Audition (27 page)

But what could make up for the loss of so many of her children? The following is what she told me in November 1968. (That month would have been the birthday celebration of her son Robert, who had been assassinated just five months before. It was also the fifth anniversary of the assassination of her older son, Jack.)

“I just made up my mind that I was not going to be vanquished,” she told me. “If I collapse then it would have a very bad effect on the other members of the family. So I think I owe them a certain calmness and encouragement and that’s what I try to do.”

She continued, “I am interested in a lot of things. I have children and grandchildren. I have this motto which I found in one of Jack’s favorite books. It was actually said with regard to England but I adopted it as my own motto. ‘I know not age or weariness of defeat.’ And I don’t analyze my feelings. I just keep on being interested.”

I went on to ask Mrs. Kennedy whether, when her children were young, there was talk of one of the sons being president. She replied: “Well, I think their father always had that idea. But I wasn’t conscious of it when they were growing up. I was just very much occupied in seeing that they were mentally, physically and…” Here Mrs. Kennedy paused, and I threw in, “Psychologically?” “No,” Mrs. Kennedy said, “morally all right.”

She went on. “You know, they talk about a Kennedy dynasty but I’m quite sure that there will be another family who will come right along and that is what makes life exciting.” Then Mrs. Kennedy laughed. “That and the absurdity of life also makes it exciting for everybody.”

Four children dead and she could laugh and talk of the absurdity of life? A remarkable woman.

I ended the interview by asking if she ever gave her sons advice. She said she had told Jack, during his presidency, that he should not stand with his hands in his pockets and that he would look much better if he held his hands behind his back as the British did in photographs. She also recalled giving Bobby some advice in a letter but ended it by saying that it might be the last time she would write such a letter because “Socrates, who used to give a lot of advice, was finally given hemlock to drink.”

No wonder Rose Kennedy was one of my favorite interviews.

T
HE
K
ENNEDYS
in those days were considered American royalty. But we actually had our own royal princess, though my interview with Her Serene Highness, Princess Grace of Monaco, didn’t give me quite the pleasure that the Rose Kennedy interview did.

The interview with the beautiful ex–movie star, which I recently watched again, took place in Monte Carlo in August 1966. It isn’t one of my happiest memories, nor, I daresay, was it hers.

The 1956 marriage of the cool, patrician Grace Kelly to the eligible bachelor Prince Rainier was called “the wedding of the century.” Monaco, the tiny principality on the French Riviera, is chiefly known as the home of one of the most picturesque and well-known gambling casinos in Europe. It is also known as a tax haven for millionaires who can save money while they moor their yachts, play blackjack, or just sun themselves at the topless Monte Carlo Beach Club. Monaco, and its principal (and I think only) city, Monte Carlo, is smaller than New York’s Central Park. But no matter. Prince Rainier was European royalty. And with her perfect features, blue eyes, and blond hair, Grace was our version of American royalty. Most of her leading men, from William Holden to Ray Milland to Bing Crosby to Clark Gable, all of them huge stars at that time, were said to have been in love with her. But one day, while she was in Cannes filming
To Catch a Thief
with Cary Grant, she was introduced to the bachelor prince and
voilà!
as they say in French-speaking Monaco, an engagement was soon announced.

She was the Princess Diana of her time, and for weeks reporters covered every aspect of the engagement and wedding. The public couldn’t get enough of it. Who were her bridesmaids to be? What was she going to wear? They showed copies of the hats Grace was supposedly going to take on her honeymoon. I think I even bought one.

It was a fairy-tale wedding. Escorted down the aisle by her father, Grace, wearing a gown designed by MGM costume designer Helen Rose, presented a picture as elegant as Hollywood could create. But this wasn’t Hollywood. This was real. Grace Kelly, our golden-haired princess, then disappeared behind the walls of the palace in Monte Carlo, and we only read about her or saw photos of her from then on. She never made another film.

Her Serene Highness had also done no television interviews, and for years I had written letter after letter trying to get her to sit down with me. Finally, ten years after her marriage and three children later, two girls and the proper male heir, the palace authorities must have felt that it was time for their royal sovereign to be interviewed, and a date was arranged for me to come to Monte Carlo. This was to be her first television interview since the wedding.

Princess Grace greeted me in the garden of the palace just fifteen minutes later than our appointed time, which was certainly a leg up on Judy Garland. It is considered appropriate by most Europeans to curtsy to royalty. It is not appropriate for Americans to curtsy. I didn’t. Nor did I shake hands. I just sort of bowed a bit from the waist and smiled. The princess was in a casual dress and flat-heeled shoes, and we walked together to the palace swimming pool, with a tiny rowboat in the middle of it. There we sat and talked. Some excerpts:

B
ARBARA:
Most of us think of a princess as sleeping in bed until noon. Having breakfast in bed. Ladies in waiting. Many servants. Is your life anything like what I have just described?

G
RACE:
People always romanticize my life. To a great deal my life is not much different from any woman who works and has a great many obligations and a great many things to do. And three childen to look after.

B
ARBARA:
Do you think it is a very different life than if you had remained an actress and married someone in the motion picture business?

G
RACE:
Yes, I believe so. Because when I was acting, my private life was very much my own. And now my private life is very public.

B
ARBARA:
And people like me come and sit and ask you all kinds of questions.

G
RACE:
Which are very difficult to answer.

So far, I thought, I was asking rather banal and boring questions, not at all hard to answer.

B
ARBARA:
What was most difficult for you to adjust to as a princess and a monarch when you first came here?

G
RACE:
That’s a big change in anyone’s life…different culture, different language. I spoke a little bit of French but not much. I could ask the questions, but I couldn’t understand the answers.

