Grace Kelly: The American Princess | The Hollywood Collection

She was born into a prosperous Philadelphia family. Though she was a shy child, she would live her life in the public eye. Don't try to be a hero. You don't have to be a hero. Not for me. I'm not trying to be a hero. By the age of 23, her beauty and talent took her to Hollywood. She made 11 films in three and a half years and became one of the most sought-after stars of her time. She worked with Hollywood's most important directors. Played opposite its top leading men. There's nothing quite so mysterious and silent as a dark theater. Then, at 26, she turned her back on make-believe. But make-believe came true in a fairy tale shared by the entire world. Her name was Grace Kelly. It became Her Serene Highness Princess Grace of Monaco. I don't think Grace really believed that she was going to give up acting when she became Princess Grace of Monaco. I think that the reality of that probably struck her someplace in the middle of the Mediterranean after the honeymoon began. She took everything so much in her stride. Nothing seemed to be too much for her. Her very name, Grace, could not have been more fitting. And even her death, her tragic early death, made her enter even more into legend. Monaco. A principality of less than 500 acres on the French Riviera. For centuries, the Monagasques had held onto their distinctive character and their pride. But to the world, this place was known as a playground for the wealthy who came to enjoy its beauty and its gambling. Monaco became the home of the young American actress who arrived in 1956 to be its princess. She brought her fame, her cool beauty, her intelligence. And she brought more, a sense of purpose. For this storybook princess was firmly anchored in reality. A reality that had its origins back in Philadelphia. Competition came easily to the Kellys. Here, along Kelly Drive, named after Grace's father, John B. Kelly, they still race in the sport for which Jack Kelly won an Olympic medal. A statue erected by the citizens of Philadelphia commemorates that achievement. Jack Kelly's father was a bricklayer from Ireland who went on to make a fortune. Young Jack soon joined the family business, construction, and brickmaking. He started his own business and made his own fortune. But he always professed pride in his family's humble origins. Jack Kelly believed the world was what you made it. Margaret Major, who married Jack, had been a model as well as a champion swimmer and athlete. Margaret and Jack were determined to raise their children their own way. If you're good enough, you're sure to reach the top. It was drilled into the Kelly children from their earliest years. As a family, we were always very close. Four of us, Peggy, my sister, is the oldest, my brother Jack, Grace, and then myself. She was the baby for three and a half years and loved every minute of it. Grace, when she was young, was very shy and a mama's baby. There are many times that we have pictures taken that mother had to lean back away from the camera so Grace would not cry to be taken away from her mother. She was very sweet and soft and loved to be held and cuddled and kissed and loved. I, on the other hand, and I think my brother and older sister, were more, you know, don't let me, don't get around me. We want to do our own thing. We always had a place at the shore when we were young and at that time I think we had our best times together. We just had a marvelous time and Grace all her life loved to be by the ocean and the sea. Grace and all the family, we were a competitive family. I think we got that, I know we got that from our mother and our father. They instilled into us a deep sense of competition and the love of sports, the thrill of winning, that also taught us how to lose gracefully. But the Kellys didn't intend to lose and there never was a better drillmaster than Jack Kelly. It was fun, family fun, and it left a special kind of determination. The determination didn't manifest itself in Grace as much in the sporting field. Her determination sort of took another turn. She loved to sit by the hours and pretend and create situations and say, Lizzie, you do this and I'll be this and I'll be the mother and you be the baby and of course I gave her a hard time a lot of times because I did not want to play her game. For Grace, growing up wealthy meant winter sport in Lake Placid. It also meant the best private schools. Working for causes you believed in started young with modeling at society fashion benefits. But for Grace, these shows meant more than fundraising. They were theater. She got most of her love from the theater from my Uncle George. He was a playwright and he directed plays. Very gracious, highly educated person, well read and very witty. And she just was fascinated with all the tales of the stage and the theater. Her Uncle George Kelly was a great example to her. He was sensitive and kind and talented and I think of all the men she ever knew, rather than going for the athletic macho type, I think her ideal man was her Uncle George. My