He was just starting to get to know the animals when they stopped to refuel at Dakar. “Two of the baboons got loose. You can imagine what we must have looked like chasing them all over the port. We attracted quite a crowd with this weird boat full of animals.”
As soon as Rainier returned to Monaco, he was again a prime target for the matchmakers. Even Aristotle Onassis tried to find a bride for him.
Convinced that only someone very special would do, Onassis looked around and decided the perfect match would be Marilyn Monroe. He plotted their engagement and leaked stories to the press hoping to force the issue. But Rainier and Marilyn weren’t to be.
In fact, they never even met.
“You must understand how shy he was in those days,” noted Khalil el Khoury, a Sydney Greenstreet look-alike whose father had been the first president of Lebanon. El Khoury originally came to Monaco in the spring of 1950 and as was the custom, went up to the Palace to sign his name in the official guest book. A few hours later the chief of protocol rang to say that the Prince would like him to come for tea the following afternoon.
“I went to the Palace and there we sat, Prince Rainier and I, two very young and very shy characters, neither of us terribly relaxed with the other. We were making small talk when the Prince asked my age. I told him. He said, ‘Me, too.’ He asked me when I was born. I told him and it turned out we were not only the exact same age, we were born within four or five hours of each other. That broke down the barriers.”
Their friendship endured a lifetime, but was built gradually and, at least in the early stages, through letters.
El Khoury again: “We kept up a very important correspondence. I think it must be a way of communicating meaningfully with people while still being able to hide behind one’s own timidity. I’m sure that was the case when he was young because he really was painfully shy.”
Another man who knew firsthand just how shy Rainier was turned out to be the Irish-American leprechaun priest who changed Rainier’s life forever.
Francis Tucker, formerly of Wilmington, Delaware, was in his 60s and spoke with a thick brogue. He served Rainier as father confessor and had witnessed, perhaps more clearly than anyone else, not simply how the end of Rainier’s love affair with Pascal had affected him but how, in turn, it had added to the pressure of finding a suitable bride.
So the priest vowed to do something about it.
“Father Tucker was definitely an enthusiast,” Rainier recalled tenderly. “He never hesitated to get involved with things he believed in. I remember he once tried to group the kids from his parish into a marching band. He bought uniforms and instruments for everybody. But most of the kids only showed up for rehearsals once or twice and then never came again. Well, at least he tried. When he wanted to do something he did it. He took an efficient and lively approach to everything. That didn’t always please the Bishop but he’d been assigned to me directly by the Vatican whereas the Bishop of Monaco is assigned by the Cardinal of France. So he knew what he could get away with.”
By the mid-1950s, the decidedly conniving, witty, and thoroughly loyal Father Tucker had taken it upon himself to play cupid. The only problem was that he didn’t know how to stage-manage a romance.
With no experience in this sort of thing at all, he sought divine guidance. And to the day he died, he was convinced that his prayers were answered by MGM when they suspended Grace Kelly.
Chapter 3
A Public Romance
A Monegasque was traveling in South America, crossing from Argentina into Paraguay at a small checkpoint, when the border guard saw his passport and said, “No esta bueno”—It’s no good.
The Monegasque demanded to know, “What do you mean it’s no good?” He insisted, “There’s nothing wrong with my passport.”
The border guard made signs to suggest that he’d never heard of anyplace called La Principaute de Monaco.
The Monegasque tried to explain where it was.
The border guard didn’t seem to care. “No esta bueno!”
The Monegasque did everything he could think of to convince the border guard that such a country existed. “Monaco. You know, Monaco.” He said it louder each time. “MON-A-CO!”
Then, suddenly, as if a light deep inside his head had flicked on, the border guard’s face lit up. “Ah, yes, Grace Kelly.”
GqH
Rupert Allan first met Grace in the spring of 1952 in an elevator at the Savoy Hotel in London. As Look magazine’s west coast editor, Allan had been in the UK throughout that winter to coordinate a massive lead story on Queen Elizabeth’s coronation.
