1966: Grace Kelly Sits Down With Barbara Walters on TODAY

Your Highness, what do you most want people to know about Monaco? Well, let me think. I suppose that Monaco has a certain 19th century charm that I think people look for and are happy to find here. It has a lot of sunshine to offer. A lot of nice weather and I think, well, the whole principality has a great deal of charm, I think, starting with the people and they're warm and good-hearted and gay, I think. Yes, they've been all of that to us in just the few days we've been here. Most Americans are under the impression that the bulk of Monaco's income comes from the Monte Carlo gambling casino. Is this actually the case? Oh, no, it's not. I think it was years ago, but there are many small industries here and I suppose tourism is the biggest source of income, but there are many small factories, many businesses. Does your husband have warm relations now with President Degas? I believe so, yes. I presume that you know of his, shall we say, the President's hostility to the United States. How do you feel about that? Well, naturally I'm disturbed by it. It's very uncomfortable for an American living in Europe to have this situation and I certainly wish it were otherwise. Are you yourself very interested in international affairs? Do you keep up very much with what's going on? I try to, but I must say that I'm more interested in the artistic world than I am the political world. Most of us think of a princess as sleeping in bed until noon, having breakfast in bed, ladies-in-waiting, many servants. Would you describe for us your average day and is it anything like that picture I've described? Well, I would love nothing better than to lie about eating peeled grapes, but it's not quite that way. Well, anyone with children is up early and that's the reason I'm up so early. People always romanticize my life to a great degree, I believe, but my life is not much different from any other woman who works and has a great many obligations and a great many things to do and three children to look after. Do you think in that sense if someone said Princess Grace has a fairly normal life and she takes care of her children, it's just like any other woman? Well, it's not as normal as anyone who is perhaps in the public eye. Do you think it's a very different life than let's say if you'd remained an actress and married someone in the motion picture business? Yes, I believe so because when I was acting my private life was very much my own and now my private life is very public. And people like me come and sit and ask you, poke around and ask you all kinds of questions. Which are very difficult to answer. One reporter in a magazine doing a story on you and Prince Rainier quoted this, these people have so little to do really, there just isn't that much going on, they show movies three times a week. Is this at all an accurate description of your life? I know what that was. I resented that very much. It was in Time magazine when they were reviewing a television program that we did on the palace and I thought it quite unfair to criticize our lives which had nothing to do with the television program that was being done. Actually they interviewed a member of the crew who was here shooting this picture and he was the one who said that. My only answer to that is that my husband does like to see movies and in the wintertime he runs pictures twice a week and my first answer when I read that was I wanted to write and say that to ask the reviewer if he would find out how many pictures, how many movies a week Sir Winston Churchill watched during the war when he had quite a few things to do but he always managed to relax and see several movies a week. Who is it most difficult for you to adjust to as a princess and a monarch when you first came here? Oh I don't know. There were a lot of things to adjust to. Just being married for one thing, that's a big change in anyone's life and well it was a different culture a different language. Did you speak French at all when you came here? A little bit but not very much. I could ask the questions but I couldn't understand the answers. Was it odd or difficult in the beginning to hear yourself referred to as His Serene Highness Princess? Did you sort of turn around and wonder who they were talking to? Well in French it doesn't seem strange at all but in English and in America it does seem strange yes. Is a European husband very different from an American husband? For example is Prince Rainier very different from your own brothers? A European husband is definitely the head of the household in no two ways but it. And I mean even in France the laws were that way until just recently. A woman couldn't have a bank account of her own or couldn't sign any legal papers or documents without her husband's permission and I know European men are always shocked a little bit sometimes by the relationship between an American man and wife. For instance if an American wife would contradict her husband in public which often happens. American women are outspoken and forthright and honest and say what they think and this shocks European men I think quite a bit. Many have mentioned it to me. I mean you'd never find a European woman correcting her husband in front of other people. She may do it at home and maybe more so later but she'll never do it in front of other people. In the