Grace's Story

GRIMM'S WOULD HAVE ended the story of Grace Kelly 26 years ago, with "happily ever after." That was when she turned into a princess. Close the book, shut your eyes, dream sweet, romantic dreams, and give no thought to what "ever after" might mean, except some sort of indescribable, endless happiness. Grimm's would never have ended the story the way it really ended last week, in a tangled, twisted pile of metal at the bottom of a ravine. Fairy tales don't end in car wrecks.

By all accounts, Grace Kelly lived a charmed life. Born into Philadelphia society in 1929, she grew up in high style and later cruised to stardom with an ease that seemed to suggest pre-destiny. Then after establishing herself as the screen's most-celebrated star, she quit the movies and married a real-life prince, in the tiny, prosperous principality of Monaco. She was America's first princess, and the closest thing to royalty our country ever had. For most of her life, Grace Kelly's feet never touched the ground. So when she suffered a stroke last week that not only ravaged her brain but resulted in a car crash that mangled her body and seriously injured her daughter, it was almost as though some grand, cosmic accountant was exacting from her, in one lump sum, all the dues she never before had to pay. All along she had seemed exempt from the routine pains and troubles that plague the lives of ordinary folk. And then, in one swift and terrifying moment, Princess Grace fell to Earth.

And the whole world fell just a little bit with her. For Americans, she was Our Princess. It is one of this country's chief attributes that we do not have a monarchy of our own. Nevertheless, Grace Kelly showed a generation of stuffy Europeans that the United States--typically thought of abroad as long on productivity, short on class--could produce someone with the refinement of a princess. Even the most aggressive anti-monarchist had to feel a little bit proud about that. To the rest of the world, she represented a certain greatness.

She ended no wars, cured no diseases, with her husband she reigned over a piece of land which, if truth be told, needed no rulers. Hers was the greatness of beauty, of the finer things in life. She represented not an effort to fill humanity's basic needs, but instead, like a fine painting or symphony, she represented the possibilities of life once those basic needs have been met. When she died, the world was saddened, and in the little principality of Monaco the casino stopped running, shops closed down and the people mourned the passing of their princess.

IVISITED MONACO during happier times, on the last day of June this summer. The city of Monte Carlo was just gearing up for another prosperous summer of tourism and gambling. When my friend and I stepped off the train in Monaco (30 minutes away from our hotel in Nice, France) I was immediately reminded of what Ernest Hemingway once wrote of Switzerland: "A small, steep country, much more up and down than sideways." Closely packed high-rise apartment buildings and hotels dot the sunbaked hills of Monte Carlo, creating an atmosphere that is a dazzling and claustrophobic. We labored up a hill and, reaching its summit, gazed out over the city and the bay. It was a beautiful summer day. The sun blazed through a cloudless sky reflecting off the hills, the buildings, and the ice-blue waters of the bay. High crowded hills surrounded the water on three sides, looming over the bay like the tiers of some gigantic football stadium.

I had fallen in love with Princess Grace first at the age of 12, when I saw her in a re-run of High Noon. Since then I had watched her movies religiously. Now I was here, in her fairy tale land, and I felt determined to find her.

For hours we walked through the streets of the city hoping to see her, with no luck. When we finally reached the palace, we were told by a uniformed guard that the Royal Family was not receiving visitors. That night we visited the casino, lost a good deal of money and emerged, inebriated on over-priced booze, well after the last train had left for Nice. Finally, just after 4 a.m., we persuaded a cab driver to take us the 20 miles back to our hotel, for money upfront.

It was perhaps the most beautiful ride I have ever taken, along winding mountain roads and through tunnels carved into the hills. All around us and below, the lights of Monaco sparkled on in the early morning darkness, like so many precious stones in the folds of a rich, dark velvet blanket. I thought of the princess, tucked safely away in her palace in this fairy tale land, and I thought of the words "happily ever after."

I turned to the driver and asked him in broken French if he had ever driven Princess Grace in his taxi. He replied in good English that he had once, two years earlier. "Was she nice to you?" I asked. "Yes, she was nice," he said. "In Monaco, we love her." I said jokingly, "It's hard for us to think of her as a princess," trying to demonstrate a healthy American contempt for royalty. But I couldn't help enjoying the warm rush of pride that swept over me as I added. "She's just a girl from Philadelphia."