recollections of her father, John B. Jack Kelly, were of an enormous man with tremendous amount of gusto. Everything up front, everything in the open, move ahead. Nice man, but not a tremendous amount of internal sensitivity. Her father believed absolutely that Peggy, the older sister, was going to make the big star of the family and succeed. And he never paid any attention to Gracie, who was in the middle of the family, these four children. And she was quiet, observant of the others, and adored her older brother too, also Kel, John B. Kelly Jr. And also an Olympic star, great racer, so the father thought he was great. But Gracie just accepted. And I don't think he understood her at all. But she adored him. And yet one wonders when you don't get from a parent what it is perhaps you need, if that isn't what creates a great deal of the drive in you to go out and become the fullest part of yourself. She decided to go to New York. And my mother and father especially surprised because she was a shy and retiring girl. My mother and father were a little leery of New York and on her own, but mother said, Jack, it's not as if she's going to Hollywood or to California. Grace knew that her father didn't think very much of an acting career. They allowed her to go to get it out of her system. Let her go. It won't amount to anything. Grace was accepted into the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, then housed in Manhattan's Carnegie Hall. It was 1947 and Grace Kelly was 18 years old. She supported herself by modeling. She got her portfolio and little by little she started getting jobs. So that she didn't have to ask for the favor of being supported in her efforts, so that she could justify her own existence by her own earning power. Grace also appeared in commercials. She was the girl next door. The girl men hoped they could marry. After graduating from the American Academy, Grace found parts in stock companies and her first professional role in her uncle George Kelly's play, The Torchbearers. Then came her first Broadway role in a Strindberg play. And we all went up in Philadelphia to see the opening night and dad did not know that Raymond Massey was in the play. Grace introduced her father to Raymond. He said, oh Jack, how are you? And he said, is this your daughter? I did not know that. So she did everything on her own and did not want any help from any of the family. Because she said, if I don't do it myself, I don't want to do it at all. I was very taken with the way she looked and the way she walked and especially her lovely voice. She had a beautiful voice. Except her speech was not yet, as an actress, blended with her posture, with that stately figure that she projected. She studied. She really applied herself to the characters that she was working on. I met Grace Kelly early in her career back in 1950 when I was directing Danger for CBS Television. Her mother came up and I think her brother came up to watch a rehearsal and when the rehearsal was over, I heard her mother say, darling, your speech is affected a little bit. Can you kind of make it more natural? And she said, mother, I'm working on it. Your city is full of sound, listen. I don't hear a thing. There's an automobile going past and a horse and a boat in the harbor. She played the lead in The Rich Boy for me. I'll take you. Under the pressures of live television, no retakes, no ability to go back and change. Television, when they had flats fall down on tea tables and everybody was out there improvising. She performed absolutely brilliantly and very quickly became one of the leading members of the so-called stock company, those actors that we would tend to cast over and over again. Basic, I would say. I must sound very snobbish about the West. Oh, no, I'm interested. I just never thought about it that way. Well, people in the West are more open. I'm open. That's because you've had a lot to drink. You drink a lot, don't you? No. Well, I was watching you from across the room. You kept filling your glass every few minutes. You were watching me? And so were most of the other girls. Some men are like that. They compel attention. I didn't even see you until just a few minutes ago and I couldn't wait to be introduced. Some men are like that. The first time I saw Grace, I would be hard-pressed to describe her as the glamour queen of the world. During a rehearsal, she had a pair of glasses on and they were just a little bit down her nose and she had a terrible cold and she was quite withdrawn. I remember we shook hands, but it wasn't a very hearty handshake. It was the handshake of a little girl. And I thought, ooh, what a nice school teacher. She's from Philadelphia and that was my first impression of Grace. Grace was given a small part in the movie, 14 hours, in which she was hardly noticed. She returned to television and to stock theatre. Her big break came, almost by chance. I met Grace in 1953, actually going through the receiving line of my wedding to my then-husband, Jay Cantor, who was her agent. I was intrigued by her looks in the photographs