The suggestion of his business partner in the Principality, Aristotle Onassis, of a Hollywood wedding - "you need a hook to attract luxury tourism to Monaco" - came true on April 19, 1956.
The Principality was the set of the most iconic tale of the 20th century, starring Rainier III, a 32-year-old sovereign determined to turn his tiny kingdom into a glamor emporium, and the fashionable actress, Grace Kelly, famous for films such as Mogambo, Alone in the face of danger or Perfect Crime, who at the age of 26 had an Oscar and two Golden Globes in his showcase.
More than 1,000 journalists and photographers from around the world, almost double the number of guests, were accredited for the ceremony, the first royal wedding broadcast on television, which was attended by 30 million viewers.
Grace had the role of her well rehearsed and the staging of her was truly impressive as she arrived at St. Nicholas Cathedral on the arm of her father, wealthy Philadelphia builder John Kelly, followed by six bridesmaids. dressed in yellow She was dressed in a spectacular model by Helen Rose, the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer designer, valued at $150,000, which is now exhibited in the Philadelphia museum, in which 36 seamstresses worked piecemeal for six weeks. Her bodice, with a high neck and long sleeves, was made of Brussels lace and was joined to her skirt, of pearl-embroidered taffeta, by a sash that outlined her wasplike waist. The look was completed with a headdress made of pearls, diamonds, and lace imitating the orange blossoms holding the veil, and the bouquet of lilies that the bride carried in her hands, which was perfumed with the fragrance that Rainier had created for her, Fleurissimo, which did not It was marketed until 1972.
Inside the cathedral, 600 guests were waiting, whose only crowned head was Faruq of Egypt, although the entourage of European royalty faded before the influx of Hollywood stars, such as Alfred Hitchcock, Ava Gardner, Gloria Swanson or Cary Grant, who alternated with magnates like Aristotle Onassis or Conrad Hilton. Royalty obliges, it was the bride who waited for the groom at the altar, who arrived in a gala uniform and his chest profusely decorated with decorations. They said "Yes, I do" before the Bishop of Monaco Gilles Barthe and the only off-script note was that Rainier failed to fit the ring on Grace's finger, which she ended up putting on herself. On the way out, after the ride in a convertible Rolls that was a gift from the Monegasques, agape was held at the Grimaldi palace with salmon, caviar, lobster, and a six-story wedding cake. Subsequently, the couple embarked on the Deo Juvante yacht, a gift from Onassis, bound for Valencia and Mallorca, a honeymoon where Grace experienced some dizziness, an indication, it is rumored, of the incipient pregnancy of her eldest daughter, Carolina of hers.
It was the "End" of a cinematographic romance whose reality was not so much of a fairy tale: Grace Kelly, Hitchcock's muse, member of a wealthy Philadelphia family, had a meteoric career in Hollywood, where she shared the bill and they say that something more with Clark Gable, William Holden or Gary Cooper, who revealed: "It looks like an iceberg but when you pull her panties down, it's a volcano."
The object of desire for a beautiful, rich, and successful North American was that unattainable European royalty embodied by Rainier, who urgently needed a son to avoid the threat of annexation to France if he had no heirs, as well as to revitalize the battered Monegasque economy since the Second World War had bankrupted the casinos, his source of wealth. He wanted to turn Monaco into a tourist emporium for millionaires, but he needed a claim and Onassis suggested that he marry a movie star.
Rainier's then lover, Gisele Pascal, a second-rate actress, did not measure up and they say that the prince's chaplain, Father Tucker, drew up a list that included Deborah Kerr, Natalie Wood, and Grace herself, the favorite. The moment chosen for her first meeting was the Cannes festival, which Grace attended, and the excuse was an invitation from Rainier to visit her palace on May 6, 1955.
"I had never met an American before, she seemed calm and pleasant to me, but a marriage did not even cross my mind," Rainiero would declare. That Christmas, however, he traveled to Philadelphia to propose to Grace, and on January 5, 1956, he shocked the world by announcing the engagement. The lead-up was hardly romantic: Grace was given a gynecological exam to check her fertility, which she revealed was not a virgin, which she attributed to a fall from a horse as a teenager. In addition, her father, John Kelly, contributed a dowry of two million dollars to clean up the Monegasque coffers and make his daughter a princess.
