Scandalous Women
Grace’s next relationship was sure to continue to send her parents blood pressure shooting through the roof. Designer Oleg Cassini, had been smitten with Grace ever sent he had seen
Mogambo. After being introduced in a Manhattan restaurant, Cassini pursued Grace relentlessly. He was suave and continental, and better yet, he was single! When she flew to the South of France to film
To Catch a Thief, she sent Cassini a postcard inviting him to follow her. While Grace wanted to marry Cassini and was unofficially engaged to him, she still wanted and craved her parents’ approval. Her mother was the first to meet Cassini and was not impressed. Although the designer came from an aristocratic Russian family and had grown up in Florence, not only was the designer sixteen years Grace’s senior but he was also twice divorced with two children, one of whom was born mentally handicapped. When Grace invited Cassini to spend the weekend with her family in Ocean City, NJ, both her brother and her father refused to acknowledge his existence. Cassini was hurt by Grace’s silence, expecting her to defend the man she loved. Still they continued to see each other. Years later, it was rumored that Grace fell pregnant with Cassini’s child and had an abortion. Given Grace’s desire for a family, it seems pretty improbable. A child would have given her the impetus to marry Cassini despite the disapproval of her family. Cassini was not the only man she was seeing; she also spent time with French actor, Jean-Pierre Aumont. When intimate pictures of the two dining together appeared in the tabloids of the two in France, Grace suspected that Aumont had tipped off photographers.
By 1955, Grace was dissatisfied with her life. Her Academy Award had not led to better parts with MGM. She had only made one film for the studio since
Mogambo, a clunker called
Green Ice with Stewart Granger. Rather than make movies she considered second rate, Grace continued to turn down film after film including
Quentin Durward with Robert Taylor. Both of her sisters were married with children, as were several of her friends. Grace began to realize the problem that all successful women face eventually. She realized that she needed a man who
wouldn’t be overshadowed by her fame. The last thing she wanted was the possibility of her husband being called “Mr. Kelly.”
On a visit to the Cannes Film Festival in May of 1955, Grace was persuaded to visit Monaco by Olivia de Haviland’s husband Pierre Galante. An audience was arranged with Prince Rainier to be photographed by
Paris Match. The meeting turned into a comedy of errors. Everything that could go wrong did, from an electricity strike at Grace’s hotel which meant that she could neither dry her hair nor press her clothes. Instead she was forced to wear a hideous dress with big cabbage roses and a flowered headband. At the palace, the group was kept waiting by the Prince who was running late. After more than an hour, the Prince appeared just as Grace was about to give up and leave.
The Prince escorted Grace through the formal gardens and showed off his personal zoo, impressing her by petting a baby tiger. He expressed his intentions to visit the US in the future. Reluctantly she took her leave to return to Cannes were she was scheduled to host a reception. It was clear that she was intrigued by the Prince who she found utterly charming. The prince was also intrigued by Grace, who found beautiful and poised, unlike the characters such as the dowdy Georgie Elgin in
The Country Girl. It appeared that the Prince had found his potential Princess.
At the time of their meeting, Prince Rainier had been on the throne of Monaco for six years, having succeeded to the throne on his 26th birthday. He was born on May 31st, 1923 to Princess Charlotte, daughter of Louis II, and Prince Pierre de Polignac. His parents were divorced when he was small, and Rainier and his sister Antoinette were raised by his grandfather. Like Grace, he had suffered a lonely childhood, his parents who hated each other, used him and his sister as pawns. He was sent to boarding school in England at an early age where he was teased for being overweight. After running away from school, he was finally set to Le Rosey in Switzerland where he was more comfortable among the children of the International jet set. He served in the French army during WWII, before assuming the throne after his grandfather’s death. Rainier was now 32 and anxious to get married. He had huge plans for Monaco to turn it from a backwater principality, dependent on the revenues from the Casino, to an international destination. For six years he had been involved with an actress, Gisele Pascal. While he admired her independence, he was not happy with her career which took her away for periods of time. Tired of waiting for him to make up his mind, Gisele broke up with him; although the rumor was that she had failed a fertility test. She soon married another actor and had a daughter.
It was Rainier’s spiritual advisor, Father Tucker, who took matters into his own hands, to play matchmaker. On paper, Grace seemed to have all the qualifications necessary for a princess. She was beautiful, poised, wealthy and most important, a devout Catholic. Father Tucker inquired discreetly into her background and was pleased with what he heard. During this time, Grace and the Prince kept up a running correspondence of letters and phone calls, getting to know each other the old fashioned way. Grace was a huge believer not only in astrology, tarot cards and psychics but also in signs. Her next movie for MGM was
The Swan based on a Ferenc Molnar play where she a princess named Alexandra. It was a role she loved having played it in summer stock and in an earlier TV production.
Prince Rainer arrived in the States in time for the Christmas holidays of 1955, making his way to Philadelphia to meet the Kelly family. When Grace’s mother first heard about his interest in her daughter, she thought that Rainier was the prince of Morocco! Monaco was a totally unknown country in the US, smaller in acreage than Central Park. Grace’s marriage to Rainier would put it on the map. After meeting her family and friends, Rainier finally popped the question, on a traffic island, in the middle of New York City. Her friends were a little shocked and amazed that Grace was willing to get engaged to man that she barely knew. But for the first time in her life, Grace had brought home someone her parents approved of, more important than that, her father was now impressed. Although the Kelly’s were moderately wealthy, they had never been accepted by Main Line society in Philadelphia, Jack Kelly was only one generation from the bogs of Ireland. Grace marrying Rainier was a way for Margaret and Jack Kelly to stick to the snobs who had looked down at them all those years.
Before the wedding could take place, the future bride not only had to be examined to see if she was capable of bearing kids (which sent Grace into a panic of what to do about the fact that she was no longer a virgin), but there was also a financial arrangement to take care of, and the question of whether or not Grace would be able to continue her career. Rainier was adamant that it would be unseemly for a Princess to be seen making love to another man on screen, but Grace was sure that she could eventually make him see reason.