that Edie sent me, by her background, and probably more by the fact that she absolutely would not accept a long-term studio contract. He was a young agent, I was a young producer, and he had brought to me Marlon Brando. Then he sent me a photograph of Grace Kelly at the time we were casting High Noon. Now, I wanted an unknown girl. I asked to see her. She came in from Denver for an interview, for an interview for a part in a Western with white gloves, no less. That goes way back when we were children. My mother insisted every time we went into town, you wore hat and gloves. That not only my mother, we were brought up as in a convent, and the nuns insisted that you wore white gloves on special occasions. I went overboard because she had that lady-like quality, that kind of dignity which was in contrast to the Western scene, which worked so well vis-a-vis Cooper. Your lawful wedded husband to have and to hold from this day forward. The reason I think she was miscast is that Cooper was much older than Grace Kelly. He was too old for Kelly, actually, in the role. She didn't believe that she did well in the film. I didn't think so either. There was a girl in the film named Cotty Horato who played a Mexican gal in the town. Cotty Horato was dynamic and overpowering, and yet Kelly wasn't swallowed, even in her miscast, because this lady-like thing came through. They were on the right side, but that didn't help them any when the shooting started. My brother was 19. I watched him die. For Grace Kelly, it was her first big break, and for me, it was my first American picture, making here in Hollywood. I was two years older than she was. I have seven years making pictures in Mexico. There was something so different between Grace and I. We could not really explain, we could not be very close, but I could see a girl with a lot of dignity and a lot of character, because she wants to be somebody in movies, and she worked very hard in that picture. She looked weak, very tiny, but she was a very strong person. I believe that she was one of the strongest movie stars I worked with. She knew what she wants, and she did it. Gary Cooper went on to win an Academy Award for Best Actor of 1952, but there were no laurels for Grace, and she promptly headed back to New York for more study. She was a Kelly, and she had to do better. We've all probably read that thing where she says that you can see everything in Gary Cooper's eyes, but that her eyes were flat and dull and dead, and that she didn't like them. She couldn't tell what the character was feeling. She began to work harder on concentrating on her objective. In other words, that would eventually be the cure for the way she attacked her characters, to make them come alive, to make her eyeballs shine with meaning. She always had this inner image of being an old-fashioned actress-actress with the kind of glamour that you have on Broadway. Grace was eager for a lead role in a New York production of Cyrano de Bergerac. I wanted to have Grace as Roxanne. I wanted her not because of her great acting ability, but because of that discipline that she appeared to have. Unfortunately, she never did realize that every part she went up for on Broadway, with the exception of the father, she lost. And when she didn't get it, there were mentions of it in the columns and so forth and so on. She was really very, very distressed. And she picked herself up and went on. Mogambo is a picture that Grace apparently wanted to do very badly because she was willing to sign a long-term contract with MGM to do the picture. Is that all you're going to do for him? Well, what do you expect me to do, Mrs. Norley? Crawl in bed with him and hold his hand? The thought of playing opposite a star like Clark Gable, being directed by John Ford, a fellow Irishman, and I also think she was intrigued with the idea of going to Africa. On location for Mogambo, Clark Gable described an incident to Rupert Allen, then Look Magazine correspondent. Grace was alone and was discovered by Gable. She turned to him, she saw that she was crying. And he said, well, why are you crying, Grace? She said, it's so beautiful. I'm reading The Snows of Kilimanjaro by Hemingway. And I looked up and I was just reading about this frozen leopard, I think they found way up in the snows of this high mountain, highest mountain in Africa. And I looked up in my book, thinking about what a beautiful picture it was, and said Hemingway, and there I saw a lion walking along the seashore. It was just too beautiful. She gave human personalities to her animals. And very often she gave animal personalities to humans. She used to call some of her close friends bird. She called Rita Bird, Jay Bird, this bird, that bird. I mean, people and animals became interchangeable with Grace. Grace's role in Mogambo earned her an Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actress of 1953. What are you saying? You're drunk! You know how it is on safari. It's in all the books. The woman always falls for the white hunter, and we guys make the most of it. Can't blame us. When you