Grace of Monaco

by Robinson, Jeffrey

  It began with the terror of having nearly been kidnapped. In November 1984, a couple tried to force their way into her car and drive off with her. “That was very strange. And there was a police station just across the street. I was pulling into the garage at my father’s apartment when a guy put a gun to my head. I froze. My body was like jelly but my mind was functioning. I kept trying to squirm around in the car. I kept thinking, if he’s going to shoot it’s better to get it in the arm or the leg and not in the head. So I kept trying to push the guy away.”

  Stephanie went on, “Suddenly the girl accomplice appeared at the other side of the car and began yelling, ‘Shoot her, shoot her.’ Out of the blue I said to the guy, ‘Look, my father is upstairs. If you want to speak to him, let’s all go up there and talk it out.’ I said, ‘That’s the best thing. Let’s go upstairs and talk because nobody is going to pay for a dead body.’ That’s when the guy freaked out and left. He and the girl turned and ran away. That’s when I freaked out, too. I crawled into the concierge’s apartment and I was a mess. It was all very weird.”

  Next she had to confront the jealousy that seems to be one of the inevitable results of success. “It was driving me crazy. People kept asking me why was I working. They kept telling me that I was taking something away from someone who deserved success more than I did. They hurt me a lot. There was so much crap in the papers about me. They were saying that it was only because I was a princess that my record worked. My answer was, ‘Selling five million records can’t be because it’s me, it’s because people like the music.’ Maybe I could sell 100,000 records because I’m me. But come on, never five million!”

  No matter how she tried, she couldn’t accept the way she was treated. “It gets down to sheer nastiness. You can be number two and everyone will always love you. However, if you’re number one they have to try to destroy you. Did you know that when my record was number one on the French charts, a girl who had a song further down the list purposely tripped me one night while I was going on stage to sing and I broke my ankle? Can you believe that? I would never ever think of doing that to someone. But it doesn’t happen like that in America. When I was looking for back-up singers in Los Angeles for my album, George Michael was there and he arranged for me to use his back-up group. He wanted to help me. I decided I couldn’t handle things in Europe any more so I moved to America.”

  Underneath it all, she admitted, another factor played a part in her decision to leave France: the accident. “There was a lot of pressure on me because everyone was saying that I had been driving the car, that it was all my fault, that I’d killed my mother. It’s not easy when you’re 17 to live with that. There was so much magic that surrounded Mom, so much of the dream, that in some ways she almost stopped being human. It was difficult for people to accept that she could do something so human as to have a car accident. People figured I must have caused it because she was too perfect to do something like that. After a while you can’t help feeling guilty. Everybody looks at you and you know they’re thinking, how come she’s still around and Grace is dead? No one ever said it to me like that but I knew that’s what they were thinking. I needed my mother a lot when I lost her. And my dad was so lost without her. I felt so alone. I just went off to do my own thing.”

  In October 1986, Stephanie moved to California to pursue her singing and acting ambitions. She got herself an agent and started reading for parts. At one point she was getting 30 calls a week but turned everything down because it wasn’t absolutely perfect. In the meantime, she began spending two hours a day with her vocal coach and meeting three times a week with Nina Foch, her acting coach. And while she was still one of the most recognizable women in Europe, no one seemed to care about that in Los Angeles.

  Which was just what she’d been hoping for. “In Paris I get recognized all the time. Although once a woman came up to me in a bakery and said, ‘It’s incredible how much you look like Princess Stephanie.’ So I answered, ‘Don’t talk to me about her. Every day somebody tells me that. Every day. What do I have to do, cut my hair not to look like her? I have enough of her. I’m really fed up with Princess Stephanie.’ The poor lady kept apologizing and saying how awful it must be to look like her.”

  In California, she said, it was mainly French people who asked if she was Princess Stephanie. And then, of course, they always asked in French. “I found that if I stared at them and said in English, ‘What? What did you say? What language is that?’ they’d go away mumbling, ‘No, no, it’s not her.’ Funny, but for Americans I’m not Princess Stephanie, I’m Grace Kelly’s daughter. When Americans recognize me that’s what they ask, are you her daughter? But what I really like about Los Angeles is that people don’t bother with too much stuff like that. I’m just one well-known face among thousands of well-known faces. The average soap star is much more famous in LA than I am.”

  Unfortunately, in California she embarked on a series of romantic interludes that made the papers. There was a much publicized on-again, off-again fling with brat-pack actor Rob Lowe. There was even talk of marriage and supposedly, they gave each other friendship and/or engagement rings. The New York Daily News covered the affair much the way newspapers cover boxing matches, giving punch-by-punch descriptions for each round. A wedding was planned, then it was off, then they were dating again, then it was over for good.

  Then she was linked with a twice-married, former waiter from Marseilles who had a criminal record for sexual assault in the United States. That romance lasted nearly two years.

