Grace Kelly Behind the Glamour and the Crown FULL DOCUMENTARY

New York, one morning in April 1956. Thousands of fans are lining the platform to wave goodbye to Hollywood star Grace Kelly, one of the most beautiful women in the world. She has decided to quit the film industry and to leave America. There's almost a riot. She stopped when she was 26 years old. That's when most people start their careers. She was a big, big star in Hollywood and she gave it up because she was in love. To everyone's great surprise, she leaves for Europe to marry a prince unknown to the Americans. As I said before, just getting married is a very big step for any girl and I'm, of course, I have a great many feelings about that and it's a very exciting thing and I'm very, it was insane. I mean, there were thousands upon thousands of people there to see the ship off, you know, to what for Grace would go like this. On the deck, surrounded by her parents, the actress seems excited. She has always loved surprises, adventure and change. In leaving for Europe, she's leaving behind her film friends, her career in Hollywood, recently honored with an Oscar. She's leaving New York, her adopted city, and perhaps, above all, her childhood and her beloved family in Philadelphia. Nobody saw this marriage coming. She has always done what she wants, when she wants. Many would dream of living a life which awaits her. The life of a 20th century princess, married to Rainier of Monaco, the sovereign of this small 700-year-old principality on the Côte d'Azur. It's here she will reinvent her life. Come on down. Since her tragic death in 1982, most of her personal photographs and films have been stored in the family archives. Hundreds of previously unseen photographs, nearly 40 hours of films recorded by Grace and her husband Rainier over a period of a quarter of a century. Her son, Prince Albert, has agreed to show us these films. She loved to film. Maybe it stems from her days of being in front of the camera. Now she wanted to film herself, but I think she wanted to capture those wonderful family moments. Albert, bring that little football over here. Right until the end, the actress used her own amateur camera to tell the story of her daily life. Very different from her official image. An inside look at a complex woman whose chosen path continues to be questioned. We show these films to her American family and confidence. People who had never spoken out before. This is me and that's Grace. I never really saw Grace get emotional. Who was Grace Kelly? She was fascinating because she was filled with paradoxes and nobody knew quite what to make of her. She could be one person one moment and another person another moment. There was a mystery about her. What was it? To understand Grace Kelly the mystery, we've been looking into her past. This is her childhood home in the Philadelphia suburbs in the United States. Her first film in 1932. Grace is on the left in Scottish dress like her big sister Peggy. She's three years old. Opposite Lisan, her little sister in green who will act as her chaperone in Hollywood 20 years later. It's her father who's filming. One of the first Americans to own a camera. Jack Kelly. Perhaps the love of her life. Whom she will have to measure up to. A three-time gold medalist in the Olympic Games. The 10th son of an Irish immigrant. He started as a bricklayer at 12 years of age. A champion like all the Kellys. Grace's father had been so successful. The greatest single oarsman in the world. They felt everyone in the family was capable of doing being the best. Notably Kel, Jack's son. Also a future international rowing champion. Or Peggy, the big sister. Who is also athletic and his favorite. Their younger sister Gracie as she is known. Born in 1929 is a bit different. She was not like the others. She just was not a typical Kelly kid. Grace didn't fit that mold. She was different. She was used to not being the star in her family. She was sort of the off to the side child. She wasn't, nobody made much of her. A reserved little girl who blended into the crowd. And who really didn't like either competition or sport. Prince Albert, her son, is the owner of her childhood house. A kind of temple to the Kelly spirit. Where Grace's mother Margaret sits enthroned. It's here the young Grace takes her first steps. So this is the famous door of the measurements of not only my mother. And you can see her name here. And that's what's touching is that, yeah, she was two years old. Hey, follow me. As a very young child, she liked to take refuge in her bedroom. So this is my mother's room. Although I think that she at different times was in other rooms. But this is where she spent the most time, I think. I got the impression that my mother liked to be alone at different times of the day. And so she liked to invent stories. And had a lot of dolls to play with. She was a little shy, but she liked to be in company as well. Do you want to come in here? She told me sometimes if you want to be on your own for a few minutes, it's