Although the lovely Princess Grace stands firmly by her Prince’s side — as the only person he can trust — her domestic life and her future are now jeopardized as never before.
By Charles Samuels*
At the recent wedding of Princess Sophia of Greece and Juan Carlos of Spain, the most popular guest, beyond a doubt, was the girl who was once Grace Kelly of Philadelphia. The bridal couple were the only royal personages who were more enthusiastically cheered by the thousands who jammed the streets of Athens to watch the wedding procession. It was the same story at the reception, where many of her fellow guests queued up in their eagerness to have a word with the beautiful Princess Grace Patricia of Monaco.
This tribute to the American-born princess was all the more heart-warming because also present were King Olav of Norway; two beloved European queens, Ingrid of Denmark and Juliana of The Netherlands; the bride’s parents, King Paul and Queen Frederica; and the groom’s father and mother, Don Juan, pretender to the vacant throne of Spain, and the Countess of Barcelona.
It was one of the signal triumphs of Princess Grace’s career, and both she and her husband, Prince Rainier, seemed to revel in it. As she smiled dazzlingly, Grace appeared utterly relaxed and at peace with the whole world. And, incidentally, more in love than ever with her prince.
Yet afterward, a veteran foreign correspondent who covered the wedding told me, “Princess Grace gave one of her greatest performances at that affair. Watching her, no one would have dreamed that she and the prince are facing a crisis that menaces their entire future”.
I assumed that he was talking about Monaco’s political crisis with France, which is expected to come to its climax within the next month. For weeks the newspapers of Europe had been running stories about the De Gaulle government’s determination to make Prince Rainier back down and yield to their fiscal demands, and about how Rainier was defying Paris and might be stripped of all power and position. Some editorial writers predicted he’d be compelled to abdicate within a year or less.
But when I mentioned this, the correspondent shook his head. “Yes, that’s a tense and dangerous situation. But it’s a purely political matter, something that is Rainier’s problem. What I was thinking about was something more intimate — something that involves a heartbreaking decision that she must make.”
In truth, there is only one thing that Princess Grace is more concerned about than her husband’s political fortunes: that is her own future marital relationship with him.
I could recall reading items at various times in the gossip columns hinting that she and the prince were bitterly quarreling. It was implied that their religious beliefs alone prevented them from getting a divorce.
I had never believed those stories. I might not have believed that my friend’s words were based on fact, either, except for the somewhat puzzling behavior of Princess Grace in recent months. Her announcement, for instance, that she was going to return to Hollywood to appear in an Alfred Hitchcock movie took everyone by surprise. She’d never specifically said why she wanted to do that. Then when she quickly changed her mind, her explanation of the reversal was equally unconvincing mean that her storybook romance with Rainier was approaching the end? Seven years ago they’d fallen in love at first sight. When they married hastily the next year, after only two or three dates, the couple epitomized for millions of romantic souls the starry-eyed lovers in a fairytale.
Wasn’t one glad to hear that in a world full of horror and hate people still fell in love at first sight? It was charming to think about, refreshing. Now, were Grace and her prince not going to live happily ever after?
I decided to try and learn for myself whether their marriage really was shaky, and if so, why. I went to Monaco, then to the other gemlike cities along the French Riviera. I talked to the French, English and American newspapermen assigned there, to officials and aides who work closely with Rainier, to hotel owners, bank officials, society people who knew Princess Grace, and ordinarv citizens of Monaco.
Many of them contributed details that are here being published for the first time. But it was a shrewd old widow, who lives alone in a chateau near Monte Carlo, who gave me one key to the intriguing story. This is what she said:
“You people who have written so much about the prince and princess have all made the same fantastic mistake about them. This is in thinking of them not as human beings who have faults and virtues like the rest of us, but as a glorified and angelic couple who never quarrel, or lose their temper or make stupid mistakes.
