Grace of Monaco

by Robinson, Jeffrey

  Annoyed at being made to wait, Grace and her party went haplessly from state room to state room.

  Everyone kept glancing at their watches.

  The photographers occasionally took photos of Grace against the superbly furnished background.

  It was 4 o’clock when a valet announced that the Prince had just arrived.

  Now Grace seemed nervous. She checked herself in a mirror and asked Galante, “What do I call the Prince? Does he speak English? How old is he?”

  Suddenly, Rainier walked into the room wearing a dark blue, two button suit and went straight to Grace. He offered his hand.

  She gave a little curtsy, as she’d been told to do.

  In perfect English, he apologized for being late and asked if she’d like to see the Palace.

  She said they’d already done the tour.

  He then offered to show her the animals in his private zoo.

  She said she would.

  So now they walked together through the gardens, the two of them followed by the entourage from Paris Match and the Palace. He introduced her to his two young lions, a bunch of monkeys, and a baby tiger.

  Grace kept her distance from the cages but Rainier put his arms past the bars and rubbed the back of the tiger’s neck.

  Grace later admitted that she was suitably impressed.

  And all the time the Paris Match photographers kept snapping away.

  On the trip back to Cannes, Galante asked her what she’d thought of Rainier.

  All she’d say was, “He is charming, charming.”

  At the Carlton she told Allan how the Prince had kept her waiting, how the whole thing had taken too much time, and how, if she was going to do that sort of thing, she wanted to do it right. She said she was embarrassed that her dress was terrible for photographs, that her hair was wet, and how the whole thing had been wrong.

  Allan asked how she’d liked the Prince. And she told him, too, “He is very charming.”

  Later that week Grace wrote Rainier a thank-you note.

  Then she left Cannes.

  Had she not been suspended from MGM she wouldn’t have been free to go to Cannes. Had she taken another train down from Paris and not bumped into Galante and Olivia de Havilland, Galante might not have been able to talk her into the photo session. Had she listened to Allan and channeled all her press requests through him, he could have easily cancelled the trip to Monaco.

  But fate can be an odd bedfellow.

  The Paris Match story ran and immediately everyone started talking about a possible romance.

  Most people realized it was hype, that such stories sold newspapers, but the idea of the fairy-tale prince and the beautiful movie star was so romantic that, even if it wasn’t true, people wished it was.

  GqH

  That autumn, Grace was reinstated by MGM and started work on her tenth film, The Swan, based on a play by Ferenc Molnár. It starred Alec Guinness and Louis Jourdan.

  They shot exteriors near Asheville, North Carolina, then moved to Hollywood for the studio work.

  Towards the end of the year, Allan received a call from Bill Atwood, an editor at Look who was doing a piece on Prince Rainier. He said that during one of the interviews, he’d discovered that the Prince was very pro-American, although he’d never been to the States. When Atwood wondered why, Rainier told him that, as a matter of fact, he was now planning his first trip there. He said he’d be traveling in December with a priest friend, Father Tucker, and a young French doctor friend, Robert Donat, who was, by coincidence, going anyway to do some work at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Rainier said he’d like to go to Florida to fish and maybe also go to California. Atwood asked if there was anybody on the west coast he’d like to meet.

  Rainier answered, “Yes. That young actress I met in Monaco. Her name is Grace Kelly. I’d like to see her again.”

  The Prince’s comment came as a total surprise to Rupert Allan. Because, as far as he knew, Grace had never heard from him after their photo session at the Palace.

  Rupert later explained, “Bill Atwood phoned me and asked if I could arrange for Grace to see Prince Rainier on the set of her film and get some photos. I said I was sure I could because as far as I knew she’d liked him. When I asked her if she’d let us take some photos with Prince Rainier on the set she said, yes, of course, any time. But then she made a point of saying, ‘Listen Rupert, this is no romance.’ She said, ‘I’m so damned tired of hearing about a romance between him and me in all the European papers. I haven’t heard a thing from him since I was in Cannes.’”

  The photo session was arranged but shooting on The Swan ran overtime. Grace was annoyed because she was due back in Philadelphia for a family Christmas party. The director finally broke for the holidays just in time for her to catch her plane.

  Allan continued, “She was living then on the west side of Los Angeles. I went home with her to help her pack. She was one suitcase short so I ran to my place to get her an extra suitcase. There were a few splits of champagne in the fridge so we wished each other Merry Christmas and drank them. She loved champagne. That’s all I ever saw her drink. I never saw her drink liquor. I never saw her touch a drop of whiskey. She also loved caviar. Anyway, I took her to the airport early the next morning and put her on a flight for New York. She arrived home in Philadelphia just in time for the party. When I mentioned Prince Rainier to her in the car on the way to the airport she told me again, ‘Rupert, really, there is no romance.’”

  It wasn’t true.

  Chapter 4

  The Last Secret

  Treasure Garden

  The official version of their love story had always been told like this:

  Grace and Rainier met during the 1955 Cannes Film Festival, spent one afternoon together, enjoyed each other’s company—both of them used the word “charming” to describe the other—didn’t meet again until Christmas and, sometime between Cannes and Christmas, Father Tucker did his best to make a match.

