High Society: Grace Kelly and Hollywood (36 page)

Jacqueline and Edward felt that Grace “was proceeding in such an intelligent way with this project. The children were grown, and she wanted to have a more creative life at last. But she didn’t want the people of Monaco to think they were going to lose out, or that she was reverting to her movie-star status.”

While Grace was in New York, a reporter from
Paris-Match
heard about the picture and rang Edward to ask what it was about. He said he would speak with the princess, and he rang Grace to ask how to proceed. She replied, “Tell them it’s something that we’ve already done, that the people of Monaco have already seen it, that it’s virtually completed, and everyone knows about it.” Edward relayed her words, and of course the
reporter was completely baffled. Grace’s priorities were, as Edward and Jacqueline said, “in this order—her family, always first; then Monaco, America and France.”

In July and August 1982, Grace was very busy. She and her family took a cruise to the North Pole. She was also planning the annual Red Cross gala, to which she invited Edward as master of ceremonies. After the plans for that benefit were finalized, he and Jacqueline went on a holiday to Los Angeles. “Call me when you return,” Grace told them, “and we’ll film the added scenes for our movie.”

O
N
S
EPTEMBER
5, Grace wrote to Rita Gam, then living and working in Beverly Hills. The letter was, as always to friends, in her own hand: “I am just reading the revised script for ABC [for the network’s dramatic movie about her life, in which Cheryl Ladd played Grace]. I think it will be all right. Of course I dislike the whole idea and feel slightly like someone coming home to find that burglars have entered and gone through all of one’s personal belongings. But they are trying to do it well, and it will be fairly accurate. You come out in it very well [i.e., an actress who represented Rita].

“We went on a wonderful cruise into the Arctic Circle. It was very exciting and quite mysterious. But I have spent a month battling with a persistent bronchitis—which I hope will leave soon, as I am doing a poetry programme Sept. 28 at Windsor in St. George’s Chapel and then early Oct. will join [actor-director] Sam Wanamaker for a little tour of four cities to find some well-heeled donors for the Globe Theatre Project in London. Then in Paris until December. I expect to be in California in March. Hope we meet somewhere along the line. Meanwhile, much love, dear girl, and hang in there!—Grace.”

R
EARRANGED
WAS never completed as planned, but in its twenty-seven-minute version, it is a perfect gem. Grace still lit up the screen, and her sense of comedic timing served her and the movie perfectly. She had lost nothing of her talent; if anything, the years had sharpened it and given her a depth and poignancy that would have left audiences worldwide like the private guests in Monaco—cheering wildly and wanting more.

When Jacqueline and Edward later approached Rainier with a request to have the film distributed, “he was completely submerged in grief,” according to Jacqueline, “and he probably didn’t want to stir up painful memories.” The prince politely but firmly denied them and any businessmen permission to circulate the film. “We had no intention of seeking any profit from it,” Jacqueline added, “but we very sincerely thought that, to honor the princess’s memory, the public could discover underappreciated aspects of her real personality and talent, which was simple, charming, always subtle and full of good humor.” The master negative
of Rearranged
remains locked in the vaults of the palace, very likely forever.

In June 1982, before leaving for her family cruise, Grace sent her own 35-millimeter copy of
Rearranged
to Edward: “I entrust our little film to you for the summer, Ed. Please have some videocassettes made—that will make it easier for it to be seen [by potential distributors] in the Secam, Pal and NTSC formats when we return, rather than the 35-millimeter version, which requires a projection room.”

O
N JULY
22, Grace gave, as it happened, her last interview. Toward the end, she was asked, “How would you like to be
remembered?” She hesitated and glanced aside for a moment before replying.

“I would like to be remembered as a person who accomplished something, who was kind and loving. I would like to leave behind me the memory of a human being who behaved properly and tried to help others.”

1*
Hitch occasionally sent cassettes of bawdy songs and risqué tales to Rainier, as to others—hence, “to be played privately.”

2*
Hitchcock claimed to speak for many when he told me Grace accepted the position with Fox “because it gives her free first-class airfare to come and go.” I corrected him gently: there was never anything like a cash shortage in the Grimaldi accounts. “Oh, you’d be surprised,” he replied. He was wrong.

NOTES

Unless otherwise noted, all quotations from Grace Kelly Grimaldi are drawn from my recorded conversations with her. Details of interviews with others are supplied at the first citation only; subsequent quotations from the same source derive from the identical interview with that source unless stated to the contrary.

ONE

We could have been members
Stephen Birmingham, “Princess Grace: The Fairy Tale 25 Years Later,”
McCall’s
, March 1981.

