April 18, 1956, 70 years ago: Actress Grace Kelly marries Prince Rainier III, the monarch and dictator of the tiny nation of Monaco.
Grace Patricia Kelly was born on November 12, 1929 in Philadelphia. Her father, John B. Kelly Sr., won 2 Gold Medals in rowing at the 1920 Olympics in Antwerp, Belgium; and another in 1924 in Paris. Her brother, John B. Kelly Jr., a.k.a. Jack Kelly, never won more than a Bronze Medal -- in 1956, in Melbourne, Australia, a few months after his sister's royal wedding -- but later served as President of the U.S. Olympic Committee.
Grace began acting in a school play at age 12. By 1950, she was a star on Broadway. In 1952, she played the female lead opposite Gary Cooper in the classic Western High Noon.
If you remember the film Die Hard, Hans Gruber, played by Alan Rickman, tells John McClane, played by Bruce Willis, that he considers him "just another American cowboy." At the end, when it looks like Gruber has won, he tells McClane, prematurely as it turns out, "This time, John Wayne does not walk off into the sunset with Grace Kelly." And McClane tells him, "It was Gary Cooper, asshole!"
She starred opposite Clark Gable in John Ford's film Mogambo, Ray Milland in Alfred Hitchcock's Dial M for Murder, Jimmy Stewart in Hitchcock's Rear Window, and Cary Grant in Hitchcock's To Catch a Thief. She was heavily in demand: By directors, by would-be male leads, by the public, and by men in general.
She wasn't a "blonde bombshell" like Marilyn Monroe. Rather, the wealth and sophistication to which she was born gave her an onscreen persona that made her seem, well, graceful, and unattainable, but still very much desirable. In 2006, writing The Great Book of Philadelphia Sports Lists, with some lists having nothing to do with sports, the authors, radio talk-show hosts Big Daddy Graham and Glen Macnow, put her on top of their list of the most beautiful women ever to come from Philadelphia and environs.
(The remainder of their Top 10, in descending order: Dancer Lola Falana, model Gia Carangi, actress Maria Bello, actress-talk show host Kelly Ripa, actress Holly Robinson Peete, rapper Eve, actress Kim Delaney, and singers Lauren Hart and Pink.)
Oh, she was desired. And some of those desires came true. She had an affair with Cooper while filming, even though he was 28 years older. She had an affair with Gable while filming, even though he was also 28 years older. She had an affair with Milland while filming, even though he was 22 years older. She had an affair with Aly Khan, a notorious Pakistani prince who later married another of the era's leading actresses, Rita Hayworth; he was a mere 18 years older than Grace. (He was 7 years older than Rita.)
In 1954, she filmed The Country Girl, playing the wife of a character played by Bing Crosby -- and the mistress of a character played by William Holden. Holden, 11 years older, couldn't resist her, and rumors flew that he was going to leave his wife for her.
But she dumped him for Crosby, 26 years older. He was a strict Catholic with his family. With himself, not so much, although it should be pointed out that, at the time, he was widowed, not married. Grace and Der Bingle had an affair, and it was still ongoing on March 30, 1955, the night of the Academy Awards.
Many people thought the Oscar for Best Actress should go to Judy Garland, for her turn in the remake of A Star Is Born, because they were longtime fans of hers, and knew she had gone through a lot to get to that point. Others thought it should go to Dorothy Dandridge, for starring in Carmen Jones, which would have made her the 1st black actor of either gender to win an Oscar for a leading role.
Instead, it went to Kelly for The Country Girl. It was hardly her best work, and she was not better in it than Garland or Dandridge were in their nominated roles. Sidney Poitier won Best Actor in 1964, for Lilies of the Field. It would take until 2002 for a black woman to win Best Actress: Halle Berry, for playing the title role in Introducing Dorothy Dandridge. (Both Dandridge and Berry were natives of Cleveland.)