early days of your marriage did you find yourself doing it? Did you learn quickly? I learned a lot of things. You know we all know you so well or at least we feel we know you so well but of course we don't know Prince Rainier that well. Is it possible for you to describe him at all to us? Well he's, I think people don't know him too well because he's basically rather shy but he has great wit and is very amusing when he's with friends and people he knows. He's a very good father. He's wonderful with the children. I think because he had a rather unhappy childhood himself that he dedicates as much time as possible to his children and really is a wonderful father and a very good husband. I think that the thing that has helped most in my marriage and adjusting to life here actually is the fact that the Prince and I share the same religion. It's been a great bond between us and I think that has helped us overcome many of the differences of our backgrounds and culture. How many rooms are there in the palace here? I don't know really. I suppose there are over 200. I think I read that once. Does the palace feel like home to you? Well our apartment feels like home yes. The palace is so big and it is I suppose very impersonal in a way but I think we've created a home-like atmosphere in the apartment of rooms that we live in. Have you as a princess been able to make friends with other women in Monaco? Naturally in the beginning I was a stranger coming into their midst but they were very kind and very sweet to me and I think within 10 years they have accepted me and they've been very good and very sweet to me. A lot of Americans think of the French people in general, perhaps not your people, as being rather cold, hard to know. I think that's why I've asked these questions. If you did find that after the war... Well there certainly is a definite anti-American feeling in France and one does feel that. And to many people I am considered a foreigner and will always be. Do you still think of yourself as an American? Yes, certainly. In the past 10 years has there been any role which really tempted you to come back to the movies? For example, would you like to play the role that Elizabeth Taylor just did in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Do you ever see a role that you think well that's not a role that tempts me particularly but Hedda Gabler is one that always tempted me. Do you think there would ever be a time when you might do it, if not in films, then do it for the theater? Who knows, I don't. Your Highness, I wonder how exposed you feel to public criticism. For example, the newspapers and magazines in America which criticized you for supposedly being too cool to Jacqueline Kennedy and her recent visit to Spain. And you did react to that. Yes, I was very hurt by that. I have great admiration for Mrs. Kennedy and whenever we do meet, we're always on the most friendly terms and I was very hurt that, I don't know why they picked on me that time but there certainly was no incident at all. Did these kinds of criticisms or things written in the press disturb your husband very much? Yes, they do. Less now than they used to. They used to bother him a great deal but after a while one does become immune if you have to or otherwise you're too unhappy about it. Let's talk a little bit about the children. Caroline and Albert speak both French and English. Yes, they do. Do you speak English to them? Yes, I always speak in English to them and they speak French to each other. I guess because they speak French with all of their school friends and their playmates. How are the children being educated? Is it here at the palace or do they go to a school in Monaco? Well, Caroline goes to a convent nearby and Albert has been studying at home until this year and now he'll go to school in the fall. Does he have special training because one day he will be Not as yet. And what age does that begin? I don't know, that will depend on the child and on his father, I don't know. Would you want to send the children to school in the United States at any time? Yes, I hope so. I don't know just when that will be or how it will be able to work in with their program here, but I would like very much for them to go to school in America. Do your children know that their mother was a very famous movie star? Well, they saw To Catch a Thief, which they enjoyed, and Caroline saw Country Girl, which she liked very much. I should have thought they would have liked High Noon and they could have seen Well, they did see High Noon. Well, mother was hardly noticed because Albert is very cowboy minded and he rather was watching the cowboys most of the time. If one of your daughters wanted to be a movie star, would you object? I think so, yes. Why? Well, I don't think it's ever a career or life one chooses for one's daughter. And yet you chose it for yourself, so what if your child said but you did mother, why not me? Well, I'll face that problem when it comes. Your Highness, I must ask you the question that most Americans want to know about you. Are you happy? I've had many happy moments in my life, yes. I don't think happiness, being happy is a perpetual state that anyone can be in. No, life isn't that way, but I suppose I have a certain peace of mind, yes. And my children give me a great deal of happiness. And my life here has given me many satisfactions.