My other children
Mrs. John B. Kelly, as told to Richard Gehman, in a series of syndicated newspaper articles published in dozens of American newspapers for ten days beginning January 15, 1956. These sentences appeared in the installments dated January 15 and 16. Hereafter designated Kelly/Gehman.

Grace could change her voice
Robyns, p. 27.

I hate to see
Grace’s poem has been widely published—see, e.g., “The Girl in White Gloves,”
Time
, January 31, 1955.

They’ve latched on to
Gaither, p. 7.

I had a good stiff
Robyns, p. 23.

the Prussian general
Lewis, pp. 172, 180; see also Englund, p. 29n.

My mother was the disciplinarian
Curtis Bill Pepper, “Princess Grace’s Problems as a Mother,”
McCall’s
, December 1974.

She was so myopic
Conant, p. 17.

My older sister
Pepper, “Princess Grace’s Problems.” 17.
Of the four
Lewis, p. 161.

I thought it would be
Isabella Taves, “The Seven Graces,”
McCall’s
, January 1955, 70.

According to him
Rupert Allan to the author, October 1, 1990.

a very nice man
Lizanne Le Vine, in
Grace Kelly: The American Princess
, A Wombat Production, written and produced by Gene Feldman and Suzette Winter (1987); hereafter designated Feldman/Winter.

I used to help
Princess Grace of Monaco,
My Book, of Flowers
, pp. 7–8.

Grace admired her father
Rita Gam to the author, May 7, 2007.

As a child
Feldman/Winter.

Jack Kelly didn’t
Marian Christy, “I Remember Grace Kelly When …,”
Boston Globe
, July 2, 1989.

He kept their cars
Lewis, p. 182.

Gracie asked my opinions
Robyns, pp. 28–29.

Little flower
Grace’s lyric was reprinted, e.g., by Quine, p. 401.

Aside from going to Mass
Lizanne Kelly LeVine, in
Hello!
(UK), no. 222 (Oct. 3, 1992): 60; hereafter, LeVine/
Hello!

My dad
Lewis, p. 158.

I won’t put my plays
“Where Are They Now?”
Newsweek
, February 2, 1970.

I am so proud
Robyns, p. 21.

My dear, before you
Lewis, p. 25.

Grace’s first date
Kelly/Gehman, January 16, 1956.

My sister Lizanne
Gaither, p. 34.

There was never any doubt
John Underwood, “No Bird, No Plane, Just Superjack,”
Sports Illustrated
, May 10, 1971.

It was a failure
Ibid.

I could never understand
Ibid.

messed up his only son’s life
Lewis, p. 14.

Daddy was uncomfortable LeVine/Hello!
, p. 63.

Jack Kelly saw acting
Christy, “I Remember …”

She wouldn’t let her Uncle George
Pete Martin, “The Luckiest Girl in Hollywood,”
The Saturday Evening Post
, October 30, 1954.

I rebelled
Pepper, “Princess Grace’s Problems.”

Oh, Jack
Feldman/Winter.

I hear some of
Martin, “The Luckiest Girl.”

TWO

If a girl put
Dee Wedemeyer, “Barbizon, at 49: A Tradition Survives,”
New York Times
, March 13, 1977.

She kept a great deal
Robyns, p. 51.

Grace’s usual outfit
“Grace Kelly,”
A&E Biography
, ABC News Productions: Lisa Zeff, executive producer; Adam K. Sternberg, producer (1998); hereafter,
A&E Biography.

Grace kept the comments on her audition for entrance to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts; see Dherbier and Verlhac, p. 32.

She absolutely did not
Feldman/Winter.

It came as no surprise LeV
in
e/Hello!

Honey, … you can
Kelly/Gehman, installment of January 18, 1956.

The whole situation
Excerpts from Grace’s correspondence with Prudy Wise are quoted in Kinsella and Kinsella, p. 30; the entire letter is printed (in French), in “Grace: Lettres secrètes,”
Paris-Match
, March 24, 1994.

That Grace Kelly
Gaither, p. 13.

daughter of John B. Kelly
Program for the week of July 25, 1949, at the Bucks County Playhouse, New Hope, PA.

a very gorgeous-looking thing
Kelly, pp. 62–63.

For a young lady
The unsourced quotation is cited in McCallum, p. 200.

I’ve always thought
Martin, “The Luckiest Girl.”

I thought all the success
Taves, “The Seven Graces.”

thunderbolt of wrath and hatred
Brooks Atkinson, “At the Theatre:
The Father
,”
New York Times
, November 17, 1949.

a naturalness
Quoted in Mitterrand, p. 285.

She got the part
Budd Schulberg, “The Other Princess Grace,”
Ladies Home Journal
, May 1977.

Grace’s father wanted her
Christy, “I Remember …”

She quickly
Gaither, p. 24.

Despite the quickness
Feldman/Winter.