fine. You know, there's that famous story of when my mother locked her in a closet. She thought, you know, well, I'm going to fix her. And wouldn't you know, Aunt Grace was in that closet for over an hour and she could care less. The young Grace was both obedient and rebellious and would remain so all her life. An unusual combination which would soon bowl over Hollywood. For now, her parents encouraged her to take up the theater. Aged 12, she played her first role in this neighborhood hall to replace Peggy who had fallen ill. Nobody imagines then that six years later, when she is 18 years old, she would tell her family that she wanted to be an actress. And that she was leaving for New York to start acting classes. The director, Robert Dornhelm, knew Grace Kelly well during the latter years of her life. She told me that her father predicted her that she's going to fall on her face and she's going to be a no good loser. That's not a serious job for somebody like you. Her father said something to me. He thought that was sort of, you know, a loser in some sense. She insisted. She feels that she can be a Kelly too, but in her own way. Her enrollment in drama school in the bag, she convinces her parents to let her move to Manhattan in an institution for young girls from good families. I think they thought she'd be back home very shortly. There she meets Carolyn Scott, a model of the same age, who helps her gain entry into the fashion world. My mother set up Grace with a meeting with the owner of the Ford modeling agency, Eileen Ford. And when Eileen met with Grace, she thought she was too athletic and too much meat on the bones. And so she turned her down. Later, Eileen would refer to that as the greatest mistake of her career. She once told me that she had 250 some interviews and auditions before she got her first paying job. That is real determination. She constantly was afraid to disappoint her father. Grace doesn't turn anything down. Adverts for insecticides, for toothpaste, for cigarettes, beauty pageants. When her debut in repertory theater on Broadway is cut short, she starts to perform in the growing television industry and she lights up the screen. She had a funny sort of gawkiness. I can't explain this to you. She was very graceful, but there was also something childlike and gangly about her. So when she was loose and easy and comfortable, she'd move and it was kind of like a little deer, you know, a little deer wasn't quite sure about being on its legs yet. It was adorable. I can't explain it, but it was so charming. Four years after her arrival in New York, a telegram arrives. Hollywood is calling. They want her to star with Gary Cooper, one of the biggest actors of the time. I read a script that Fred Zinneman was going to direct called High Noon. And I said, this girl, I hear wonderful things about her and I think she could play the part of the wife in your movie. And he said, OK. I mean it. If you won't go with me now, I'll be on that train when it leaves here. Grace Kelly, playing a part every woman secretly understands. One film follows another, such as Mogambo with Clark Gable, the leading man from Gone with the Wind, and Ava Gardner. Filming takes place in the heart of Africa. Grace took her parents' small camera and sometimes films herself. Look at the face. She had a quality about herself. Leading men fell in love with her. So did the audience. Of course, we knew that our mother was a movie star. And it was strange to watch her movies and sitting next to her. She, you could sense that this was a very important part of her life. But her life really takes off with this man, Alfred Hitchcock. One of the greatest directors of his time. He was her Pygmalion. Let's say he helped her blossom. He made her a star. He managed to help her come out of her shell. This young girl from Philadelphia who was a bitch. You won't be able to take your eyes off the glowing beauty of Grace Kelly, who shares the heart and curiosity of James Stewart in this story of a romance shadowed by the terror of a horrifying secret. He brought her out of herself. He took her a long way. Hitchcock describes her as a volcano covered with snow. You have a very strong grip, the kind a burglar needs. A close friend of Grace Kelly, Bob Marks, associated with Hitchcock in the 70s. When he saw Grace, he said, this is perfect because she is elegant. She was well brought up. She's a lovely lady and ladylike. And yet there's this intense passion underneath. She was terribly seductive without even trying. Brigitte Aubert is one of the actresses in To Catch a Thief. All she'd think about was work. At mealtimes, for example, I would hang out with Carrie. We would have a laugh. And Grace, she was at a table further away with her assistant talking about the script. It was so serious. However, at the end of the day, the actress changes roles. When we were driving away in the evening with Hitch, Hitch said, I'm taking you for dinner. Hitch loved to crack jokes. And all of a sudden, we'd always see our Grace bursting out