How Grace Kelly met Prince Rainier at Cannes

Monaco Royal Palace, where Princess Grace met Prince Ranier.  (Image from
   flickr's Diane S Murphy, Creative Commons license.)

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Cary Grant had just announced his retirement from acting when Alfred Hitchcock decided to offer him the lead of To Catch A Thief.  Over lunch, Hitchcock outlined the movie, and Grant agreed to take a look at the script with a cautionary, “don’t get your hopes up” since he was looking forward to a more relaxed way of life. 

That’s when Hitchcock went in for the close, "It might help you as you're reading, Grace Kelly has agreed to play the girl and a good part of the picture will be shot on the Riviera."  That, indeed, was an offer Grant couldn’t refuse.

So off they went to Monaco in the summer of 1954 to film To Catch A Thief, and reportedly after filming the scene in which Grace Kelly sped along the Moyen Corniche enroute to the picnic grounds she gazed out on the Mediterranean coastal countryside and asked screenwriter John Michael Hayes, "Whose gardens are those?"

"Prince Grimaldi's," he answered.  Kelly wanted to tour the walled gardens with her then-boyfriend Oleg Cassini (he had accompanied her on the trip as they were unofficially engaged for a time, although her family was not at all happy about this twice-divorced Protestant), but between her shooting schedule and the Prince’s commitments, the garden visit couldn’t be arranged.

In March of 1955, the French government invited Miss Kelly to attend the Cannes Film Festival that May, where her film The Country Girl – for which she would later receive the 1954 Best Actress Academy Award – was to be shown.  She was subsequently invited to participate in a photo session at the Palace of Monaco with Prince Rainier III, the ruling sovereign of the principality, as part of the festivities. After a series of delays and complications – culminating with the power going out at her hotel on the morning of the meeting and a quick decision to wear the only thing she had with her that did not need to be ironed – Kelly met the prince.

Upon returning to the U.S., Kelly began filming The Swan, a movie that was shot on location at the Biltmore Estate and at Lake Junaluska in Asheville, North Carolina, and in which she coincidentally portrayed a princess.  During this time she and Rainier corresponded, and in December he traveled to America for “a tour.”  It was widely speculated, however, that Rainier was actively seeking a wife since a 1918 treaty with France stated that if he did not produce an heir, Monaco would revert to France.

When the question was boldly posed to Rainier point-blank at a press conference, he answered "No."  The interviewer then asked, "If you were pursuing a wife, what kind would you like?" Rainier smiled and answered, "I don't know – the best."

Rainier then traveled to Philadelphia and met Kelly and her family, and after three days, he proposed.  Kelly accepted, her family agreed to provide a $2M dowry to the prince and preparations for what the press called "The Wedding of the Century" began.

Helen Rose, MGM’s Academy Award-winning costume designer, created Kelly’s wedding dress – with three dozen seamstresses’ help, that is, and over a six-week period – fashioning it from 25 yards of silk taffeta, antique rose-point lace and pearls.  Ultimately, the dressed was paid for by MGM because in exchange for terminating her contract, Kelly granted the studio exclusive film rights to produce a half-hour documentary chronicling the royal nuptials entitled The Wedding in Monaco.  It all seems very business-like and more calculated than romantic, but on April 19, 1956, Grace Kelly became Her Serene Highness The Princess of Monaco, more commonly referred to as Princess Grace.

While all was not a fairytale, of course, Prince Rainier and Princess Grace did enjoy a life filled with friends, family and travel, including visits to Alfred Hitchcock’s Heart o’ the Mountain estate in Northern California.  A photo album owned by the current property owners (it is now a winery) shares images of the two lounging on the lawn laughing.  Sadly, the laughter and the happily-ever-after ended too soon for the lovely Princess Grace.

Monaco Royal Palace image source

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