come along with that look in your eye... Some critics called her a star in the making. Few realized how luminous that star would become, and in how short a time. Hollywood, as far as Jack and Margaret Kelly were concerned, was no place for a girl on her own. On Sundays many times we used to go to church, and then Uncle George, who lived in Southern California, would come pick us up and take us for a ride around and take us to lunch. And she enjoyed those rides with George so much that the two of them would talk. I would sit in the back seat and maybe take a little nap, but the two of them would talk theater and books and poetry. Some of the people in town, the studio heads, were quite mystified by her. They didn't understand why she didn't want to go to their dinner parties and be seated next to all the A people that young actresses shouldn't want to be seated next to. She didn't rush out effusively and reach forward to make lots and lots and lots of friends. She got up 5 o'clock in the morning, went on set, came home and grabbed something to eat, usually a hamburger, which was Gracie's favorite food, and then went to bed. She was always charming. She was never cold. She was never icy to anybody on the set. She could give that appearance of coolness, of being sort of above it all at all times. But inside, she was very often seething. And she was a volatile person, but always under control. Alfred Hitchcock used to say about Grace Kelly with his usual wit, that her apparent frigidity was like a mountain covered with snow, but that the mountain was a volcano. In 1953, director Hitchcock found in Grace his perfect heroine. There was a scene in the dial-in for murder where he wanted her to answer the phone by putting on her bathrobe. And she said there was no reason for her to put a bathrobe on, just to answer a telephone with no one else in the house but her. And he says, what would you wear? He said, I'd wear the nightgown. So he said, all right. And it worked out very well. Hello. She seemed to know the movements before Hitchcock had anything to say about it. And I think Hitchcock liked that. I think everybody liked it. In the picture Rear Window, Hitchcock said now to Grace, now you're going to have to go across and get into the room. And Grace, without any direction, she just went over, climbed up the fire escape, climbed in one of the windows and sneaked into the door and then looked over across the way to Hitchcock and said, is that what you mean? Well, everybody applauded and she deserved it because this was exactly what Albert Hitchcock wanted. What Grace brought as an actress was, Grace brought the actual young woman of the 50s into a vision of glamour. It was a very proper era in a way, a very prim era. Underneath that, of course, there was always the sense of flirtatiousness of young women and the sense of fun. Grace had truly arrived. She appeared on the covers of national magazines. But success meant more time spent in Hollywood. She was really a family person. She didn't like to be alone. I remember when she first went to California to make films, she lived alone. And suddenly she asked Rita Gamm to come and live with her. And Grace let me in. And there she was. She was wearing the same Philadelphia skirt, same sensible shoes, the same tied back hair, except now she was becoming a very valuable property. And I had no idea that her background was one of opulence. I thought of her as a co-worker, an actress. Then, out of the clear blue sky, and very directly, openly, and warmly, she said, would you like to share the flat? How would that fit in with your schedule? I said, well, I have to get up at 5 in the morning. She said, I have to get up at 5 too. I said, well, let's go to sleep at 9. She said, terrific. That's it. I think the thing that most people forget is that when all of this was happening to Grace, this extraordinary excitement about her career being generated and roles with the world's most famous leading men and the world's most respected directors, she was just a girl in her early 20s. One time in Hollywood, Grace and I were invited to what turned out to be a rather sticky dinner party with two bachelors. We had thought it was going to be this grand party with an awful lot of people. And there we were. And the lights were getting lower. And the wine was getting heavier. And I was getting very nervous. And I nudged Grace under the table. Grace had her glasses on. I think that was her protection. Mine was just to sort of chatter nervously and say, let's go, let's go, Grace. And she whispered back, let's wait until after dessert. It might be good. The bridges at Toko-Ri gave Grace the opportunity to play opposite an actor she admired, William Holden. Harry, you've got to tell me about those bridges. The kind of concentration that a good actor was capable of would definitely infect her. They know we're not going to fly above them, or fly between them. It would make her respond. And in that way, you could see, too, that she had a nervous system that was similar to litmus paper. She reacted immediately. You