B
ARBARA:
Is a European husband very different from an American husband? Is Prince Rainier very different from your own brothers?

G
RACE:
A European husband is definitely the head of the household. There are no two ways about it. I know European men are always shocked by the relationship between an American man and wife. For instance, if an American wife contradicts her husband in public, which often happens. American women are outspoken and forthright and honest and say what they think. This shocks European men quite a bit. I mean, you would never find a European woman correcting her husband in front of other people.

B
ARBARA:
In the early days of your marriage, did you find yourself doing it? Did you learn quickly?

G
RACE:
I learned a lot of things. [
Laughs
] I think the thing that has helped me most in my marriage and adjusting to life here is the fact that the prince and I share the same religion. It’s been a great bond between us. And I think that has helped us overcome any of the differences of our backgrounds and culture.

Note that there was no mention of the word “love.”

B
ARBARA:
How many rooms are there in the palace here?

G
RACE:
I don’t know. I suppose there are over two hundred. I think I read that once.

We went on to talk of how the people regarded her. She thought many people in Monaco still considered her to be a foreigner. She continued to think of herself as an American. I asked if there was any role that tempted her to come back to films. She said, possibly Ibsen’s
Hedda Gabler
(who, by the way, kills herself at the end of act 4).

B
ARBARA:
If one of your daughters wanted to be a movie star, would you object?

G
RACE:
I think so, yes.

B
ARBARA:
Why?

G
RACE:
I don’t think it is ever a career or life one chooses for a daughter.

B
ARBARA:
And yet you chose it for yourself. So what if your child says: “Mother, you did. Why not me?”

G
RACE:
I’ll face that problem when or if it comes.

B
ARBARA:
[my final question] Your Highness, I must ask you what most Americans want to know about you. Are you happy?

G
RACE:
I suppose I have a certain peace of mind, yes. And my children give me a great deal of happiness and my life here has given me many satisfactions.

(Ye gods! “A certain peace of mind”? No joy? No pride? And no mention of her husband? “A certain peace of mind”? That is the best definition of happiness for Her Serene Highness Princess Grace of Monaco?)

She must have realized how this sounded, because when I thanked her most courteously, she had tears in her eyes. True, it might have been because she had never done a television interview before and answering questions that were not part of a script might have bordered on torture for her. Still, after meeting her, I always felt that she was living an unexpected life of disappointment.

It would end in 1982 in an automobile accident with her seventeen-year-old daughter, Stephanie. The car, which Grace was driving, plunged off the steep, hairpin-turn road above Monaco, fatally injuring Grace but sparing her daughter, who was only bruised and would be treated for shock. Grace was only fifty-two, and there was conjecture that she might have suffered a stroke before the accident. (Strange, the other two most beautiful and interesting women of that generation, at least to me, Audrey Hepburn and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, also died way before their time.)

I have my own rather weepy little postscript to this story. I had always heard of the enchanting and beautiful hotel La Réserve de Beaulieu, which is on the Côte d’Azur halfway between Monaco and Nice. I had friends who had gone there and had a wonderful time. So I decided to treat myself to a few days of luxury there when my interview with Grace Kelly was over. I would get some sun and relax and maybe meet a new friend or two.

I arrived in time for cocktails and was given a small table in the lovely garden. I ordered a glass of wine and sipped it alone. There were Americans at adjoining tables. No one looked in my direction. I was just a single woman sitting alone, and they obviously didn’t recognize me, if indeed they had ever even seen me on TV. I finished my glass of wine, and when cocktail time was over I sat on the restaurant’s terrace and had my dinner alone. The next morning I went down to the area of the small swimming pool. All around me were smiling couples, chatting away. I sunned alone, had a large lunch alone, more cocktails alone, and yet another dinner alone. The next morning I canceled the rest of the weekend and took the first plane home to New York.

I don’t know who was more lonely, Princess Grace or I.

Born in My Heart

M
Y HOMECOMING WAS A
happy one, made all the more so because Lee and I were about to begin the most joyous chapter of our life together. After three miscarriages, too many hormones, and way too many thermometers, Lee and I came to a conclusion that was both exciting and scary.

We would adopt a child.

Back in the sixties it wasn’t as difficult to adopt a baby as it is today.
Roe v. Wade
, the landmark decision by the Supreme Court upholding a woman’s right to abortion, would not become federal law until 1973. We thought we were pretty advanced in our thinking, but single mothers were neither cherished nor applauded. Babies born out of wedlock were called “illegitimate.” Pregnant unmarried women were said to be “in trouble” and had a hard time making a go of it. They were often sent away on a seven-or eight-month “vacation” by their anxious parents so they could have their baby away from neighbors’ judgmental eyes, and then many times the baby would be put up for adoption. As a result of society’s stigma, there were more unwanted babies available than there are today.

Lee and I went to an adoption agency. At the interview, I expressed my concern that I might not be considered the best candidate because I worked full-time, but the counselor told me that wouldn’t be a problem. She also told us that there was a long waiting list. We put our name on the list and said we would wait.

And then this miracle occurred. Lee and I were going to the theater one night with a couple who weren’t exactly close friends, more like acquaintances. I used to double-date with the woman occasionally before she and I each married. When we ran into each other one day, we said, “We must get together.” This was the night we got together.

The woman, let us call her Jane, was now married to an extremely wealthy man, whom we shall call John. His family owned a very large lumber company. After the theater, over supper at Sardi’s, a popular theater-district restaurant that catered to a show business clientele, Jane told us that she and John had, two years earlier, privately adopted a baby girl. They now wanted to adopt a boy. And not just any boy. A tall, blond, fair-skinned boy to mirror their blond, blue-eyed, fair-skinned daughter. Since they were short and dark-haired, they obviously weren’t thrilled with their own looks.