Returning to the hotel one afternoon, he stepped into the lift and literally bumped into an old friend who’d just flown in from Kenya. Allan asked what he was doing in London. The friend explained he’d been MGM’s publicity director on Mogambo. Standing next to that man was an unobtrusive but pretty young blonde woman wearing dark-rimmed glasses.
Allan smiled politely at her.
The MGM publicist announced, “I’d like you to meet the star of our film, Grace Kelly.”
Dressed in a beige sweater, a tweed skirt, flat shoes, and a string of small pearls, and with no makeup on at all, she struck Allan as, “a kind of Peck and Peck girl,” a reference to a well-scrubbed young woman straight out of a magazine like Country Life.
Of course, he’d heard about her and seen all the press she’d been getting, but couldn’t understand how this woman in the elevator could be the same woman who’d created such a stir in films like High Noon.
Allan bumped into Grace again a few days later at a Sunday afternoon party given by Ava Gardner.
The Mogambo company had switched from Africa to London to shoot interiors, and Gardner had rented a house near Marble Arch. But the place didn’t have any chairs so everyone wound up sitting on the floor, eating and drinking, while Gardner’s secretary told a story that became the hit of the party.
One evening in Nairobi, Gardner and her secretary heard there was going to be a pantomime at a private club near their hotel. With nothing else to do, the two women walked over to the club, only to be told by the maitre d’ that unescorted ladies were not permitted. Flushed with anger, they returned to the hotel where Gardner proceeded to ring the club and introduce herself as Clark Gable’s secretary. She said that Mr. Gable wished to attend the pantomime that night with six guests. The maitre d’ said that Mr. Gable would be most welcome. Gardner said that Mr. Gable was dining with his guests and would come by as soon as dinner was finished. The maitre d’ said he would reserve front-row seats for the Gable party and added that they would hold the curtain for him. Ava Gardner and her secretary promptly went to sleep. When Gable heard about it, he was furious.
But Grace thought it was hysterical, and she and Allan laughed about it all afternoon.
Returning to California, Allan mentioned to his editor at Look that he’d met Grace Kelly. So he assigned Allan to do a story on her.
A far cry from the average Hollywood reporter, Allan’s natural southern charm and his gentle demeanor quickly put Grace at ease.
When the article ran as a cover story, she told Allan it was the best piece yet written about her. What’s more, it proved to be so popular with Look’s readership that Allan was asked to do a second interview with Grace. The readers loved it, his editors assigned a third story with her and out of that, a lifelong friendship took hold.
Because Grace only came to California to work, she didn’t have much free time there. But what little time she did have she often spent with Allan, a reliable escort and soon her chief confidant.
In the meantime, Allan had established himself as the Cannes Film Festival’s unofficial liaison with Hollywood. Not only had he been educated in France and spoke the language, but he’d once worked in Paris for the Motion Picture Association of America where one of his jobs had been to handle the American participation at Cannes.
However, by the mid-1950s American participation at Cannes wasn’t what you might call overwhel
ming. At the 1953 festival the paparazzi cornered Robert Mitchum and convinced him to pose with some young starlet. Not suspecting anything, Mitchum agreed. He and the starlet walked to the beach together, followed by the photographers. She took her place in front of him and, as soon as she saw that the photographers were ready, she promptly dropped her dress. Without thinking, Mitchum tried to cover her by throwing his hands across her chest. The photos were distributed worldwide.
Then it was learned that the Mayor of Cannes happened to be a member of the French Communist Party and, with the McCarthy witch-hunt days still fresh in most Hollywood minds, no one in the US film world wanted to be associated with anything that could in any way be construed as un-American.
The festival organizers, desperate for American stars, turned to Rupert Allan to get them some. He said he’d try. They said the star they wanted most for the 1955 festival was Grace Kelly.