“The prince is a man of extraordinary charm—virile, forthright. But he is also a man living with one foot in the eighteenth century. He is proud of being Europe’s last absolute monarch, even though his whole postage-stamp domain is about half the size of New York’s Central Park. He actually believes with all of his heart that he rules his tiny principality by divine right.
“Even if he did not also have long spells of melancholia, this obsession would make him a most difficult husband at times. But the real clue to what has happened and is happening right now between them lies in something he said, and kept repeating after they were married:
“ ‘At last I have found someone I can trust!’ A wonderful compliment for the bride, but think of the burden it placed on her. By then he’d been absolute ruler of Monaco for seven years. As his remark implied, he had found no one else—no official or aide—in whom he could have complete faith. He’d quarreled with them all and has been quarreling ever since. Believing in his ‘divine right’ as he does, how can he allow others any real degree of authority, and above all, accept criticism from mere commoners? That is what General De Gaulle is to him, a commoner!”
It is clear then that, besides the other adjustments Princess Grace had to make, she had to be this moody man’s comforter and consultant on affairs of state; she had to learn to offer suggestions and then withdraw them at once if he disapproved. She also has had to do the smiling in public for both of them.
When Grace married Rainier she was a star in her own right, a celebrity who had reached a position where she could dictate to others. She had no experience or training for the job she had so innocently taken on when she married her prince. That she has managed as well as she has until now is a tribute to the maturity she has attained in this strange marriage.
The big question now is what will life be like with Rainier if he is forced to abdicate? An ex-prince is the most unemployable of all human beings. If he is moody, oversuspicious and unable to control his temper now, how will he react once he is stripped of all power?
A millionaire American yachtsman, long a friend of the prince, had this view when I talked to him at Cannes:
“Whatever shortcomings the prince has as a diplomat and politician, he has been the best of husbands and a devoted father to his two children. No actress, particularly one like Grace who has been a great star and then has retired, is very easy to live with. She never stops wondering what might have happened had she continued acting. She keeps dreaming of the magic she once had to hold an audience.
“I used to watch the princess at dinners and parties when Hollywood friends were visiting her. She would drink in every word uttered. The actor could be Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, her good friend, Rita Gam, or merely a character player. But it was always the same. The chitchat and shop talk never ceased to fascinate her.
“Now, Prince Rainier is a sensitive man and quite perceptive. Before they were married, he’d worry about Grace becoming bored in the palace with all of the protocol, state functions and formal parties for dull people. He was, of course, right in his guess. Grace did become bored. So she plunged into charity work and perfected her French. I think that she was surprised to discover that she had even less liberty in Monaco than she’d had as a star.
“She didn’t complain. She took what satisfaction she could out of being Princess Grace Patricia of Monaco. But there’s no mistaking that wistful expression on her face when old show-business pals are around.
“Rainier wanted her to be happy. He encouraged her to invite these friends of her acting days to the palace. But he started to wish that she’d forget that she’d ever been a performer.”
When Princess Grace made her sudden announcement that she planned to return to motion pictures, via the Alfred Hitchcock production, most of those who knew Rainier intimately were truly amazed. He had, after all, forbidden the showing of her pictures in the Monte Carlo theater and elsewhere in Monaco.
Was this a sign that the two were becoming increasingly incompatible in their desires and interests?
I drove back to Monte Carlo, Monaco’s chief city, for an appointment with a re-centlv retired confidential aide of Prince Rainier. He is in his late seventies. Like the yachtsman, he proved to be a strong partisan of the prince. If he were aware of any plan of the royal couple to separate he kept it to himself.
“Why do you ask such a question?” he demanded.
“Well, would such a development surprise you?” I asked. “What do those two have in common? All he seems to be able to do is alienate people. And, now that he’s on the verge of being forced out, not even Her Serene Highness will be able to live with him.”
The wizened official seemed to resent my “fishing expedition.” But he smiled. “I think I can tell you enough about my prince to enable you to understand why he is the way he is. You might even come to see why Princess Grace Patricia loves him and what they have in common.”
