NEED TO KNOW
- Seventy years ago, Grace Kelly became one of the most famous women in the world when she married Prince Rainier III of Monaco
- The ‘Wedding of the Century’ was watched by 30 million viewers and transformed Monaco from a sleepy seaside town into a luxury tourist hotspot
- However, behind the glamorous fairytale nuptials was a day that was less than perfect – marred by secrets, pressures and hardship
When actual royalty married Hollywood royalty 70 years ago, it was called “the wedding of the century”.
Grace Kelly tied the knot with Prince Rainier III of Monaco on April 19, 1956, after a whirlwind romance, which saw them get engaged in a matter of days.
The unlikely pair said their vows in front of 600 guests and a television audience of 30 million. But behind-the-scenes tensions threatened to derail the fairytale, and after the nuptials, the exhausted newlyweds called it “the biggest circus in history”.
Before Grace, then 26, could exchange vows with Rainier, 32, her wealthy father John B. Kelly Sr. had to pay a dowry of almost $3 million – the equivalent of close to $30 million in today’s money – to secure the union, amid fears that American actress Grace was not “aristocratic enough” for the prince.
Grace was also required to give up her flourishing Hollywood career, in which she’d starred in classics including High Society and Rear Window, in favour of royal duty.
Grace was a well-respected actress when she married Prince Rainier, and already had an Oscar to her name, but stepped back from her career to take on the title of Her Serene Highness Princess Grace of Monaco.
After the wedding, the royal couple were also well aware that they would be expected to quickly produce a male heir.
Despite the wedding day drama, Grace and Rainier’s union, which eventually produced three children, was largely a happy one, until her untimely death, aged 52 in 1982, in a car accident.
“I married the man and not what he represented,” Grace once said of her royal husband. “I fell in love without giving a thought to anything else.”
Grace and Rainier raised their three children, Princess Caroline, Princess Albert II and Princess Stephanie, in the Monaco royal household, and all three remain active in the monarchy.
Albert is the current ruling monarch of Monaco, having ascended to the throne in 2005 following the death of his father.
Rainier, who refused to remarry after Grace’s death, died on April 6, 2005, at the age of 81
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