Grace

by Thilo Wydra

  The documentary The Children of Theatre Street was nominated for an Oscar in 1977. In connection with the film, Grace engaged seriously in finding sponsors. She took part in events to help raise money for the talented children. “We traveled much with the movie, all across Europe. In America, there were also a couple of premieres.”

  The world premiere of the film took place at the Palais Garnier. At this time, the French press was full of rumors about the first wedding of daughter Caroline to the dubious venture capitalist Philippe Junot on June 28, 1978.

  Robert Dornhelm recalled the premiere:

  They held a huge reception in the Paris opera house, where the film was shown, with the Garde d’honneur, with much pomp. It was funny; I was the director, she was the actress, but we sat far away from each other. And luckily, I said: “I insist on an intermission, if it is shown in an opera house. Operas need intermissions so that people can get a drink and talk to each other.” Otherwise, the evening would have been a sad one for me. During the intermission, I went up to her—in the meantime, I had become braver and more emancipated, and had also bought a suit so that I no longer just sat around feeling overwhelmed—and she said that she was looking forward to the supper afterward. Then I said: “Yes, where is the supper?” She: “It is just up there. Why do you always sit down there?” She was in the important loge area with the entire administration of the opera and the bureaucrats of the Ministry of Culture. As film maker, I was lost somewhere in the theater. No one had said anything to me about a supper. That irritated her, and she said: “Sit next to me tonight.” I explained: “I was not invited.” Then she walked over to Serge Liebermann, the director of the Palais Garnier Opera, and said: “Serge, Mr. Dornhelm doesn’t know about the dinner.” He responded: “He doesn’t know about it because he will not be there. I am sorry but it is for only sixteen people, the Minister, the State President. It is a small affair, very exclusive.” She said: “Yes, it is very exclusive. But I am accustomed to directors, such as the one whose film we are celebrating today, coming to their own premiere parties.” Liebermann said: “Unfortunately, that is not the case now.” And Grace answered: “Certainly not a problem. Now all of you can really spread out, since I am going to celebrate with my director. Understandably, I will spend the evening with him and not with people I don’t even know.” A total affront. On the following day, her punishment was in the newspaper. She had snubbed the Palais Garnier Opera by not taking part in its premiere festivities.360

  There were several other such situations in which she showed loyalty to her “less-connected” team members. According to Dornhelm, during their next joint film project, Rearranged, she herself decided on location where the team would stay, making sure that the hotel rooms were acceptable: “One would not expect that a princess would inspect the rooms and ask about where the team had eaten. A sign of her loyalty to the team.”361

  Dornhelm described the emotional connection between him and Grace as follows: “I think that I am a dreamer. And also nostalgic. At the time, there was also a very painful personal struggle happening in my life—and she just happened to be there right then. She understood me and sensed the state I was. She accepted my situation, which the work naturally had not made any easier. And then she was so motherly, so caring. That was very good for her, and it appealed to her maternal instinct, even if she was unaware of it. (Her son was in America.) And I was honest with her. I had absolutely no fear of telling her the truth. I said exactly what I felt and what I observed in her. Things that no one else dared to say. She valued that. It was exactly the antidote she needed.”362

  During the 1970s, Grace Kelly increasingly dedicated herself to a “passion” that gave rise to qualms and alienation among many people in her social circle. She began to collect and dry flowers. Later she created designs for pictures, for linens, for wallpaper. In the renowned Drouant Gallerie, situated in the wealthy Parisian street Faubourg Saint-Honoré in the First Arrondissement, an exhibition of Grace’s flower arrangements was held from June 9–30, 1977. All of the members of her family, as well as Madame Pompidou, the wife of the former French president, attended the opening. In addition, an annual flower show was hosted in Monaco, and in 1979, it played a significant role in her final film, Rearranged. In 1980, My Book of Flowers was published. This richly illustrated book was 220 pages in length, and it contained the histories of various flower species and sorts. The text for Grace’s only book was written by the British author Gwen Robyns, who also wrote Princess Grace, one of the first biographies about Grace, published in 1976.