  The old priest appreciated the fact that Grace Kelly was beautiful and didn’t mind that she was a movie star. Nor did it hurt that she was a fellow American. Best of all he liked the idea that she was a good Catholic girl with a good reputation.

  Having once served in Philadelphia, he used his connections there to check out Grace. It was simple for him to contact the Archdiocese and ask the Cardinal’s office to tell him about the Kellys.

  Within a few days of the photo session at the Palace, Father Tucker had gleaned a wealth of information about Grace and the Kellys from his priestly intelligence network.

  Although he wasn’t present that Friday afternoon when Grace and Rainier met, Father Tucker soon took it upon himself to write Grace a note saying, “I want to thank you for showing the Prince what an American Catholic girl can be and for the very deep impression this has left on him.”

  Rainier recalled the event with a large smile. “I spoke to Father Tucker about Grace. He knew she was coming to visit that afternoon and after she left, he asked how we got along. It’s only natural that we would have discussed it because he and I always talked about lots of things. And yes, of course, I was impressed with her when I met her. Who wouldn’t have been?”

  A few months later, and really just by coincidence, old friends of the Kellys arrived in the south of France.

  Russell and Edith Austin were “uncle and aunt” to Grace when she was growing up. He was a Philadelphia dentist who had a summer house near the Kellys’ place in Ocean City. The Austins were staying in Cannes, heard about the Red Cross Ball in Monaco—the social event of the Riviera season—and inquired about tickets. When their hotel concierge reported that it was impossible to get tickets as the evening had long since been sold out, they showed some typical American moxie and phoned Prince Rainier’s office. They explained that Grace was their niece and wondered if, all things considered, they could somehow impose on her friendship with the Prince to buy a pair of tickets to the ball. The message wound up on Father Tucker
’s desk.

  Whether this was sheer coincidence or something of his own design, he personally delivered the tickets to the Austins with the Prince’s compliments, then maneuvered the conversation around to the Kellys and, in particular, to Grace.

  In his laughing, friendly way, he got the Austins to tell him everything they knew about Grace.

  When he returned to the Palace he just happened to mention the subject to Rainier.

  Later that week, at Father Tucker’s suggestion, the Austins were invited to tea with the Prince. Once again Father Tucker steered the topic of conversation to Grace.

  At the end of the afternoon, the Austins suggested, as Americans are wont to do, that if the Prince should ever find himself in the States he might enjoy coming to Ocean City where they would be pleased to repay his hospitality.

  Rainier politely agreed to consider it.

  Thanks to Father Tucker, the Austins returned to Philadelphia not merely thinking that the Prince was interested in Grace, but with the clear impression that a love match might be on. It’s possible, and highly probable, that the Austins—like everyone else involved in this tale of old-fashioned matchmaking—have, with the years, exaggerated their own role just a bit. But at least Father Tucker had planted the idea in their minds.

  The next thing anyone knew, Prince Rainier announced that he would go to America in December 1955.

  As soon as Father Tucker got wind of this, he contacted the Austins and they seemingly persuaded the Kellys to invite the Prince to their home for dinner on Christmas Day.

  Late in the afternoon on December 25, the Austins arrived at 3901 Henry Avenue with Prince Rainier, Father Tucker, and Dr. Donat.

  It was the first time since the film festival that Rainier had seen Grace.

  They spent Christmas afternoon and early evening talking.

  The Kellys liked Rainier from the moment they met him, although, at least in the beginning, not everybody knew who he was or what to call him.

  Ma Kelly thought he was the Prince of Morocco.

  Grace had to explain to her mother that wasn’t quite right.

  Jack Kelly then pulled Father Tucker aside to ask what the proper form of address was. “Do I call him Your Majesty?”

  “No,” Father Tucker said, “he’s referred to as Your Highness.” So Jack played along and called the Prince, “Your Highness,” even though he later explained to Rainier, “Royalty doesn’t mean anything to us.”

  After dinner, Kelly drove Father Tucker to the station to catch a train to Wilmington while Grace and Rainier, with Dr. Donat in tow, went to Grace’s sister’s house to dance and talk until 3 a.m.

  Rainier and Donat spent the night in the Kelly’s guest room which meant Grace and Rainier had the chance to spend part of the next day together as well.

  Supposedly unbeknownst to anyone, while being driven to the station on Christmas night, Father Tucker confided in Kelly that the Prince was considering asking Grace to marry him.

  If Jack was surprised, he hid it well.

  He told the priest that he suspected something like this might be on the cards and gave Father Tucker permission to tell the Prince that as long as Grace was willing, he’d have the Kellys’ blessing.

  Rainier waited a few days before proposing, Grace accepted and the engagement of the decade was announced to the world.

  For most people, including Rupert Allan, news of the engagement came totally out of the blue.

  He remembered, “I was driving back to Los Angeles from a photo session for Look magazine at Squaw Valley when I heard on the radio that Prince Rainier of Monaco had just announced his engagement to Grace Kelly. I couldn’t believe it. I kept saying, that can’t be. I kept saying, they don’t even know each other.”