laughing, crying with laughter in the car. Can you imagine Grace crying with laughter? The tsunami Grace Kelly left behind the young woman who made toothpaste ads. The little girl from Philadelphia becomes queen of Manhattan. One of my favorite stories that she would tell about when she was living in New York City, she was in a taxi cab and the taxi cab driver was looking in his rearview mirror at her. He looked at her and he said, you know what? You look like Grace Kelly. And she said, oh, thank you. And he turned around and he said, but you're cuter. Grace, the anti-Marilyn. She's popular with men and also women who identify with her. She is considered to be one of the best actresses in the profession. As I was going to say last year, well, time is running short again. So the award for the best performance by an actress, Grace Kelly for The Country Girl. Everybody wanted her. She had her choice of every script in the business. But listen to her. Bizarrely, she's not able to express herself in front of her peers. The thrill of this moment keeps me from saying what I really feel. I can only say thank you with all my heart to all who made this possible for me. Thank you. As if something was still holding her back. Many other actresses got Oscars and then their career went nowhere. And the father predicted that to her, that's going to happen to you. Even she had only two, three Hollywood roles. The father still was not satisfied, even after the Oscars. In Philadelphia, hearing the news of his daughter's triumph on the radio, her father, Jack, was incredulous. I can't believe Grace has won an Oscar, he said. She told me the night of the Oscars, she put the statue on the, somewhere on the table, went to bed and looked at the statue and it was pretty sad. Grace and her paradoxes. Six months later, she decides to change everything. She started calling us all, making dates for the next day. She came over and she said, I'm going to get married. And I said, congratulations. She says, well, what I'm going to tell you now, you may not want to congratulate me. She told me, and I can't tell you what I said, because it's language I can't use on television. I'm going to marry the Prince of Monaco. And I think my career is over. I said, no, and I quit. I mean, it was just unbelievable to me. Unbelievable indeed. Grace tells them that for the past eight months, she's been writing in secret to Prince Rainier, the Sovereign of Monaco, that she met him at his palace when she went to present her last film at the Cannes Film Festival. This meeting, organized by French journalists, took a turn that she wasn't expecting. She never talked about this, but she didn't quite know what to expect. And my father also never talked about his feelings before that meeting. But I don't think he also didn't think that there would be a second meeting after that. The love was probably not love at first sight. There was admiration, there was respect, they impressed each other. She doesn't know much about Rainier Grimaldi yet. This bachelor, six years her senior, who speaks fluent English, spent his youth in boarding schools abroad before studying political science in France. He fought against the Nazis in 1944 while she was still a teenager and was decorated for acts of war. He reigns over this two-square-kilometer territory between the sea and the mountains, which his family conquered in the Middle Ages. With Grace Kelly back in America, he makes the first move. She said right away he started writing to me very, very sweet letters. The romance really developed by mail. Eight months after they meet, Prince Rainier is invited to spend Christmas with the Kelly family. It's the second time they meet. Shortly after arriving at her parents' house, he proposes to her. I think she was very surprised, yes. I remember very well sitting right here in this room and that so impressed me and I could see Grace and Prince Rainier together. It was a true love match. You know, she knew a lot of handsome young men and probably they were not challenging, and also a lot of them would have been Mr. Grace Kelly. Grace didn't want that. With her marriage, it's official. The star is quitting acting and leaving America. The first private photos taken by Rainier. During the four months prior to her wedding, she shoots one last film, then leaves to join him in Monaco. Dozens of journalists surround her. Her friends, her mother, her older sister Peggy, her father who lets off steam in the gym, and Judith. It was eight days of absolutely, I mean, it was heaven. It was so much fun. She found the job of a lifetime, being a princess. Nobody could fire her from that job. It's a job for eternity. Daddy cannot do anything about it because I am a fully employed, a successful woman. An eight-day crossing. It became very real that we were going to get there and most of us were going to come back, but she wasn't. She was looking forward to it, but she was a little scared. It was just that it began to dawn on her how much of a change it was going to be. Joy and