He proceeded to make quite a case for the embattled Absolute Monarch. Rainier’s parents, the official pointed out, had quarreled almost from the day he was born, 39 years ago. The only attention they gave him was when they were fighting their court battles for his custody. After being separated for years, they were divorced in 1933, while he was still a schoolboy in England. His father, Prince Pierre, Count of Polignac, made at least one attempt to kidnap the boy.
In the end his maternal grandfather, Louis II, the reigning Prince of Monaco, took over his rearing. But Louis, a pleasure-loving old rake, also had little time for the youth. He put several of his broken-down old court hangers-on in charge of Rainier. They, in turn, selected a handful of wild youths of bad character to keep company with the young man. They fawned all over Rainier. But whenever the boy’s back was turned, they boasted that they could twist him around their little finger.
“The day he succeeds his grandfather,” they jubilantly told each other, “is the day we’ll start running Monaco to please ourselves.”
Rainier had got rid of them by the time he succeeded to the throne in 1949. As a ruler Rainier busied himself with constructive works, such as a better school system, low-cost housing, and encouraging foreign investors to build and establish their business headquarters in Monaco.
But Prince Rainier also quarreled with his own legislators and cabinet members when they begged him to let them function as something more than rubberstamps, and with Aristotle Onassis, the Greek oil-tanker magnate, to whom he had sold the gambling casino and other buildings. He battled also with his sister and other members of his family and then, most disastrously, with the French, who surround his tiny domain and had the power to drive him to his knees any time they wished.
In concluding his appraisal of Rainier, the old pensioner added:
“Every mistake My Lord Prince has made, believe me, was made in the interests of the people who are his subjects. You asked me what he and the princess have in common. For one thing, she shares his love for all Monacoans. They are also both decent people. There may not be much decency or nobility in our modern world, but those two have more than their share of both qualities.”
No one could have listened to this earnest man without being moved. But he had not told me why Grace had decided, if only briefly, to return to acting. He had also evaded my question about whether she and Rainier might be separating soon. A similar reaction to the same question by others who should have known the inside facts convinced me that this was a definite possibility. However, I could not understand how a woman of Grace’s sterling character would consider for one moment leaving her husband at this most critical time in his entire life.
The lesser mystery (about the Hitchcock movie) was solved first. The explanation was offered to me by a person involved in the negotiations, and is the only one I’ve heard that makes any sense.
“For some years now Princess Grace has been receiving offers from Hollywood,” said my informant. “The only proposition that interested her at all was Marnie. But when she talked to Alfred Hitchcock about it last winter in Paris, no hard-and-fast agreement was made. She said that because of her position, she had to consider all angles of the matter very carefully. If she could do it at all, it would be done during the summer. She had no court duties then. That was all right with Hitchcock, who was busy. But a script and a copy of the book were sent to the royal palace. Grace had asked that her interest in the project be kept a dark secret, and it was. Some people will tell you it was the best-kept secret in Hollywood history.
“I don’t know how deep or serious her interest was. Neither does anyone else. Grace has always’ been indecisive about what roles she prefers to play.
“On January 24, not long after the meeting with Hitchcock in Paris, Prince Rainier had his fight with M. Emile Pelletier, the man De Gaulle had sent to him to be Monaco’s Minister of State. Pelletier reported to De Gaulle that the prince had denounced France, De Gaulle and the French Army, and had then ordered him out of the royal palace.
“As you know, Monaco has long enjoyed all of the privileges of being part of France without having to pay taxes, and its residents do not have to do any military service. But on getting Pelletier’s report De Gaulle said he would renounce that agreement. Foreign capital immediately began pulling out of Monaco. One wealthy man transferred $12,-000.000 from a Monaco bank to Switzerland on hearing that bad news. And that was only the beginning. In October, France said it would slap immigration and customs controls on Monaco. That, too, would be only a beginning. The French could cut off Monaco’s gas, electricity and water supply, could turn Monte Carlo into a ghost town overnight. But Rainier, though he had no cards to play, kept roaring his defiance of Frgnce, and trying to rally his subjects to back him up.