She was still on suspension, so Allan called her in New York to ask if she’d like to go to Cannes.
But Grace said no.
She’d just moved into a new apartment at 880 Fifth Avenue, near the Metropolitan Museum, had hired a new secretary, and told Allan she needed time away from Hollywood to put her own life in order.
Allan chided her, “You sound like an old lady.”
She eventually confessed to him that there were other, more personal reasons for not wanting to go to Cannes.
The summer before, while filming To Catch a Thief, she’d been in love with fashion designer Oleg Cassini. At one point, they were even engaged. But that romance ended. There had also been a romance in France once upon a time with actor Jean-Pierre Aumont.
She said she felt that returning to that part of the world would only serve to resurrect a lot of old memories that might be best left to fade away on their own. “I’d rather not go anywhere just now.”
But he wasn’t going to give up. “Spring in Cannes will do you some good. Anyway, I’ll be there so you won’t have to worry about anything. I know everybody. I’ll translate for you. I’ll take care of everything.”
Again she said no.
He told her, “They’ll send you a round-trip, first-class ticket. The return portion can be left open so that you can have as much time as you want to spend in Europe.”
She wasn’t easily swayed, but the more he persisted the more he wore her down.
Finally, just to be polite, she promised, “I’ll think about it.”
The next thing that happened, unbeknownst to Allan, was that Paramount rang Grace, suggesting it would be useful if she went to Cannes because it had just been announced that The Country Girl was being screened at the festival.
That tipped the balance, and Grace phoned Allan to say, okay.
She flew to Paris where she met her friend Gladys de Segonzac, who’d been costume mistress on To Catch a Thief, spent a few days there and, on the evening of May 4, 1955, the two of them took the ultra-posh, overnight “Blue Train” to Cannes.
Also on that train was Olivia de Havilland and her husband Pierre Galante, an editor with Paris Match magazine.
Allan met Grace and Gladys the next morning at the station, and that night over dinner, Grace mentioned to him that she’d bumped into de Havilland and Galante. She’d never met de Havilland before but, as they were in neighboring compartments, the four of them spent some time talking, especially after breakfast early the next morning as the train swung eastward along the Mediterranean coast.
They were all standing in the narrow corridor looking out of the window at the sea when Galante mentioned that Paris Match might like to do a cover story on her. He suggested he take her to Monaco, to photograph her there in a royal setting with the young bachelor Prince Rainier.
What Grace didn’t know at the time was that the photo session was not exactly Galante’s spontaneous early morning idea. Having heard that she’d be coming to Cannes, the idea had been discussed the week before in a Paris Match editorial meeting.
Anyway, contrary to most reports of the incident, she never actually said yes to Galante.
The truth is, she wasn’t terribly interested in being photographed with Rainier. She’d hardly even heard of him. And anyway, Monaco was 90 minutes away.
So when Galante asked if she would do it, Grace gave him a polite, non-committal answer. She said it sounded like a good idea but first she’d have to see how it fit in with her schedule.
In fact, she hadn’t so much as given it a second thought until later that morning in Cannes when Galante told her that the Prince had agreed to meet her at the Palace the next day, Friday, 6 April, at 4 p.m.
Grace answered that she couldn’t make it. She explained that she had to be at an official reception for the American delegation at Cannes. As the reception began at 5:30, a 4 o’clock appointment with the Prince was absolutely out of the question. She apologized to Galante and explained that the trip to Monaco would have to be cancelled.
A few hours later, Galante informed her that the Prince had kindly agreed to advance their meeting to 3 o’clock.
He kept saying to Grace how excited he was about the photo session and promised her several times that it would make a terrific cover story.
Except Grace still didn’t want to go.
When she told Rupert Allan about it that night over dinner, he asked “Do you want to do it?” and she answered, flatly, “No.” She said she didn’t care about the photo session, that Monaco was too far away, and that she had too many things to do in Cannes.