sorrow at the same time. Again, more paradox. Off the coast of Monaco, Rainier goes to meet her aboard his private yacht. You couldn't have made it up for a movie any better than it actually was. I was very swept up in the glamour of it all. I mean, it was just like, oh my God, this is such a wonderful fairy tale, all of it. According to the press, it's the marriage of the century. I remember my parents put a photo of the princess, a very beautiful photograph of Grace Kelly. She was in a black dress, in the shop window. We obviously bought the TV for the wedding. What the actress doesn't know is that certain inhabitants, especially among the older generation, are hostile to her. A foreigner who made films. For them, she was the devil incarnate. Everyone was wondering, is she going to integrate into the Monegasque community? She comes from a long way away. She's a foreigner. Will she understand Monegasque people? This is from a time when we were much less open to foreigners than we are today. Back to the palace, for good this time. Seven centuries of monarchs contemplate her. She has lost 11 pounds. She knows she's being observed by her new family. We got to know her then. She had poise. She had presence. You couldn't be anything but dazzled by her. And we were under her spell straight away. She was our new aunt. She had some guts there. She was an actress. And that's got to help her. I think it started out as her best role. Inside the palace, Grace is presented by the Grimaldis to the Monegasque population. Some take out their cameras. I saw Princess Grace as I see you there. Adorable. We would have kissed her. You couldn't tell she'd been an actress. Even though she doesn't let it show, Grace is apprehensive about the big day. A week after her arrival, here she is approaching the cathedral on her father's arm in front of 1,800 journalists. I remember the church being very, very crowded and lots of cameramen hiding behind the pillars. One of the most intimate moments of her life. Followed live by 30 million spectators. She was absolutely beautiful in her wedding gown. And you can see that there's kind of a fragility about her. But I think it's the emotion of the moment. A murmured yes, which certain journalists on the lookout for a scandal interpret as a hesitation before marrying. And when her husband fails to put the ring on her finger, they see it as an unconscious, subdued wish. She has quit acting, but the drama hasn't quit her. Both parents said that they would have loved to have had a much smaller affair, much more intimate wedding somewhere in the countryside. I would have loved that too for my wedding, by the way. And I think Charlene feels the same way. A few hours later, after the religious ceremony, the young newlyweds sail away on their Mediterranean honeymoon. What they told us from the early hours of their honeymoon is that once they got on board the De Oriente, they just collapsed on the bed and went to sleep. And then, of course, it was the following days and weeks of the cruise around the Mediterranean were absolutely amazing. Do you see them? This was a picture that my mother took, I think, on my father's 33rd birthday. And then some shots of them on the beach in Ibiza. In Spain, the newlyweds continue to film each other. Although in love, Grace is nevertheless apprehensive about the return, her new life, her future responsibilities, and especially, perhaps, about the heir that she must give the Grimaldis to ensure the future of Monaco. Nine months later, it's a done deal when she gives birth to her daughter Caroline and one year later, her son Albert. In the very beginning, she wasn't going out much, hardly at all. She was doing everything at the palace. She was doing her apprenticeship and learning French as quickly as possible, at least to get by, before being left to deal with the public on her own. That must have been difficult. She had the ambition to educate these kids like they would be living in a simple American family, not like living in a palace type. And I know that she always had to serve and said, please come, let her pick it up and take it in the kitchen. A contented mother, a woman in love, a fairy tale which makes the front pages of magazines. Considered as the most beautiful and elegant woman on the planet, Grace inspires the dreams of tens of millions of men and women. Her obsessive fear, however, is to be thought of as an extra. She travels with her husband on state business and meets Presidents Eisenhower and de Gaulle. But she fears having become merely just a head of state's wife. She was conventional. She would have been the perfect housewife. That was in her nature, but there was also the poet. Then suddenly she forgets all the stuff that she was doing. It's like she's in a different sphere. Named by her husband as President of the Monegasque Red Cross, a role that could have been honorary, Grace decides to throw herself into Monaco life, just as she did 10 years earlier in New York when she decided to break into film. Rainier was very