  “One of her other great contributions was her rescue and renovation of the Hôtel Hermitage. Like the palace, the hotel was very dilapidated. When the great construction boom of the 1960s started, almost everything was demolished. Then the linear style of Michel Pastor came into vogue. To a certain extent, this influenced Grace Kelly’s efforts at interior design. Even today, in the halls of the Hermitage you can see this: flower designs in all forms and facets on everything from furniture to wallpaper. And even the imitation Art Nouveau elements in the lobby, are not original Art Nouveau patterns but rather Grace Kelly’s stylized additions. And here again her great enthusiasm for flowers can be seen. Everywhere there are flowers.”363 These were the memories of Thomas Veszelits.

  Robert Dornhelm was quite critical of this passion: “It was dreadful. I tried to hold her back from it and told her: ‘Not only are you using pressed, dead flowers, but this is pure kitsch. Why do you have to sell flower pictures or use your name on bed linens with flower designs on them? This doesn’t mean anything.’ I tried to tell her this in a harsh tone. If it must be, use living flowers, not cut ones. Pressed flowers are rather morbid since they are dead. But she enjoyed doing this. Perhaps it was again a blending of the dreamy Irish element and the disciplined German element. And perhaps the loneliness in the castle. This talented woman was arranging dried flowers. I thought that someone needed to shake her. And I did that. I said again and again: ‘Come on, live, live! You must go out, enjoy yourself, and be happy. Do active things. Not arranging dead flowers.’ We had this conversation often.”364

  In her role as princess, Grace traveled to Japan several times, and here she received inspiration for her flower arrangements, which increasingly consumed more and more of her time. In Japan today, Grace Kelly has a cult status. Japanese tourists travel to Monaco to follow in the footsteps of the screen icon and princess—an icon who was so very different in private.

  Robert Dornhelm: “Bag Lady—it was a dream of hers. If you live in a castle, you can dream of being a bag lady, running around, unrecognized, with bags. She always liked presents. She was very materialistic. In the first class section of airplanes, she always took with her the little bottles of champagne or cognac or vodka. She was so frugal. She often wanted to go shopping herself and cook or make breakfast for the children, like an American housewife, although there were servants for that. You always want what you do not have.”365

  Robert Dornhelm characterized the outline of Grace Kelly’s life as follows: “She was a very simple, modest woman who searched for happiness. The petty bourgeois. She could have lived very modestly and been just as happy. In reality, she yearned for a simple life with a happy family, children with the parents and the siblings staying together. The good American tradition. She dreamed of this, but she never had it. Thus, it was a dream. However, she had definitely dreamed of a normal life. And she had tried to make this extraordinary life in the golden palace as normal as possible. Even in Paris she insisted that she cook breakfast and not the cook who was there. And instead of the butler bringing her meal, she said: ‘I can get it myself.’ That was a rebellion against the privileges she had. She wanted to be who she was and not a person removed from reality.”366 And further: “She was very controlled. I never saw her upset or in turmoil. Although she was sometimes irritated and would talk about it. However, I never saw her truly excited. She never gave herself over to this bareness. This was her diplo
matic side. Life in the castle had had a major impact on her in this. She knew that one did not do this, or if you did, it would come back and haunt you. She was not impulsive at all.”367 Inner composure, integrity, and loyalty.

  During the 1970s, Josephine Baker came to Monaco. She had met Grace many years before in New York and remembered this meeting. As Patrick Hourdequin, who has been the director of the Théâtre Princesse Grace since the early 1980s, described: “Princess Grace had a very deep respect for Josephine Baker’s artistic side, and Baker had performed for several summers here in Monaco at the Sporting d’Été. These were large revues, like those at the Casino de Paris or the Moulin Rouge, and Josephine Baker was very popular. At this time, she earned a lot of money. She could not have any children. Thus, she decided with her husband, a great musician and trumpeter, to adopt children from various countries, of various religions. It was to be a sign of the world of the future, in which everyone got along with everyone else, regardless of skin color or religion. At this time, this was a revolutionary idea; it was very idealistic and quite beautiful. Princess Grace was very taken with it. Josephine Baker invested much in the education of her children, in their housing. In France, she bought a castle, a very large one, for all of the children, and also for their teachers and personnel. After awhile, things did not go well for her. She was sick. Many times, Grace helped her out financially, and eventually she brought some of the children to Monaco, sometimes putting them up near the castle. Some of them stayed here or in the region as they grew older. One of them was employed as a gardener here. Others left Monaco and went to places like Paris.”368