  “My dad wasn’t exactly thrilled about him.” She paused a moment before admitting, “but then nobody was. And I can understand why. But I look at it this way. I did what I had to do and eventually realized it wasn’t what I wanted, so I got out of it. Life goes on. I don’t regret anything. Dad must have understood what I was going through because I don’t think he would have let me go through it for so long if he didn’t know I was going to eventually realize it wasn’t for me and come out of it all right. Otherwise he would have had me on the first plane back.”

  She felt he proved that he believed in her by letting her learn her own lessons. “He knows me pretty well. Sometimes he says that I’m the one who is most like him. I think it’s true. We have very much of the same character although I don’t get as carried away when I get angry as he does. I shake when he gets angry. It passes quickly. He doesn’t stay angry long. But his voice changes and it gets pretty scary for a few minutes. Then he calms down and he’s a sweet little pussy cat. Still, when he starts growling, it’s best to get out of the way. He makes his point and you say to yourself, I don’t think I want to get him angry ever again.”

  The episode strained Stephanie’s relationship with Rainier.

  Yet the door was never closed.

  She said they both purposely made every effort, no matter what, to keep it open. “Sometimes growing up I forgot the door was open and my parents freaked out. It’s the same with all parents and their children. I sometimes thought they were the ones closing the door when I was trying to keep it open, but I know now that wasn’t quite the way it was. I realize how lucky I was because my parents always kept the door open.”

  Because her father kept the door open, she said it put their relationship on a different level. They began to communicate differently. He stopped thinking of her as his little baby. He still tried to protect her when he could but, she felt, it was on a more adult level. She hoped she’d proven to him that she could do her own thing in life, that she was responsible, and that their relationship was based on advice and support.

  It was while living in California that she discovered, “He doesn’t lecture me. I ask for advice and he gives it to me without insisting that I follow it. He’ll say, ‘This is what I think, now you go ahead and make whatever you want of it.’ He and I are much closer than we’ve ever been.”

  Chapter 24

  Rainier on Stamps, Russians,

  Prison, Banishment,

  and the Money in H
is Pocket

  There are only two things you can do with a postage stamp.

  You can stick it onto a letter and send it to someone.

  Or you can put it into an album with a whole lot of other stamps and look at it from time to time.

  But any stamp paid for and then pasted into an album is a service paid for and never returned in kind. Which is why post offices throughout the world—and Monaco among them—encourage stamp collecting.

  It was Prince Charles III who, in 1885, created the principality’s own stamps bearing the sovereign’s effigy. Today they not only trace the principality’s history but have also commemorated trains, planes, fish, fauna, flowers, racing cars, boats, local churches, saints, great works of art, animals, radio, television, sport, and the circus. In short, anything and everything that might be considered a category for collecting.

  Rainier took a personal an interest in the stamps, approving every new issue, not necessarily because he collected them—­although the Palace museum exhibits every issue of the principality’s stamps—but because for Grimaldi Inc., this is a very big business.

  “We deliberately aim at the collectors’ market,” he explained. “While most other countries use modem offset printing methods, we engrave our stamps because we want them to appreciate in value as an encouragement to more collectors. However, it’s a very delicate business. If you bring out too many stamps no one wants them and they lose their value in the market. If you bring out too few stamps you can’t make enough money because you don’t have the products to sell.”

  Grace’s likeness had been appearing on Monaco’s postage stamps since her marriage, and they sold to collectors in large numbers. “Grace” stamps were big business. But the image was always of “Princess” Grace.

  Meantime, in 1993, the United States Postal Service decided to honor Grace with a stamp. But because federal law prohibits depicting foreign heads of state, the image they chose was from Country Girl, the 1954 film that had earned her an Academy Award.

  Rainier agreed to use the same image.

  So on March 24, 1993, two stamps were issued simultaneously—in Monaco, a five franc “Princess Grace” and in Hollywood, a 29-cent “Grace Kelly.”

  It marked the first time that Monaco officially acknowledged her film career with a stamp for collectors, and the first time that the US ever so honored a screen actress.

  GqH

  “Did you know,” Rainier asked, “that the Russians used to come here during the Cold War? That’s right. Soviet hydrographic ships came here because there is an International Hydrographic Bureau here. It was interesting because they always let people visit the ship. School children or anyone else who might be interested. We also got Russian trawlers stopping here. But they never let anyone visit those ships. I often wondered what they could fish because they had so many antennas sticking out of them. I was always amused when they pulled in here because the Russian sailors were allowed to walk around and see this capitalistic inferno. Funny, but I think most of them rather liked it.”

  q: What’s not to like?

  a: There are some things I don’t like.

  q: For instance?

  a: For instance, gossip. I’ve already told you, gossip was invented in Monaco. Except that I couldn’t care less about it. If somebody is going to bed with somebody else and they enjoy it, good for them.

  q: What about gambling?

  a: It doesn’t interest me. No member of the sovereign family is supposed to go into the casino here anyway. No nationals are supposed to play. It was clever of Prince Charles to do that. He didn’t want Monegasques to lose their money and become a burden to the state.

  q: Horse racing?