Allan, shaking his head as if to suggest this was her own fault, reminded her of his promise to handle everything for her while she was in Cannes, then rubbed a little salt into the wound by saying that he could easily have gotten her out of the Paris Match commitment if she’d told him about it when she first got off the train.
She nodded, knowing that he was right.
So he said, “All right, I’ll cancel Monaco for you.”
But now she announced, “I just don’t know if I can. The Prince changed his schedule to accommodate mine. I’m not sure how I can get out of this politely.”
Allan said, “I’ll try to find a way.”
“I don’t...” Grace shook her head. “It may be too late.”
Interestingly enough, throughout her life that would be Grace’s attitude towards most things. If someone asked her to make an appearance or to do an interview, she always had trouble saying no.
By the time Grace went to bed that night, she’d resigned herself to the trip to Monaco.
But in the middle of the night, one of the French labor unions called a strike. To reinforce their position, they turned off all of the electricity in Cannes.
The next morning Grace got up, washed her hair, plugged in her portable drier, and nothing happened. She tried another socket. It didn’t work there either. Nothing worked. None of the lights came on in her room, so she phoned the front desk.
They gave her the bad news.
In a mild panic, she rang Allan. “Have you noticed there’s no electricity? What am I supposed to do?”
By this time, the Paris Match people were waiting with a car downstairs.
Also, MGM’s new publicity man from Paris had just called in a fury to say that she had no right to be in Cannes because she was still under suspension by the studio and that her appearance there could cost her a lot of money.
Allan rushed to her room.
Grace’s soaking wet hair was wrapped in a towel. She was also struggling to find something to wear that hadn’t been wrinkled in her suitcase because, with no electricity, there was no way she could iron any of her clothes.
The only thing she had that didn’t need pressing was a black silk dress with large pink and green print flowers. It was a beautiful dress. But it was not a good one for pictures. And she didn’t want to wear it.
Allan convinced her she didn’t have a lot of choice.
Grace put it on, then parted her wet hair in the middle and put some flowers in it, hoping it would
dry in the car.
As they left the room she cried, “This is terrible.”
Allan kept saying, “If you’d told me, I never would have let you agree to this. Anyway, I should have gotten you out of it last night. This is precisely the kind of thing that will happen tomorrow and the next day and the day after that unless you have them call me first.”
She nodded several times, “Yes, you’re right,” not only because she didn’t have time to discuss it with him but because she was angry at herself for having gotten into this.
Allan tried to console her. He said as long as she couldn’t get out of it, he’d come along too.
They went downstairs to meet the Paris Match people.
Winding their way through the crowded lobby of the Carlton, past movie executives and fans and a hoard of photographers, they stepped outside to the waiting car in the middle of the driveway.
Grace stopped short.
She couldn’t believe how many people were planning to come with her. There was Galante, two Paris Match photographers, the MGM guy from Paris, and Gladys de Segonzac.
She muttered, “How am I supposed to get into this car with all these people?”
Allan gave her a kind of “I hate to say I told you so” shrug and begged out of the trip.
Grace crammed into the back seat of a Studebaker with Galante, de Segonzac, and the fellow from MGM.
The photographers followed on their heels in a Peugeot.
But they followed so closely that, just as they reached the city limits of Cannes, the Studebaker braked sharply and the Peugeot ran into them.
The damage was minimal yet it kept them from getting to Monaco on time.
By now Grace was starving. So, before heading up to Le Rocher—where the Palace is—they made a fast detour to the Hotel de Paris where Galante dashed into the bar and bought her a ham sandwich.
They arrived at the Palace just after 3 o’clock, having already rehearsed their excuses, only to be informed that the Prince wasn’t yet there.
Grace just couldn’t believe how this whole episode had run away from her.
The group stood around for a while, until one of the Palace officers volunteered to give them a conducted tour.
Grace of Monaco Page 4