  Grace Kelly and Josephine Baker, both American in heritage, were good friends: “Josephine Baker’s children always spoke very enthusiastically and positively about Princess Grace, who in a ways was a second mother to them.”369 One of Josephine Baker’s final performances was given in Monaco, and naturally Grace Kelly was in attendance. Josephine Baker was buried in Monaco’s cemetery alongside her husband. The princess took care of this.

  In the early 1980s, one project that lay close to the princess’s heart was the former theater of Monaco. Once called the Théâtre des Beaux-Arts, the facility opened on February 1, 1932. At this time, the performances were held in English, since most of the people vacationing on the Riviera at this time came from the Anglo-Saxon realm: “The men went to the casino to play, and the women came here to the theater,” explained theater director Patrick Hourdequin.370 However, this period did not last long. The theater director at that time was also the artistic director of the Monegasque SBM and was, thus, also responsible for the Garnier Auditorium of the opera. The close connection between the SBM and all cultural matters in Monaco dated back to this point.

  The festive reopening of the renamed Théâtre Princess Grace, located above the harbor, occurred on December 17, 1981. Grace was accompanied by Rainier and Caroline, and among the guests in attendance were the three actors, Dirk Bogarde, Valentina Cortese, and Edwige Feuillère. Bogarde was the one who dubbed the theater and even Monaco as a whole as “Grace’s Place.”

  Prior to this point, Grace had thoughtfully guided the design of the theater, her theater. The princess visited the site every two weeks: “She herself actually selected everything, she took care of even the smallest of details, tending to both the côté publique and the côté artistique. At the time, I learned much from her.”371 She searched out the champagne-colored chairs for the theater lobby and, together with an English designer, worked out the Art Deco-style, blue theater logo. She also initiated a practice that is usually a normal part of theater administration. She did not want everything, from the programs to the coat check, to have a fee. Instead, she wanted theater visits to be affordable for everyone.

  One evening Grace recited English-language poems on the stage of the Théâtre Princess Grace. “It was very moving to listen to her,” Patrick Hourdequin remembered. And how she did not find the acoustics of the auditorium to be good enough yet. She sat with the decorator to design cladding for the walls that would absorb the resonance of the space and create a cleaner tone. Even the large crystal chandeliers in the theater foyer were designed by her and constructed in Murano, near Venice. She was involved with everything in the theater, “and she always worked with great delight with a smile on her lips and a light humor. She was very attentive. She had an unbelievable naturalness about her. She understood how to get along with people, without the slightest bit of pretension or pedantry. Nothing at all, just totally natural.”372

  1979

  An Attempted Comeback:

  Rearranged (1982)

  This was a cheerful film. It was a lot of fun for her to shoot.

  —Prince Albert of Monaco373

  I decided to rearrange things.

  —Grace Kelly in Rearranged374

  Of course, after her death, they all wanted to have Rearranged, because it was Grace’s final film.

  —Robert Dornhelm375

  The princess and director Robert Dornhelm had known each other since 1976. Since then, they stayed in contact, regularly seeing each other, talking on the telephone, writing letters. And often, Dornhelm accompanied Grace on her travels around the world.