  a: That’s fun. You go down to see if the horse has blue eyes or if the jockey is dressed in the right colors and bet on him. My ­father-in-law, Jack Kelly, used to invite friends and business associates, all men, to go to the Kentucky Derby every year. I went two or three times. He’d rent an entire train to take us from Philadelphia to Kentucky. It was really one gigantic booze-up. We’d arrive on Friday and stay on the train for the races on Saturday. The mint juleps never stopped. It was great.

  q: Do you know anything about horses?

  a: I don’t know anything about horses except the front from the back. But one Friday, I think it was the last race, there was a horse called Caine Run and the odds were so high they couldn’t even post it. I decided to bet $25 on it. Jack Kelly and a few other guys tried to talk me out of it. They thought it was out of the question that the horse could win. Well, I felt this was such a poor horse that someone ought to put something on it. I finally talked them into forming a little syndicate and we each put $5 down. Guess what? The horse came in. I was worshipped from there on out.

  q: Do you still go to the races?

  a: In Paris, every now and then. Because you can see what’s happening. I could never get fascinated with a little ball spinning around a wheel. Although I will say that blackjack can be fun. For a while. I used to play a little gin rummy but I get bored with card games if they last too long. Poker is too slow. And as for board games, like Monopoly, I’ve never had much fun doing that. It goes on forever.

  q: My grandfather never played any card games and while my mother adored bridge, all I ever heard were arguments. “Why didn’t you bid spades?” Or, “Why did you play a heart instead of a club?” It would go on for days like that. People would get so annoyed with each other that I’ve made it my business to stay away from it.

  a: Any other games, like bridge?

  GqH

  While there are real differences between the influence a big country can exert and a small country can exert, being a small country like Monaco still has its advantages.

  “To begin with,” he noted, “we’re not interested in possessing what our neighbors have. Then, because of our size, we’re vulnerable. But that very vulnerability makes small nations the best champions of peace. Our survival depends on peace. The problem is that the voices of the world’s small nations are usually so feebly heard.”

  It was under Rainier that Monaco was granted full-nation status at the United Nations. He also made Monaco’s voice heard on matters such as pollution of the seas.

  He’d been “infuriated that the seas have become a dumping ground for garbage and sewage in the midst of mankind’s general indifference. Life depends on the water cycle, so what’s endangered here is life itself. And we’re not talking about something that can’t be avoided because no unavoidable pollution exists. It’s all caused by man. Pollution can be prevented. It only takes the will and the means to fight it.”

  And that’s the hard part. “You can always get scientists to work, you can motivate them because they understand. The problem is in motivating the bureaucrats. They won’t budge because it’s against their nature. They’re suspicious from the start. Our biggest hurdle was the French. Instead of worrying about pollution, they were more concerned with who’d have the day-to-day authority.”

  That’s what big governments do, he said. “They get bogged down in their own bureaucracies. On the other hand, small governments can make things happen quickly. Big governments become encumbered. They become overburdened.”

  GqH

  Monaco is one of the very few nations in the world that doesn’t have a prison.

  But there are 37 modern holding cells for people awaiting trial which stretch along the outer wall of Le Rocher facing the Mediterranean.

  However, the rumor that this is “a slammer with a view of the sea” is not true. The best view any prisoner gets is of the sky. The only thing that makes the place special, Rainier mentioned, is that the warden’s wife personally does the cooking. So Monaco’s is almost certainly the best fed cellblock in the world.

  Justice in the principality is rendered in the name of the prince, who can pardon or diminish sentences. But as the National Council long ago abolished capital punishment, the prince cannot decree, “off with his head.”

  A
nd, even if he could, Rainier grimaced, he didn’t intend that he ever would. “That’s a pretty messy business.”

  Yet he can expel someone from the principality and, if he wants, by agreement with France, he can order the expulsion to include the three neighboring French departements which are the Maritime Alps, the Var, and the Lower Alps.

  Not that it happens very often. That’s usually restricted to people who are condemned in Monaco for criminal activity, such as cheating in the casino.

  According to Rainier, “France has the same interest as we do in keeping certain people out of the region. The only exceptions to this are Monegasques. I cannot deprive them of their right to live in Monaco. Otherwise, they’d have no place else to go.”

  GqH

  Another great benefit of a small country like Monaco, he said, “is that the contact is direct. You can get to people. Now, as the chief executive of my government, I’m not going to ask for something that’s impossible because the National Council won’t let me have it. But if there’s something I feel should be a priority, then I can make it a priority even if the administration is holding it back. You can only do that in a small country.”

  His favorite example was his campaign for new-style national identity cards. When he first proposed them, he ran head first into a National Council which simply couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to replace the old large, clumsy, over-sized piece of cardboard that folded three times, with something the size of a credit card.

  “Look at this.” He reached into his pocket and pulled a new Monaco ID card out of a small leather aide-memoire. It bore his photo, his name, and his registration number, which in this case happened to be 0001.

  “Great, no?” He was very proud of how compact it was. “It doesn’t take up any space. But you’ll never believe how they fought me on this. The bureaucrats kept saying no, it will never do.”