didn't want to tell me because you didn't want me to worry. Well, I don't want you to worry either. About me, I mean. I know what the Admiral was trying to tell me. I had to face those bridges, too. Director George Seaton was impressed by Grace's performance and wanted her for the demanding role of the wife and the country girl. But before releasing her, MGM insisted she appear in Green Fire. Which wasn't one of her favorite films. She was tired when she started. She had done about six pictures in a row and she had to go to South America. A film like Green Fire that absolutely made her blazing mad. I mean, she really was, she said, this is not what I wanted to be an actress for. But she did do it in order to get the part in Country Girl. At the moment, all I want is for you to get dressed so we can get out of here. Who's in the yard? Frank, I'm warning you. I'm going to hit you with the first thing I pick up. The greatest expression of courage that Grace demonstrated was the throwing away of her mask of beauty and her elegance. Nobody understood at all. I mean, why would this gorgeous creature want to be seen in an old tacky sweater with her hair pulled back in a bun looking haggard? She desperately wanted to be this great actress. He'll be in the strong, sober hands of Bernie Dodd. Can you stand him up on his feet again? Because that's where all my prayers have gone. To see that one holy hour when he can stand alone again. And I might forgive even you, Mr. Dodd, if you can keep him up long enough for me to get out from under. All I want is my own name and a modest job to buy sugar for my coffee. You can't believe that, can you? You can't believe that a woman is crazy out of her mind to live alone in one room by herself. Listen to me. Why are you holding me? I said, you're holding me. How could you be so angry with someone you didn't even know? In a single year, 1954, she had completed four major films and won an Academy Award. She was pronounced one of Hollywood's major stars. She was 24, and it seemed she had it all. This is after Grace had enormous success in films and bought a very big, posh apartment. And I have an image of her father walking through the lobby and Grace sort of peering out, saying, there he is, there he's coming. It was as if this fictional character, the great Gadsby, had come down to Earth and was going to look at her apartment. And she really wanted to prove to him that she had accomplished a great deal. And that was the first time I got a sense of an undercurrent of something other than this picture book family. Grace dated, but no one really seriously, until the latter part of her career. There were so many people that were in love with her. Most men were. She had that quality of, well, I don't know, turning men on, if you say. She was going to be my maid of honor. And when I, the baby sister, was getting married, that she got to think about, now I might want to get married, too. Well, I was married in June, and I think I broke the news that I was pregnant and I'm going to have a baby in May, too. And she said, Lizzie, you are going to have a baby. Oh, I want a baby. I'm missing things. In 1955, Grace would appear in a film that would change her life. Location work for To Catch a Thief took place near the ancient principality of Monaco. Her co-star would be Cary Grant. Once again, she was directed by Alfred Hitchcock. What he extracted from her, and that combination of the cool beauty who held it all back, and then just gave out just enough to be tantalizing, and just enough to make the leading man and the audience want a little more. Ever had a better offer in your whole life? One with everything? And a crazier one. Just as long as you're satisfied. This necklace is imitation. Well, I'm not. I mean, she had a lot of beaux and boyfriends who were actors and human beings and dress designers and this and that, but there wasn't this one person who could fulfill this childhood image that a great many of us have about wanting that one man in our life to be special and really to be the old prince on the white charges. A French magazine had decided that the palace in Monaco would be a perfect background for Grace or a publicity layout. And then Prince Renier indicated he was willing to meet the beautiful star. Though he was known as a shy and modest man, Prince Renier III was called Europe's most eligible bachelor. And his meeting with Grace immediately provoked interest. Rumors linking you with virtually everybody, and the latest one is with Grace Kelly. Would you comment on that for us? No, I just met Grace Kelly. She came to the palace when she was at Cannes for the festival. And that's all. Well, there are many stories that you're actively seeking a wife. Would you care to comment on that? No, I'm not. Bet you've been in this book. I see. What if you did meet a girl that you liked here? Would all this publicity about it prevent you from doing anything about it? No, it shouldn't. I don't think anything should. If you were to marry, what kind of a girl do you have in mind? I don't know. The