final credits - prince rainier
Long before Charles and Diana, and to a much lesser extent Charles and Camilla, there was another royal wedding that captured the world’s imagination. Nearly fifty years ago, the ruler of the smallest and richest country in the world married a starlet from Hollywood. It was a fairy tale come true, but with a tragic ending. Rainier de Grimaldi, Prince of Monaco, died April 6, 2005 at age 81 of a lung infection, and heart and kidney failure.
Rainier Louis Henri Maxence Bertrand de Grimaldi was the leader of Europe's longest-ruling royal family. The Grimaldi family ruled over Monaco, a rocky chunk of French Riviera coastline, since 1297 when Francois the Sly sneaked into a fortress, overpowering guards and letting in his followers. Rainer ascended to the throne after his maternal grandfather, Prince Louis II, abdicated in 1949 because of ill health. Rainer ruled for 56 years, making him the world's second longest-reigning monarch. King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand, the present monarch, has been on the throne since 1946.
Monaco, under Rainer’s ambitious guidance, expanded its territory by one-fifth with land reclaimed from the sea -- the only country to grow so much by peaceful means. There was so much blasting involved that when an earthquake struck one day, nobody noticed. In 1993, the principality was admitted to the United Nations. The sovereign state is small enough to fit into New York City's Central Park, but is yet home to nearly 45 banks.
Monaco boasts no crime and no unemployment, due to Rainier’s running of the country with an iron hand and intense police surveillance. The country of 30,000 people, of which only 5,000 are citizens of Monaco, is served by 300 policemen. During Rainer’s reign, Monaco transformed its economy’s reliance on roulette and baccarat to international banking and investment. When Rainier assumed the throne at age 25, the mini-state gathered 90% of its income from casinos. By the time of his death, that figure was down to 4%. Adding to the glamour of its sea-side setting, Monaco is home each spring to the Monte Carlo Grand Prix, when the city’s winding streets are turned into a Formula One racetrack.
However, the country’s spectacular growth has been accompanied by rumours that the playground for millionaires is actually a place used to launder money for the Italian Mafia, Middle Eastern drug dealers and Russian organised crime. Monaco has long been known as the "sunny place for shady people." Without outside money, the principality would fall into poverty. It is a haven for countless celebrities, from Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti to Formula One race car drivers and tennis stars.
Most of the world would not know about the small country’s ruler were it not for his marriage to Hollywood star Grace Kelly. Rainer met the millionaire bricklayer's daughter from Philadelphia in 1955, at the Cannes Film Festival, when Kelly was there to film Alfred Hitchcock’s “To Catch a Thief.” In the movie, Kelly’s character speeds along the Mediterranean countryside to escape police. During filming, Kelly asked "Whose gardens are those?" Screenwriter John Michael Hayes replied, "Prince Grimaldi's."
Kelly won the 1954 best actress Oscar for "The Country Girl," and had just completed Charles Vidor’s "The Swan," a story about a princess being courted by a European prince, when she met Rainer. Kelly’s role in that movie became an ironic fairy tale reality.
In the ‘Charles and Diana’ event of its day, the April 19, 1956 marriage brought instant elegance and glamour to one of Europe's oldest dynasties. The three-hour public wedding at Monaco's Cathedral of St. Nicholas was watched by 30 million television viewers, an incredibly large audience for the early days of TV.
Rainer’s shrewd business and political sense figured strongly in the background of the union. Grace’s father, Jack Kelly -- a former Olympic rowing champion -- had made his millions in the construction industry. Rainer asked Jack to give him a $2 million dowry in advance. The construction giant balked, and the bride-to-be ended up paying half.
Rainier also needed a wife who could have children because, under a 1918 treaty with France, the principality would revert to its Guallist neighbour if the bloodline died out. Kelly had to submit to an examination to prove that she was capable of bearing him an heir. The couple had two daughters -- Caroline, born in 1957, and Stephanie, born in 1965. Prince Albert Alexandre Louis Pierre was born in 1958.
Before marrying, Kelly had to fulfill her contract with MGM by starring in "High Society." Rainier had insisted from the start that she give up her career to focus on her duties as a princess. MGM agreed, in exchange for world rights to a documentary about "The Wedding of the Century." When Rainier refused to let his wife return to the screen for Alfred Hitchcock's "Marnie," she reportedly went into a severe depression. Rainer then banned her movies from being played in Monaco.
On September 13, 1982 Rainier lost his Hollywood bride. Kelly, then 52, suffered a stroke while driving Stephanie back to the palace in Monaco. The car veered off a mountainside road and plunged down a steep embankment, rolling over several times and crushing the driver's side. Kelly went into a coma. The next day, Rainier, Caroline and Albert consented to allow life-support equipment turned off. Stephanie, although seriously injured, survived. Rainer never remarried.
Rainier's only son, 47-year-old Albert, will now become ruler of one of the world's wealthiest countries. Albert is unmarried and has no children. The partying bachelor has been seen with some of the world’s most beautiful women, such as Claudia Schiffer and Brooke Shields. He has shown no public inclination to marry. In 2002, Monaco changed its succession law to allow power to pass from a reigning prince who has no descendants to his siblings. If Prince Albert does not produce an heir, he can name a child of one of his sisters as his successors. His two sisters, Caroline and Stephanie, both have children.