ambitious about what he wanted to do with Monaco and Grace was ambitious and wanted to help him. For him, the politics. For her, promoting the allure of Monaco. She decides to use her popularity. In a couple of years, Grace will put Le Rocher back on the world map. Rainier said, she is my minister of culture, leisure, health and youth. His head of communications, too. Welcome to Monaco. She invented modern print system, really, if you think about it. In a few years' time, Monaco will change considerably. There is also another tunnel under construction so that the railroad can go through the mountain, which will give us 22 acres of badly needed ground. As you can see, in Monaco, there's no place to go but up. My office is just there. You can see the windows from here. The economic boom initiated by the prince owes a lot to his wife. Well, here we are in my working office. And so this used to be my mother's office. And her desk was over here before. And I remember as a kid playing on the carpet here. She worked a lot and she received quite a number of people who were asking for different things. And she really, I think, she was a great listener, very compassionate. Here, she opened her door to hundreds of visitors to resolve their problems. She was such a sunny person. Whenever I was in her presence, there was happiness. I think she would understand people, you know, that came to her, that visited Monaco, whatever, exactly the same way as she would get to understand the role that she was doing. Wherever she was, she was present with people. We felt that she was really there. She was there. It's the same with her son, Albert. It's unbelievable. Albert enters into a room and forgets no one. He even goes to the guy who's cleaning the toilet at the back to say hello. Grace Kelly found her place in Monaco. More so than anyone who had previously taken this role. She embodies the happiness of the principality. But it's fragility too. By exposing herself to the press, she became prey. Since her wedding, the paparazzi haven't let her out of their sight. You know, she was upset. She was telling me, when I'm losing weight, they tell I have a cancer. When I have gained weight, they say I'm pregnant. Is she going too far by promoting Monaco with her husband? Her daughter, Caroline, said, constantly put in the spotlight, we were caught in a spiral. My mother naively thought that if we pose for the photographers, they would leave us alone. Young Stephanie is hunted down by photographers. She has to hide in the trunk of the car to go to dance classes for a year. To escape this hunt whenever they can, the Grimaldi's take refuge in their property, Rocagelle, in the hills above Monaco. They have just bought a Provençal farm, which they're restoring. And several hectares of scrubland facing the sea. They really wanted to find a property that wasn't too far from Monaco, but that offered enough space for the family to be able to spend some wonderful times together. And to give us a sense of normalcy and a sense of freedom also. No photographer will ever gain access to it. At Rocagelle, Grace films with her camera. Regé was playing the drums and Grace was making chicken sandwiches and the sheep were wandering around and the music was playing. There were also horses. I remember the name of a horse, Trixie, which I adored. We would go-kart on the little track which went around where the horses were kept. On Sundays, the prince would make breakfast. French toast on Sunday mornings for all the children who were there. And Princess Grace was always in the background, filming us. Grace was director, stage manager, props, everything. We would film in her bedroom. And she also filmed her husband. And vice versa. Those closest to them recall an ordinary couple. She was in love with him. She didn't say to me, oh, I adore my husband. Oh, I love my husband. She wasn't that effusive. But she did love him. I saw them together. A loving couple together, hearing about each other. They didn't even have a king-size bed. They had a little double bed. The films continue in the summer with her children and sometimes with her husband at her parents' villa on the east coast of America. Grace was almost childlike when she was here in that she could let her guard down and enjoy all of the moments that she shared with her sisters and her brother. She would put on roller skates and roller skate with us. She was funny. She would crack jokes. She would drink beer. She would cook. And we got to see Gracie that we knew and loved. Late at night, we would go down to the beach occasionally and take off our clothes and go run into the ocean and swim naked. Laugh and giggle, of course. Great exhilaration at such freedom. She did everything extremely well. But she could also be what we say naughty but nice. We could do things together that were not princess-like. Coming to America was always a moment of great adventure, freedom, a joyful time. Away from her role, she is able to let go. She no longer has to watch what she's saying. On her return