People began to ask questions like, "Who did Grace Kelly have to sleep with to get that Oscar?" It wasn't Bing Crosby: That night, he expected to, um, celebrate with her. But when he walked into her hotel room, she was, um, celebrating with the night's winner for Best Actor, for On the Waterfront: Marlon Brando. (He was only 5 years older.) In a weird twist of events, Kelly had been offered the female lead in that film, but turned it down. It went to Eva Marie Saint: It was her first film, and she won Best Supporting Actress for it.
Crosby dumped Kelly, but the affairs with him and Holden -- two co-stars in one film -- became the worst-kept secret in Hollywood: Nobody would report on it, but everybody seemed to know about it. She was branded a "homewrecker."
Kelly had an affair with fashion designer Oleg Cassini, 16 years older. He proposed to her, and she accepted. But her parents said no, because he had been previously divorced. A rumor got out that she had gotten pregnant with Cassini's child, and had an abortion. Was it true? If so, did her parents know? Did these uber-Catholic Kellys arrange the abortion? We will never know: Some secrets were taken to the grave.
And John B. Kelly Sr. was a friend of another fabulously wealthy Irish-American, Joseph P. Kennedy. Maybe Joe's son, Senator John F. Kennedy, and Grace could have kept each other satisfied. But JFK married Jacqueline Bouvier in 1953. While hospitalized for back surgery the following year, Grace allegedly visited Jack, and... I'll let your imagination run wild, but the rumor of JFK and Grace is more likely to be true than the rumor of JFK and Marilyn Monroe.
Finally, the Kellys had had enough. It seemed like the only way to keep Grace out of Hollywood's bedrooms was to keep her out of Hollywood, and marry her off to someone far away -- and farther than Washington, D.C. They found someone: Rainier Louis Henri Maxence Bertrand Grimaldi, the Hereditary Prince of Monaco.
On April 18, 1956, 3 months before the release of her last film, High Society -- about rich Philadelphians like herself, and based on an earlier film titled The Philadelphia Story -- Grace and Rainier married in Monte Carlo, the capital of Monaco. She became Her Serene Highness, Princess Gracia Patricia.
Monaco is 2nd only to Vatican City as the world's smallest country by area: 2 1/2 miles long by 1 mile wide, surrounded on 3 sides by France and 1 by the Mediterranean Sea, and 8 miles from France's southeastern border with Italy. Then as now, it was home to less than 40,000 people, and is known for beaches, lax tax laws that allow rich people to keep much of what they have, and one of the world's foremost gambling casinos. It is ownership of Casino Monte Carlo that makes the House of Grimaldi, the royal family of Monaco, one of the richest families in the world.
The marriage meant the end of her film career, but it was hardly the end of her celebrity. She surpassed Eleanor Roosevelt as the most famous woman in the world. She became perhaps the world's leading charity fundraiser. And she gave the Prince 3 children: Caroline, Albert (now the monarch, Prince Albert II), and Stéphanie.
All 3 children have had complicated love-lives, with the media watching them much more than they watched Grace while she was acting. Albert is believed to have had at least 1 child out of wedlock, who is not in the line of succession. But Stéphanie was the real "wild child," having her mother's libido, but not nearly having her mother's sense of discretion.
Princess Grace, 1982
On September 13, 1982, with Stéphanie in the car, Princess Grace had a stroke while driving back to Monte Carlo from the Grimaldis' country home in Mont Agel, France. Stéphanie suffered a neck injury, but recovered. Grace did not, and died the next day. The following day, USA Today published its 1st edition, and its 1st headline was of an event from outside the U.S.A.: The death of Princess Grace, America's sweetheart and Monaco's. She was only 52 years old.
In his eulogy, Jimmy Stewart -- one of the few co-stars with whom Grace didn't have an affair -- said, "You know, I just love Grace Kelly. Not because she was a Princess, not because she was an actress, not because she was my friend, but because she was just about the nicest lady I ever met. Grace brought into my life, as she brought into yours, a soft, warm light, every time I saw her, and every time I saw her was a holiday of its own."
Prince Rainier never remarried, and lived until 2005.
