The Philadelphia Princess

"I don't generally approve of these oddballs she goes out with," John Bernard ("Kell") Kelly Jr., the national sculling champion, said last year (TIME, Jan. 31, 1955). He was referring to the foreign-born escorts his beautiful sister, Cinemactress Grace Kelly, seemed to prefer. "I wish," he added wistfully, "that she would go out with the more athletic type."

In those days sister Grace was showing a distinct preference for such indoor sports as Dress Designer Oleg Cassini and Actor Jean-Pierre Aumont. Last fortnight another young foreigner came to call on Grace at the Kelly mansion in Philadelphia. "I was under the impression he was going to stay just a couple of hours," said Grace's father, Millionaire John B. ("Jack") Kelly. "But he stayed and stayed and stayed." In the end the visitor formally asked Jack for his daughter's hand in marriage. Thus, three weeks after his arrival in the U.S., Prince Rainier III of Monaco found his dream girl.

Sculling & Skin-Diving. "I told the Prince that royalty didn't mean a thing to us," Jack Kelly recalled. "I told him that I certainly hoped he wouldn't run around the way some princes do, and I told him that if he did, he'd lose a mighty fine girl." The Prince solemnly promised that he would be an exemplary husband. After the family learned the happy news, even brother Kell had to admit that his prospective brother-in-law was no oddball. "I don't think we can make a sculler out of him," he said. "He's not tall enough. But I hear he's a terrific skin-diver."

Announcement of the royal engagement was first made public in the princely palace of Monaco. Shortly afterward, Jack Kelly confirmed the news to a small group of friends at a luncheon at the Philadelphia Country Club, and afterward to a thundering herd of reporters and photographers at the graceful mansion that Jack built himself. "Grace met him when she was on the French Riviera," confided the father of the bride. "She went there to make a picture called To Catch a Thief--and look what she came back with." Under the breathless guidance of an M-G-M pressagent, Grace and Rainier posed placidly for the photographers, answered the questions with aplomb--and an occasional assist from the family. When she was asked about her plans for a family, Grace colored prettily and let her mother answer for her: "I should say they will have lots of children." At first, Rainier accepted the questions and pictures serenely, but then the pressing of the press became too much. "After all," he muttered to his chaplain and good friend, the Very Rev. Francis Tucker, "I don't belong to M-G-M."

In Monaco the engagement announcement was received with some jubilation and considerable relief. Monte Carlo was soon festooned with flags and bunting, and at the Hotel de Paris the headwaiter reported that the champagne supply was rapidly being toasted away. Grace's plan for a big family was especially agreeable to the Monegasques, who felt that their Prince was closer to saving them from the dread fate of French taxes and military conscription that would result if Rainier died without a successor.

Washerwoman & Kaiser. The Monacan succession has been fairly tenuous in recent decades. Prince Albert I (1848-1922), an oceanographer of world renown, was the first prince of Monaco to marry an American pirl, New Orleans-born Alice Heine. Albert's son by an earlier marriage, Prince Louis II, caused a dynastic dither when, while serving as a lieutenant in a spahi regiment of the French army in North Africa, he met and married the pretty daughter of a washerwoman who, in due course, presented him with a daughter. Albert stonily refused to recognize his grandchild, and threatened to disinherit Louis. Kaiser Wilhelm promptly proposed the German Duke of Urach as a suitable heir. In the nick of time the prodigal prince came home, was reconciled with his father. Prince Albert recognized his granddaughter, Princess Charlotte.

In Rainier's own time the path to the throne has been tortuous. Princess Charlotte, Rainier's mother, obtained a divorce from her husband, French Count Pierre de Polignac, in 1933, and renounced her rights to the throne in favor of her son Rainier. Later, Polignac attempted to kidnap his son, who was then a schoolboy in England, but doughty old Prince Louis won custody in a bitter battle in a London court, and Rainier remained the heir apparent. In 1949, three years after marrying an aging actress, Prince Louis died, leaving his 24 titles, his considerable bank account and his principality to Rainier.

Comedian & Playwright. With both an actress and an American among her recent predecessors, Princess-elect Kelly should have no difficulties with her royal in-laws in a country that is not much larger than the M-G-M lot. The Kelly family tree is, in its way, quite as colorful as Rainier's line. Jack Kelly is the son of a County Mayo farmer who emigrated to Philadelphia and begat a large and boisterous family. Two of Jack's brothers became famous in the theater: Walter ("The Virginia Judge") was a celebrated vaudeville comedian and George (Craig's Wife) a Pulitzer Prizewinning playwright.

Jack Kelly has made several names for himself--in business, sports and politics. As a young boy, he went to work carrying hods for his brother, a brick contractor. In his spare time he practiced rowing on the Schuylkill, became proficient enough to try for the Diamond Challenge Sculls at Britain's Henley Royal Regatta in 1920. He was turned down, though; as a former bricklayer, he was not considered a gentleman. Kelly beat the Diamond Sculls winner just the same, at the Olympics two months later, and sent his stained sculling cap to King George V as a booby prize. In 1947 and 1949 son Kell won the Diamond Sculls easily, topped off his father's revenge.

Jack Kelly built up a prosperous brick contracting business and began to dabble in politics. When Philadelphia's Democratic Party was reviving in 1935, Kelly ran for mayor, lost by 47,000 votes. He has never run for office again, but has kept a sturdy hand in politics. He has also kept up a running interest in horse racing (he is president of the Atlantic City Racing Association) and body-building (he inspired President Eisenhower's Lunch of Champions last July).

After the announcements, Grace and Rainier attended a gala ball in Manhattan's Waldorf-Astoria, where they sat uncomfortably in a "royal" box and nibbled crystallized violets while the press howled at the door. Grace wore a Dior gown and low heels so that she would not be taller than the 5 ft. 6 in. Prince. Later, at the Harwyn Club, Grace nibbled at Rainier's ear, and danced with him until 4 a.m. This week she was off to Hollywood to make a movie with Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra, leaving her fiance to wander around the U.S. until time for the spring wedding.

To keep him company, Rainier had his friend, Chaplain Tucker, who was visibly delighted with the match. Rainier, said the priest, was smitten the first time he saw Grace on the screen. She seemed to fit exacting specifications for a bride (TIME, Dec. 26). So, "shortly after she arrived on the Riviera, we arranged a date. I told the prince," said Delaware-born Father Tucker, "that he could marry a commoner, but not a common girl." Grace met Father Tucker's specifications, too. In Chicago Grace paused briefly to give her own estimate of the situation. "Nationality," she said, "has nothing to do with love."

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