to Monaco, she assumes the role that she has chosen for herself since her wedding. Only a few of those close to her guess the weariness that sometimes overwhelms her over the years. You know, Grace was very happy being there for a lot of years. She loved her life there. But, you know, then the children grow up. Then your life begins again, you know. I could feel her kind of wistfulness at something being lost. In reality, her life wasn't a fairy tale. And she didn't want it to be seen like that. In her marriage, as in my marriage, in every marriage, I'm sure there were moments of fury, of anger, every emotion possible. Especially as everyone in Monaco knows, she sometimes misses the atmosphere on set. She regularly returns to Hollywood to see her old friends, Cary Grant and Alfred Hitchcock. In 1962, Hitchcock wanted her to star in his film Marnie, but she had to turn it down due to opposition from the Monegasques. She realized, I think, very quickly that this was not really compatible with her role here and her responsibilities here. I think Hollywood never left her. I think it was in her blood. I think it was her life. She gave of herself without counting the cost. With her husband, she had put Le Rocher back on the map. But what now? I can't remember her ever saying to Rainier, do we have to do that? It was a little bit of a role that she was acting. You learn to turn on that smile when you need to. I really did see her turn it on and off. You know, you're an actress because you want to jump in different kind of character suits. One day I would like to be a murderer or a crook, another a hero, and there she was always in the same. As always, she will bounce back. And it happens in Paris, where she moves to accompany her daughter Caroline, who's studying there. She meets young avant-garde actors who convince her to act in documentaries and recite Shakespeare in public in Europe and the United States. Among them, Robert Dornhelm, a young Austrian director, a leftist and provocateur. This is a nice portrait that I did of her. She loved eating in a little simple bistro, shopping for onions. When we first met, I said, oh, how shall I call you? And said, well, what about call me Grace? In the anonymity of New York, without abandoning her monogasque duties, the princess finds a new lease on life. At that point in her life, she wanted to do more here in the United States. She had a lot of projects that were already in the making. She loved to kind of walk in the street of Manhattan without no one recognizing who she was. When she saw her dancer and actor friends, she became liberated. That's to say, she came here to an apartment very different to the Monaco Palace. She came here to dance, to lie down, to drink vodka and to relax. She was happy back to her old self. And after that, she would return to Monaco where she would play another character. The paradoxes of a woman with multiple roles, happy in her contradictions, radiant in her parallel lives, and above all, an artist. This is her last film. In the summer of 1982, she leaves for a family cruise in the north of Europe, still with her camera. She is 52 years old. Was it a mistake for Grace to go to Monaco? No, I don't think it's a mistake. I don't think it's a mistake. I think, you know, a mistake is something you do for the wrong reasons, I think, or by accident. I don't think it was an accident, and I don't think it was for the wrong reasons. I think she went there for the right reasons. In other news overseas, as we said at the beginning of the broadcast, Princess Grace of Monaco, Grace Kelly, has died. She died in a Monaco hospital tonight with her husband, Prince Regnier, and her three children beside her. It was so sudden that it was a knife. It was a knife to the chest. It's not possible. Not possible. It was horrific. Horrific. The tragedy took place on September 13, 1982. To return to Monaco after Rocagelle, Grace takes her car and her daughter, Stephanie, accompanies her. At a hairpin bend, she has a stroke and loses control of the car. Stephanie, sitting in the passenger seat, tries to intervene. Princess Grace is buried in the cathedral where she got married 26 years earlier. Her daughter, Stephanie, who is seriously injured, must remain in the hospital. When Princess Grace died, a part of me went with her. I actually fainted. It's like the first time in my life I fainted. You're going to make me cry. It was just the end of a great woman's life and my aunt and a friend. And I was not going to see her again. Who was Grace Kelly? She alone could answer that. Which is exactly what she did, chatting on an American TV show one month before her death. I know that it's much too early in your life to ask you this question, but at some point somebody's going to ask it to you. How are you going to want to be remembered? Well, I would like to be remembered as trying to do my job well, being understanding and kind. No, I'd like to be remembered as a decent human being and a caring one. And isn't that what, above all, Grace Kelly was?