Remembering My Friend Grace

(c) Jeffrey Robinson 2022

It’s difficult for me to believe that Princess Grace – nee Grace Kelly - is gone 40 years ago, today. It’s just as difficult to believe that the woman I knew all those years ago would be 92.

I knew her because I was living down the beach from Monaco and was pals with her daughter, Caroline. And I can say, without any hesitation, that Grace was just about the most genuine and nicest person anyone could ever hope to know. (For what it's worth, so is Caroline.)

While I usually use this Linked In forum to pontificate on money laundering and financial crime, and rant about the scam that is bitcoin, please bear with me for remembering my friend Grace. Write it off, if you must, to an old man’s harmless meandering through the cobwebs of his favorite memories.

One of those favorite memories of her is of the last time I saw her.

It was the year before she died. Caroline had phoned a few days before to say, “I’m having a small Christmas party to hang my tree, so come early and cook brunch for my mum and me.”

Of course, I did.

Afterwards, as a few guests arrived to spend the afternoon, Grace and I found ourselves sitting on the floor in the far corner of Caroline’s big livingroom, just the two of us. And she began telling me Hollywood stories.

At one point, I asked, “Do you still get fan mail?”

“Yes,” she said, “and I’ll have you know that every letter gets an answer.”

“Are the letters ever still addressed to Grace Kelly or is everything Princess Grace?”

“Of course, most of my mail is addressed to Princess Grace," she answered, "but yes I still get letters from people who say they’ve just seen one of my movies on television. Or they say that their mother and father were fans and ask if they could have my autograph for them. Or they ask for photos or recipes. So we send them a photo of the family or some of my favorite recipes, you know, local dishes that are cooked in Monaco. Or they ask for advice.”

"Oh. Really." I wanted to know, “What kind of advice?”

“All sorts of advice. I get questions on just about everything, from raising children to how to get into the movies. Although I stopped giving advice about how to get into the movies in about 1949 or 1950.”

That seemed very precise and naturally raised my curiosity. "Why?”

She said that the director and acting coach Elia Kazan had called her one afternoon to ask if she’d help a young actor rehearse for an audition. She said, sure.  

“I remember that the guy came up to our apartment on a Sunday afternoon. He explained that he lived somewhere outside New York, in the suburbs, and couldn’t rehearse with me during the week because he was married and had a young family and had to work for his father. But he said he really wanted to be an actor.”

Because the young women she lived with in Manhattan were home that afternoon and had dates over and the record player was going, she said the only place they could rehearse was the kitchen.

"It was one of those really tiny New York City kitchens so we were very cramped. He read okay. But he wasn’t great. And when he asked me what I thought, I tried to find a kind way of letting him know that he wasn’t going to make it. I explained how difficult it was to get work and reminded him that most actors in New York were hungry most of the time. I advised him to keep his job so that he could support his wife and child and maybe act as a hobby in amateur productions. I tried to convince him as nicely as possible to forget acting as a career.”

She stopped right there and stared at me.

“Okay,” I asked the question she was waiting for me to ask. “Who was it?”

She answered, “Paul Newman.”

*****

Grace of Monaco: The True Story, Kindle Edition is available here:

https://amzn.to/3Bchtgp