  Except they did.

  The official version of their love story—that Grace and Rainier had no contact whatsoever between their first meeting in the spring of 1955 and his trip to Philadelphia that December—is not the way it really happened.

  The true story of how they fell in love had never been revealed until Rainier spoke about it for this book.

  Acknowledging that their first meeting had been less than private, he said that once they got past the formalities of shaking hands and posing for pictures, once they started to walk together in the garden with the entourage far enough behind them that they could relax a bit and talk, they started to realize they had some things in common.

  They’d both been lonely children.

  She told him she’d come from a family where success was based on sporting achievements, except she wasn’t terribly interested in sports.

  He told her that he’d come from a broken home where his future responsibilities were impressed on him at an early age, where he was often reminded that he wasn’t the same as other little boys and couldn’t behave the same way they did.

  They were both shy.

  She told him she was only just learning what it was like to be a public figure, to be deprived of her privacy by the press.

  He told her he’d suffered that all his life and could sympathize with her.

  She didn’t necessarily care for the sea in the same the way he did but she shared his love of animals and felt comfortable with him as he led her around his private zoo.

  She also couldn’t get over the way he put his arms through the bars of the tiger’s cage and played with the cat as if it were nothing more than a house pet.

  She appreciated the old world charm and sophistication of European men.

  He liked the freshness and spontaneity of American women.

  And they were both Catholic with a fundamental belief in their faith.

  Rainier couldn’t recall exactly what he expected when he was told that Grace Kelly was coming to visit. He knew who she was but the idea of posing for publicity photos with a movie star didn’t particularly excite him.

  When she confessed to him that she hadn’t wanted to do the photo session either, he realized they had that in common as well.

  He said he found her gentle, naturally elegant, and was captivated by her aura of purity.

  She eventually admitted that she found him totally engaging, not in the least stuffy or pretentious, the way she’d expected.

  He liked the way she laughed.

  She discovered he was a sensitive man who, when he relaxed, had a good sense of humor. And she loved to laugh.

  Back at the Carlton in Cannes, she wrote him a letter to say thank you and included her address in New York.

  He answered her, saying how glad he was that they’d met.

  She answered that letter, saying that she, too, was pleased to have met him.

  He wrote to her again.

  And then she wrote back to him.

  A regular correspondence began and they gradually got to know each other as pen pals.

  The Prince said it was easy that way. It was comfortable. He said they could hide behind their own letters and could give each other time.

  Slowly at first, step by step, he said, they revealed more and more with each letter. They wrote about the world and they wrote about life. They wrote about themselves, explained a feeling, wondered if it was shared, and confessed a secret.

  By the end of that summer, Rainier knew he’d found someone very special.

  He’d often said how difficult it was for him to get to know a woman. The frequently quoted remark from his bachelor days was, “My greatest difficulty is knowing a girl long enough and intimately enough to find out if we are really soul mates as well as lovers.”

  Like any wealthy, handsome young man, it was easy for him to find a lover. All too often that came first and there was no time left, once word leaked out, to discover if she might be a soul mate.

  This time, perhaps for the first time, he was doing it the other way around.

  Long before they ever held hands, he said, they both knew they were friends.

  He couldn’t recall how many letters there were. He wasn’t even sure they still exi
sted. At least, he said, he didn’t have the ones she sent to him. “I didn’t save them. Maybe I should have but that’s not the way I am. I don’t keep things like that.”

  As for the ones he sent to her, he shook his head, “I don’t know. Maybe she kept them. I suppose women do save letters. But if she did keep them I don’t know where they are.”

  He was asked, “Would you look for them?”

  Taking a deep breath and pausing for a moment, he shook his head. “No one has ever seen them. Not even my children.” There was an even longer silence. “Those letters...” His voice grew very quiet... “To be honest, I wouldn’t want anyone to see them. Even if I could find them.” He shook his head again. “Please understand, I simply couldn’t let anyone trespass on that. After having lived such a public life...” He stopped, looked away and in an even quieter voice said, “Those letters may be the last secret treasure garden I have left.”

  Chapter 5

  The Private Story

  The Paris Match photos had created such interest in the possibility of a romance between Grace and Rainier that, on October 11, 1955, Rainier went on Radio Monte Carlo to tell the people of Monaco, “Any rumors you might hear of my impending marriage are just that, rumors. The question of my marriage, which rightly preoccupies you, interests me, believe me, just as much, and more.”

  After insisting that certain sections of the press had been making all sorts of speculations that were simply not true, he told his people, “Just give me another three years and then we shall see.”

  Still, before the month was out he’d already secretly arranged to meet Grace at Christmas and to ask her to be his wife.

  “I knew what I wanted to do,” Rainier said, then confessed, “But I couldn’t just assume she’d marry me. I had to ask her. So I went to the States to see her. But I couldn’t ask her to marry me if I wasn’t absolutely sure she’d accept. I couldn’t ask her to marry me if there was any chance she’d say no.”

  He sailed from France on December 8, arriving in New York one week later.