best. Being the best was a lesson Jack Kelly had drilled into his children. Grace had excelled. She had reached the top of her profession. But for Grace Kelly, there had to be more. MGM had no idea of Grace's future when it cast her in a film that was oddly prophetic. The Swan. It was based on a play by Molnar, and the story was very simply the story of a princess. I want to be so good to you. I want to tell you everything that's in my heart, all my secrets. I adore Napoleon, too. Little princess. I want to hear you call me by my name. There was an innate aristocracy, elegance about her, not only in comportment and manners, but also in thinking, in being. It has been a cliché to say that Grace Kelly looked like a princess, but she did. There was another element in Grace Kelly that was all important. She had this extraordinary sense of humor, not only, and first of all, about herself. Never taking herself seriously. During filming of The Swan, Alec Guinness had an Indian tomahawk smuggled into Grace's bed, and she quickly returned the compliment. The joke would continue for years. They never spoke about finding it, nor passing along. It just disappeared, went from one to the other. I get back home one night, I'm playing in a show, get into bed, and I say to my wife, for God's sake, why on earth do we need a cold, hot water bottle? Why do we need a hot water bottle? And she said, I don't know what you're talking about. And it was this identical tomahawk. Somehow, Alec Guinness got it into the palace at least once, into Grace's bed. So while she was downstairs, the tomahawk was put under the cover. So she ended up with the tomahawk. She read in the papers in Europe that he was being honored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. I stayed at the Beverly Wilshires Hotel, clasping my Oscar, got back three in the morning, or whenever it was, and there in my bed at the Beverly Wilshires Hotel was the tomahawk. Out of this extraordinarily withdrawn, glamorous, glacial personality, poured forth this sense of the ridiculous that only the British could really appreciate, or a five-year-old child. Now, I ever said of that finishing school, I think they finished her there. Come on, Mother. Jesse Royce Landis played Grace Kelly's mother in two films. And when Grace married Prince Rainier, she said, I'm the one who advised her to marry him and told her, that will be your greatest role. And one Monday morning, she came into L.B. Mayer's office and said, Mr. Mayer, I'm going to get married. Well, he said, gee, that's wonderful. I'll have a big reception for you upstairs. Well, everybody in Hollywood. No, she said, Mr. Mayer, you don't quite understand. Grace Kelly had been newsworthy as a movie actress, but now her importance soared. Miss Kelly, how do you feel on this occasion? Needless to say, I'm very, very happy. How about you, Miss Kelly? Well, I think you can't interfere with love if you're in love with each other. Well, I'll give you my blessing. Reporters hung on every word and were alert to every move made by Grace or Prince Rainier. Will you continue with your career after your marriage? Well, that decision will be made by the prince. Is Miss Kelly going to make any more movies, as far as you know? I don't think so. He did come to the house that Christmas, and Don and I had our own little apartment, and we asked him over for dinner, and he fit in very well, even helped with the dishes. Rainier, when we first met him, I think might have been a little shocked with us when we said, come on, Rainier, you know. But he just fit into the family beautifully. George, lie down with me. Tracy! In 1956, Grace made her last Hollywood film, High Society. In it, she proudly wore her new engagement ring. The sense of style. How do you do? I'm Tracy Lord. High comedy performance that she gave in High Society. Vastly different from anything that she had ever done before. Did you get lost finding us? No, no, not at all. We had good direction. Good. I do hope you don't mind our being here for your wedding. Oh, but I'm delighted. We had so much cake. What is your name, dear? Grace's sense of fun would never again be as publicly revealed. My name is Elizabeth Embry. Elizabeth Embry. Oh, it sounds like a medieval saint who was burned to death. And you? She had made this extraordinary, luminous climb to the absolute top apex of the industry. There are a lot of people that have just quality and have no electricity. She combined them. She could have called the shots from then on. I mean, then she was finally in a position not to have to argue about the films she wanted to do. People would have bought things for her. People would have planned productions around her. They would have done anything. And she fell in love and she said, Bye, I'm going off to be Mrs., in this case, the Princess of Monaco. And before we all knew it, she was gone. Grace Kelly had never really enjoyed the publicity that came with stardom. Now she would feel the burden of true international celebrity. I don't know how she was able to protect that small core that is so