“They were uninterested. They were eager to make some sort of deal with the French but had become convinced they could do it better without such a belligerent ruler. In a terrible battle with the legislature—an earlier one—Rainier had dismissed it and suspended the Constitution. That was three years before, and he’d since run the country without a constitution or a legislature.
“Prince Rainier got the same reaction when he sent for the leader of the opposition. He promised a more liberal constitution, new powers for the National Council, reforms and woman suffrage. This last was something Princess Grace had been urging him to sponsor since 1959.
“The leader replied, ‘You are a little late, My Lord Prince.’
“Rainier realized that without his own people backing him he had no chance to stand up to France. He was in a panic when he told this to Grace.
“It was then she announced she was returning to Hollywood to make a picture, taking along with her the two children and the prince. She did not even notify Hitchcock.
“In back of her head, perhaps, was some crazy idea that her subjects would rise up in a body and implore her to stay. She had not forgotten that Monaco was in the economic doldrums when she came there, and that it had picked up with her as a drawing card for tourists.
“But it turned out that they had forgotten how much help she’d been; or perhaps they didn’t care. Her first announcement that the deal was postponed came soon afterward. It was a face-saver. It said that Hitchcock couldn’t finish his other picture by the summer and had postponed Marnie until the following year.
“That burned up the Hitchcock office, which then gave the newspapers a story that the real reason the deal was off was that Grace and Rainier had cut all love scenes from the script. If they had their way Grace would not even be seen kissing the leading man.
“The palace then sent out another story that the deal was off because Grace’s subjects objected. ‘I have my duties to them,’ she is supposed to have said.”
Learning the explanation of the second, and much more important, mystery proved simpler. It came, oddly enough, through the denial of a story most newspaper readers were unaware had been published. After the birth of Albert, their son, who is heir to Rainier’s throne, the prince designated Grace as Regent in the event he died before the boy became 21. The item, published a short time ago, said:
Friends of Princess Grace are scoffing at the recent rumors that she has agreed to separate from her husband if he is forced to abdicate. When that happens, if it does, Rainier would go into exile but the French would ask Princess Grace to remain in Monaco as Regent and rule for their four-year-old son until he becomes twenty-one.
After reading this, I questioned both French and Monacoan officials. The story they then gave me was that such a compromise had been discussed by representatives of both governments.
They thought it quite possible that Rainier, unable to retain the throne for himself, would agree to such a deal. One of them said, “Remember Rainier’s obsession about ruling by divine right and as an absolute monarch. In dozens of speeches he has said that his dearest dream is having his son succeed him.”
“What about Grace? What’s her opinion of all this?”
“I don’t know. But the prince has long been hammering into her head the idea that his son must succeed him no matter what the cost. It could be that he’s convinced her.”
Nobody knows what Grace will do in the difficult months that loom just ahead.
If he is exiled, Prince Rainier may feel, as do most dethroned rulers, that some unforeseen turn of the wheel of fortune will restore him to the throne.
He may have this idea now and have convinced Grace that it is her duty to remain in Monaco until that great day comes, meanwhile protecting the crown for Albert. In that event, Grace will have little choice in the matter.
Six years ago, when Grace left the glittering world of Hollywood, where she was indisputably a reigning queen, to become a bona-fide princess, she could envision few of her present problems.
However, now she is confronted with the loss of her throne, as well as the possible disintegration of her marriage. If Grace’s fairy-tale world suddenly has taken on the harsh look of disaster, then she is destined to play, in the days ahead, a role more dramatic than any she ever performed on the screen.
*Author of “The King”, the recent best-selling biography of Clark Gable
Good Housekeeping (October 1962)
Grace&Family 