  After working together on the documentary film The Children of Theatre Street, they wanted to work on another project together, one which would entail more than an off-camera commentary for Grace. Robert Dornhelm recalled: “We often looked for things that she could do, things that would make her happy and have something to do with film. Previously, she had been my casting director for another film, one that I never made. It was a project about the history of Raoul Wallenberg, who rescued Hungarian Jews during the Holocaust. She held auditions with actors, when we were testing people for the role. Then, nothing came of it because financing for the project never quite worked out. Afterward she said: ‘Perhaps we could do something for my fiftieth birthday.’ The Garden Club needed a PR film for the flower show, the prominent competition that was eagerly awaited every year. Aesthetically these were wonderful things. It was an entirely different world, flower arranging. It was an internationally significant event that attracted thousands of visitors.”376

  When the French author Jacqueline Mosigny and her husband, the American actor Edward Meeks, were invited to Monaco for a television event, they were introduced to the princess. Her ears perked up when she learned that Monsigny wrote and Meeks acted. Among his other roles, Meeks had acted in the once popular French television series Les Globe-trotters (1966–1968), as well as in various major American and French movies. He also performed alongside Raimund Harmstorf in the male supporting role in the four-part television adaptation of Jack London’s The Sea-Wolf (1971). In talking to them, Grace mentioned that she would love to act again. Then she asked whether, between the three of them, they might have enough creative power to take on a joint project—perhaps something fictional, for television? Then she told them about the director that she had had in mind the entire time: Robert Dornhelm.

  In May 1979, they finally gathered together to film Rearranged in Monaco—Grace, Dornhelm, Mosigny, Meeks, cinematographer Karl Kofler, and soundman Willi Buchmüller. It was a small team for a small film.

  The Austrian cinematographer Karl Kofler had previously worked on Robert Dornhelm’s documentary film The Children of Theatre Street. He was responsible for the photography for Rearranged, which in the end only existed as a fragment. As he explained, “We always talked about continuing to work on it. None of us suspected that this was the end. We were always talking about plans [to make more films with her]. She really wanted to make a comeback.”377

  Rearranged opened with aerial shots of Le Rocher, of the cliffs and the royal palace. After this short introduction, the story then moved to the Nice-Côte d’Azur airport. Professor Nelson (Edward Meeks) has just landed. As an internationally renowned professor of astrophysics, he has come to Monte Carlo to participate in a scholarly conference. A chauffeur (played by one of the princess’s actual
chauffeurs, Paul Raimondo) is waiting for him with a car. They drive from Nice to the small principality. In the car, the chauffeur informs the surprised professor that Princess Grace is waiting for him in the palace. Through an internal monologue, the professor hypothesizes and reflects on this new development that took him completely unaware. Professor Nelson is taken directly to the palace garden, where he is introduced to Princess Grace. She has mistaken him for a certain Mr. Wilson, a cosmopolitan travel writer. Thus, a comedy of errors is set in motion.

  After arguing some with himself, Nelson plays along with the mistake, after he tries several times to straighten things out. The princess keeps interrupting him, preferring to talk about the approaching flower show and competition. This year the event will honor Sarah Bernhardt. From this point, Nelson acts the part of Wilson, and he finds himself in the middle of various controversies centered on Monaco’s annual flower show. He also ends up having to design a flower arrangement to be judged by the jury. The movie was filmed in the Hall du Centenaire, which was subsequently demolished and replaced by the modern Grimaldi Forum conference center. (In 2007, the exhibition Les années Grace Kelly—Princess de Monaco began its world tour here; it later traveled to Paris, Moscow, Rome, Toronto, and other cities.) À la Hitchcock, Prince Rainier III makes a brief cameo in the film, as he too gives flower arranging a try. Before this point, the princess and the supposed travel writer walk through Monaco’s market at the Place d’Armes, which is situated below the cliff. Here Grace waxes philosophical about plants and flowers. Other scenes were shot in the Hôtel de Paris near the casino, in the Hôtel Hermitage, and in the palace’s Salon Bleu, where Grace is seen sitting in an armchair, deeply absorbed in reading. It is at this point that suddenly “Mr. Wilson” appears to again try to clarify things with the princess. This scene is surreal—almost mystical. Particularly considering that in reality, it would have been impossible for a journalist to gain access to the palace’s private chambers in order to speak with the princess. In any case, Rearranged has something dreamlike about it. It blurs the line between fiction and reality.