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At
the premier of The Swan, at
the Cannes Film Festival, Grace was invited to meet Monaco's crown
head, Rainier Grimaldi II. To help boost the
principalities financial situation, one of Rainier’s advisors decided,
the allure of the Hollywood actress would be a great help. A
journalist arranged for her to meet His Serene Highness
Prince Rainier Grimaldi in Monaco, but Grace canceled the meeting
because of an appointment
with a hairdresser. Rainier
did, however, keep in touch with Grace and over Christmas, on Rainier’s
trip to America in 1955, he traveled to the United States to join the
Kelly’s for their annual Christmas party. The family welcomed him,
although they had had no former knowledge of Rainier or his
kingdom. Only three days later Grace and Prince Rainier announced
their marriage plans, but only after a mandatory fertility test,
proving she would be capable of bearing heirs to the Grimaldi
throne.
Grace
sailed
to her destiny
that waited in the small province in Southern France. Her
heart and hand went to Prince
Rainier of Monaco on April 19, 1956.
Even if she hadn’t been born to royal blood, she was beautiful, famous,
and a devout Roman
Catholic from a wealthy background.
Kelly abandoned her acting career to become Princess Grace.
The
wedding
was one of the
most
lavish, most highly
attended and most reported events of the
decade. Many of
Grace’s Hollywood friends and around 1,500
journalists attended the wedding. Many said Grace fit the
princess role perfectly and the wedding became known as the “Wedding of
the Century.’
But
life was
hard for Grace in
Monaco. The people of her country were not welcoming to a foreign
princess, especially a Hollywood actress. Grace was not fluent in
French and felt isolated but, tried concentrating on her new role as
wife. Her personality toward life changed as she quickly learned
that European wives did not have the same hold as the American wives
have in the family.
As a
result,
Prince Rainier
banned the showing of his wife's films in Monaco, and in 1962 forced
her to back out of the leading role in Alfred Hitchcock's film Marnie,
in which she had agreed to appear with actor Sean Connery. While
Rainier felt that her work as an actress conflicted
with her role as the wife
of a
ruler. Grace did lend
her
talents to narration of several social documentaries in the 1970s, and
she served as a member of the board of 20th Century Fox.
Meanwhile,
as Princess Grace of
Monaco, she revived tourism in Monaco, and served as head of a number
of charitable and humanitarian organizations, such as Red Cross
Monaco. She gave birth to three royal children: Princess
Caroline, Crown Prince Albert, and Princess Stephanie. The royal
family was in the news often with
pictures of
each of their children’s births, family vacations, and holidays.
On
September
13, 1982, Princess
Grace and her youngest daughter Stephanie were arguing over Stephanie’s
plans to move in with her boyfriend, Paul Belmondo, son of the famous
actor Jean-Paul Belmondo. Princess Grace excused their
driver so that they could continue their conversation in private on
their way to the palace. On the same highway as the car chase
scenes in To Catch A Thief, Grace lost
control
of her Range Rover. As
they approached the fatal turn, instead of slowing down, the Range
Rover appeared to accelerate suddenly and sped straight over the edge
of a steep 45-foot cliff. After clipping off the tops of several trees,
the Range Rover rolled over and came to a stop upside down in a ravine.
Princess
Stephanie only
suffered minor injuries compared to her mother, who suffered severe
head trauma. A CAT scan, many hours after the accident,
showed that Princess Grace’s brain had been damaged in two different
places. One was caused by the trauma of the crash, and the second
appeared to have been a stroke. Unfortunatly it was
impossible to know if the stroke caused the accident or if the accident
caused the stroke. Princess Grace was put on life support, and her
family had to make the heart breaking decision to turn off her life
support machine.
Princess
Grace died on
September 14, 1982, after deteriorating into a coma for over twenty-four hours. Many
believe that a simple seatbelt could have saved Princess Graces’s
life. Grace Kelly was a beautiful, young princess who was
loved around the world and had a big heart. Her love for acting ended
abruptly at the peak of her fame. Her career ended in 1956, when she
married. It has been twenty-two years since her death and she will
forever be missed and her films forever loved. The best way to describe
Princess Grace’s dedication to her work is in the words of Mother
Theresa, “a life not lived for others, is a life not worth living.” She
may be gone, but her memory lives on forever.
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