necessary that keeps you sane. But she did. She was able, under the most extraordinary barrage and vociferous press and personal need that people had. I mean, people just, I don't know why they do it, but they seem to want to get inside, particularly press, a person's soul. And Grace had the extraordinary ability of not rising above it, separating herself from it. It was almost a mystical kind of ability she had to be the quiet eye in the middle of a horrendous hurricane. And there she was, just firm and sure and calm. It's a very exciting thing and I'm very, very happy. Of course, I'm a little sad to be leaving home, but I hope to be back quite often. She chose, as any average young woman would, her six best friends and her sister to attend her wedding to the prince. And then, Grace Kelly of Philadelphia, with most of her family and many of her closest friends, sailed away to become a princess. Prince Renier's yacht bears his betrothed in triumph into the harbor at Monaco. A few hours earlier, Grace Kelly... Once we arrived in Monaco, it was, of course, all the madness that one has seen over the years of what went on. They came by the thousands to welcome and to judge. She was rich, she was beautiful, but she was an American, and to some of them, just an actress. I think Grace had a tough job being a movie star from America. Moving into the life of the symbol of a southern country. Constant round of parties and being part of this glamorous and mythological event, and just simply being around royalty was new to all of us. As Grace took up a totally new role, some who did not know her watched and waited for her to fail. It was like a fairy tale, all of it, and that's the part that we got to be part of. It was not a fairy tale. Grace relaxed at her husband's side, but she knew to the monogasques she now had to prove herself worthy of being the wife of their ruler, Prince Renier III. The last time I saw Grace was in my own imagination when she was on the yacht, chug, chug, chugging away into the Mediterranean after the wedding was over, and I realized that there was no more Grace Kelly. Grace Kelly was a memory. Grace Kelly was history. There was only Princess Grace of Monaco. And then we all went home, and she stayed there. This was a very hard challenge for her because not only the language barrier, but in a foreign world, the foreign customs, and the principality, the formal way of doing things. She kept studying things that would enforce her position as princess. She utilized everything around her. She improvised on being a princess the way a really good actress will improvise on a part. For example, she always tried to simplify things. Alexandre, the great hairdresser in Paris, fixed for her a number of special pieces of hair attachments. So when she would travel with all these French aristocrats, and while they were busy making appointments with hairdressers everywhere we went, Grace was always ready with one of these hair pieces, which she would make into some kind of wonderful hairdo. Never took extra time. Since she was fundamentally a working woman, she did everything with a great seriousness of purpose, with a great sense of responsibility. On cultural or diplomatic occasions, with presidents, or with popes, she was expected to be perfect in bearing, and often, in her newly acquired language. It was something that I am amazed that she could handle. I wondered so many times, oh, I don't know, I know I could never do that. But she was determined to make a success of it. I ask you either or both to explain what will happen in the event twins are born. A boy second and a girl first. Who would be the ruling monarch? The normal successor would be the eldest of the children, even if it's a girl. But that doesn't mean that she will rule because she can't always resign or abdicate in favor of her younger brother, and he would then rule. Are twins expected? Not that I know of. Princess Grace, is your life as a princess what you imagined it would be before you became a princess? Well, I sort of became a princess before I had much time to imagine what it would be. With the birth of a daughter, Caroline, on January 23, 1957, the line of succession was secure. Just 15 months later, a male heir, Albert, arrived to even greater celebration. I think the meanest thing came was when she had the children, and they did come very quickly. She wanted the children, she loved them, and we had so much fun roughhousing together. Her children and my children and our children are the same age, and they've gone to camp together. Don and I have been over to Monaco several times with the children, and they've come here in Ocean City. Their needs were the same, for closeness and for family. In addition to her own children, Grace would always have the Kellys. Prince Rainier soon found himself an accepted part of that family. Grace always adored children. She almost over-adored her own children. She was the typical loving, sometimes too disciplining, but always giving mother. Private time was essential for them both. Family life was a retreat