she also gets sick of it at times, and she admitted to me that sometimes when she’s at a meeting, listening to people talking stupidities, she feels like exploding. That is probably the hardest thing about her job—never being able to let go.”
This was not helped by the fact that their leisure time together was limited, and they were often too busy with official duties to enjoy the quiet, private hours every couple requires. Eventually they insisted on spending more time at their three-bedroom villa, Rocagel, near La Turbie, a half-hour drive just over the French border. There they shut the door on the world and rarely took servants. Grace cooked, knitted and perfected her skills at artistic arrangements of pressed dried flowers—indeed, she turned a casual hobby into a refined craft. As for Rainier, he happily tended a small farm there and indulged his hobby of fixing antique cars and doing metalwork. “I don’t know what would have happened without our country retreat,” Grace said. “Or I do know, but I don’t want to think about it!”
Grace tried to make frequent visits to America to visit family and friends, but that became difficult after the birth of her three children—Caroline in 1957, Albert the following year and Stéphanie in 1965. She and Rainier returned to Philadelphia when her father died in June 1960. According to the press, his fortune was estimated at $18 million. The truth is that his will distributed the sum of $1.1 million among his wife and four children.
EVERYONE WHO knew the Grimaldis, as well as casual visitors and those who had a glimpse of the family at home or away, realized that Rainier and Grace were devoted and attentive parents. “I didn’t ever want them to be strangers relegated to the other end of the house,” Grace said, refusing to copy the ways of parents she had seen in Hollywood and in many European homes. She got down on the floor or the grass to play games with them; they always took their meals with their parents; Grace helped them with homework; and a certain discipline prevented them (at least until their teenage years) from imitating the worst habits of spoiled, wealthy children. Skillfully and unselfconsciously combining her American ways with a palace lifestyle, she was loved and respected by both her children and her “subjects,” whom she greeted warmly, as if they were old acquaintances.
A DECADE AFTER the marriage, Monaco’s economic situation and its public image had much improved. Before Grace arrived, there had been a decline in tourism; the lucrative casino had deteriorated; doubtful characters were buying up real estate and funneling ill-gotten gains into their accounts in Monaco’s banks; and the attitude toward Rainier of most Monégasques was as suspicious as that of most Europeans.
But Grace’s presence, and her close collaboration with her husband on every project (which he came to welcome), changed everything. By the late 1960s the government had a large surplus; tourism increased from 77,000 visitors a year to ten times that number; and she revived the principality as a major center for opera, ballet, concerts and plays. “She brought in poets and dramatists,” recalled the British writer Anthony Burgess, a resident of Monaco. “She also made it a center of cultural conferences, with an annual television convention, amateur drama festivals and poetry readings.” And there were her beloved flower festivals, to which she invited people regardless of their talent or financial status—the only requirement was a love of flowers and a desire to create something pretty.
In 1954, 95 percent of Monaco’s budget came from gambling; by 1965 that contribution was less than 4 percent, for the Grimaldis together had shifted the income from the casino to tourism, banking, real estate and culture. Grace had the idea of opening the palace for guided tours during the summer, when she and the family were away; and for the first time in many years, middle-class tourists joined European high society as they returned to Monaco in great numbers. More important, in 1962 Rainier announced that he and his council had drawn up a new constitution that greatly reduced his power and ended autocratic rule; the old constitution, he said, had hindered the administrative and political life of the country.
In the 1970s, Grace dismissed the bodyguards who tracked her every step—and within days, locals felt comfortable in going right up to their princess, greeting her and asking about the family. To the horror of some die-hard conservatives, it was not unusual to see Grace and one of her children, or Grace and a visiting friend or relative, sipping tea or a glass of wine at a local café. More shocking still was the sight of her and the children at the public beach. But eventually the idea of a family in the palace took hold, and the residents of Monaco approved. Even when Grace’s daughters entertained a youthful, freewheeling lifestyle, their mother was held in such affectionate respect that people said, “Well, she’s got the problems all mothers have these days.” It’s no exaggeration to say that in comparison with some other ruling families in Europe, Grace was far more important to her adopted country, and much more loved. Always hating to drive a car, she preferred local taxis to official limousines. “She spoke with five popes and I don’t know how many world rulers,” a Monégasque taxi driver said, “and yet she knew immediately how to put me at ease. She spoke with people on their own level.”
By 1963, to the surprise of journalists from Paris, Grace was fluent in French. But she was always aware of people’s feelings. During our first visits, Grace always addressed her staff in English out of deference to me as a fellow American. But when she realized that I spoke French, too, she reverted to that language out of deference to her staff. After that, we frequently laughed over the complexities of this or that French idiom or syntax. During one hot August afternoon, she asked a palace attendant to bring us cold drinks. For a moment we both forgot how to say “sparkling water” in French—and so Grace simply turned to her helper and said in English, “Oh, Pierre, please bring us some fizzy water.”
When she offered me a tour of the private quarters, I was surprised at its simplicity. There were 250 rooms at the palais princier, but the family occupied only one small portion of it: a living and dining room, a small library doubling as Grace’s office, three bedrooms and baths, two dressing rooms and a small kitchen, where Grace cooked breakfast for her children and (more often than the staff expected) prepared dinner, too. The nursery adjoined the bedroom, and after Stéphanie’s childhood, it was converted into a family room. The entire residence was not much larger than a suburban apartment.
In addition to full-time motherhood, Grace revived and personally directed the principality’s Red Cross and supervised the renovation of a crumbling local medical facility. When it was completed, it was a first-rate hospital. She passionately defended breastfeeding and became a representative for the international organization La Leche. Very close to her heart were the Garden Club of Monaco, the International Arts Foundation and her Princess Grace Foundation, which encouraged young people’s involvement in the arts.
Grace also set an example of volunteerism by regular visits to patients, and to the homes of the elderly, where she sat and chatted; she never merely walked through a ward or clinic with a wave and a smile. Anthony Burgess became a friend of Grace, who took every opportunity for a serious talk about books and the arts. “I observed her concern for the older and poorer Monégasques,” Burgess recalled, “all of whom she knew by name. She spoke not only French, but also the local dialect. The kisses she bestowed on the old ladies seemed tokens of genuine affection. There was nothing glacial about her.”
Grace’s fundamental compassion is well illustrated by her friendship with Josephine Baker. Years after the infamous racist incident at the Stork Club, Baker’s career foundered in bankrup
tcy. Hounded by creditors, the singer was ill and in desperate circumstances by the end of 1974. When she heard of this, Grace brought her from Paris to Monaco, where she offered Josephine a villa and financial support for her and her dozen adopted children. Grace was a constant visitor to her old friend, encouraging her to return to the stage in a revue of her great songs. Grace then enlisted the participation of Jacqueline Onassis, and together they financed Baker’s triumphant Paris comeback in early April 1975. The Rainiers were at the sold-out performance, along with many admiring celebrities.
Soon after, Josephine Baker was found lying peacefully in bed, surrounded by clippings of her rave reviews. She had gone into a coma after a massive stroke, and two days later she died in a Paris hospital, on April 12. She was sixty-eight. After the funeral at the Church of the Madeleine, Grace paid all expenses and arranged for the remains to be brought down to Monaco for burial.
Just as any talk of prejudice had angered her as a child, so her rage against racism was always evident in adulthood. In addition to her strong friendships with Josephine Baker, Coretta Scott King and Louis Armstrong (who appeared with her in High Society), lesser-known men and women were helped by the long arm of Grace’s friendship.