from the formalities of state, and Grace was determined to keep her family a success. No matter how demanding her official schedule, there was always time for her children. There were the trips home, often with Prince Rainier. There was the anniversary for Margaret Kelly and her growing brood of grandchildren. For Prince Rainier, cruises on his yacht meant he could indulge his passion for fishing. Then there was the time set aside for enjoying the palace pool with children and friends. I think she held on to her old friends in those beginning years because they were her reality as Grace Kelly and she didn't want to lose Grace Kelly. There was never any loss of the sense that she was Gracie from Philadelphia. She was a girl with an American soul and heart, and she brought that to Monaco with her and she never chipped away at that at all. In the back of Grace's mind was always the possibility of going back to being a film star. I think she kept it there for those rainy nights. I would occasionally read a script that would intrigue me and I'd call her and send it on. When the opportunity arose to do Marnie, I think she leapt at it. I couldn't understand why she would want to do it even, why Hitchcock would want to do it. The Monegasques were absolutely, completely undone because they thought that she had abandoned them. I think that the thing that convinced her that she couldn't do it was that she was a princess of the church. And once she believed that dignity of being the princess of the Catholic church was more important than being an actress, she accepted it, but I think it took a long time. In 1965, seven years after the birth of Albert, Stephanie was born. Once Grace's life as a performing artist seemed to come to a close as she became princess of Monaco, she didn't discard her feeling for the arts, any part of them. I got a letter from Grace saying that she was going around doing poetry readings for a theater in London that was being built. So basically, Grace was an artist and she did it through poetry. She wanted very much to have Monaco be a cultural center. Grace established a foundation to further her goals. The Monegasques had been without a playhouse for many years. A new one was built. Today, this theater draws drama companies from around the world. Once, the famous Ballet Russe of Monte Carlo danced here. Grace was determined to bring those great days back. A ballet company must have a school. Through the Princess Grace Foundation, a small school run by one of ballet's foremost teachers has been transformed into a world-class academy. Both Caroline and Stephanie had studied here as small children. Grace was frequently more than an onlooker. I remember a particular general rehearsal when she asked me, do you think I could make them up? And all the little children gathered around her. All the faces turned towards the princess and she was putting a little bit of frouze on their cheeks and a little bit of lipstick on their lips. It was love of children and of ballet that led to one of Grace's few returns to film, the 1979 Earl Mack documentary The Children of Theater Street about young dancers in Leningrad. They are the protagonists. But as their predecessors have demonstrated, perhaps the greater protagonist is the school they go to. Angelina has practiced these movements hundreds and hundreds of times. In the next six years, she will repeat them thousands of times. What makes it worth it is this. Grace knew the demands of great performance. But for the Monogasques, Grace herself had gone beyond performance. Through the years, by her diligence, her constancy, she truly was Her Serene Highness, Princess Grace of Monaco. You know, I don't wake up in the morning thinking I'm doing a fairy tale. I have the job to get done and children to raise and a lot of responsibilities and obligations. I like to think that they would consider me a professional at my job, no matter what it would be. If I take on something, I like to do it well and I like to do it completely. Some people often say that Grace made a great sacrifice of her career in becoming the Princess of Monaco. I don't think she ever felt that way. They all say she made a She made as good a princess as she was a movie actress. Even better. You know, in fairy tales, one has to invent a prince and a princess. But here we have them. We have them. It was in the rugged hills along the border with France that Princess Grace's car went out of control at a curve that has seen many accidents. According to the official version, Princess Grace was driving her 17-year-old daughter Stephanie from the brakes failed. A young Monagasque woman put her feelings about Princess Grace this way. She was never a problem for her. There were no pretensions, no scandals. She was, after all, a lady. I think she won the hearts and the love of the Monagasque people. Because when she died, I've never seen such true sorrow. For me, just to have a great sister and to have a loving sister. Before she was a princess, she was an actress. And before that, a girl from Philadelphia. A family girl.