Original subtitles

Grace Kelly, Oscar winner and one of the world's best loved movie stars,

her films watched by millions.

Let's start from the beginning again, Jeff.

Tell me everything you saw.

Her Hollywood movies have stood the test of time,

but her screen career lasted just five years.

I think of amazing performances like High Noon,

the Hitchcock films...

Grace had this brief and remarkable career.

Grace Kelly projected onto the screen

this kind of untouchable image and, at the same time, she's available.

Tabloid rumours pursued Grace Kelly throughout her life.

She had to issue a public statement to Hollywood saying,

"I never meant to have an affair with a married man."

At the height of her fame, she surprised everybody,

swapping her Hollywood royalty for real royalty.

ARCHIVE: Now by civil authority and by the church, Prince Rainier

and his film star bride have been pronounced man and wife.

When the wedding did come, it really was an unparalleled event

in terms of glamour and significance.

Her star quality transformed the fortunes of Monaco,

the tiny principality on the French Riviera.

ARCHIVE: A future queen greets her new subjects

and is greeted by them in turn.

But was Princess Grace the one role she didn't enjoy playing?

She did not really understand exactly how much of a bubble

you live in, like Diana did not,

like Meghan Markle did not.

Princess Grace gave Diana a piece of advice - "Don't worry, dear.

"It will only get worse."

And, of course, it did.

What's the truth behind the rumours?

As well as an heir,

did Prince Rainier demand a dowry payment from Grace?

Grace had to show up with not only her glamour and her cachet

but with her cheque-book.

Those close to the story reveal the truth about her life.

A lot of fairy tales do have a dark side to them

and perhaps her life did too.

And the story behind her fatal car crash.

The car was simply going too fast ever to have a chance

of getting round that bend.

And so, Grace Kelly has died.

This, of course, was the end of the romance and it was terribly tragic.

In 1956, the tiny principality of Monaco was to have a new princess

and the world's media went wild.

When news broke that Grace Kelly was to marry

this European prince,

to become a bona fide princess,

I think Hollywood was enchanted.

It was one of the first truly global media events.

ARCHIVE: The bride drives with her father through the streets

on her way to the Cathedral of Saint Nicholas.

An estimated 30 million people tuned in to watch the marriage

of American beauty Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier of Monaco.

Some of this wedding footage is newly unearthed.

It's thought it's not been seen for years.

It turns out to be one of the world spectaculars

of the mid-20th century.

600 people in the Monaco Cathedral,

a lot of Hollywood greats there -

Ava Gardner,

Cary Grant,

David Niven,

Aristotle Onassis is there.

Hollywood just loved it.

It was notable that MGM

made Grace Kelly a present of the wedding dress.

It was designed by a Hollywood designer, Helen Rose,

with a huge amount of work and a huge amount of fabric.

ARCHIVE: Now, by civil authority and by the church, Prince Rainier

and his film star bride have been pronounced man and wife.

Grace was just 26 when she stepped down from Hollywood

to marry her very own Prince Charming.

Rainier had taken the throne seven years previously,

but the Grimaldi royal family had ruled for 700 years.

It's easy to think of the marriage to Rainier as this attractive

fairy tale package, but actually, it was a monumental decision.

She left the country of her birth where her family lived

in order to marry this man

and it's an incredibly strong and brave decision to make.

ARCHIVE: An international playground,

this coastline along the blue Mediterranean

has become the Mecca for those who have been captivated by its charms.

Monaco - a glamorous destination for the world's elite.

Smaller than New York's Central Park,

it's one of the most densely populated sovereign states

in the world.

Monaco had no income tax.

Its principle revenue came from Monte Carlo's

famed gambling casino.

The income more than covered the tiny country's needs.

It nestles between the Mediterranean and France.

Monaco is a country in its own right.

It's defended by the French government militarily,

but for that to continue,

there had to be an heir from the reigning prince.

There was this clause that if he didn't have an heir,

then Monaco would go to the French Republic.

The actress was now Her Serene Highness Princess of Monaco,

but before her marriage, she'd been the queen of pictures

and ahead of her time.

We've seen with Meghan Markle how difficult it is for somebody

from Hollywood to adapt to a country in Europe,

but if you can imagine going back all those years to somebody

who was one of the biggest names in Hollywood,

moving to a tiny principality where she was a member of a royal family

that literally lived in a bubble, it must have been quite extraordinary.

ARCHIVE: In town and present for the premiere is Grace Kelly.

The beautiful leading lady joins Paramount Pictures president

Barney Balaban and Mrs Balaban.

Hollywood in the 1950s was in its heyday.

Run by the big studios, it sold a glamorous dream

as it churned out pictures for the silver screen

full of beauty and style.

Grace's was not the usual showbiz rags to riches story.

She was from a wealthy family from Philadelphia.

She'd modelled before being spotted on Broadway

and landing her big break in the iconic genre-defining Western

High Noon.

Now, well the bride and groom kindly step forward?

Grace Kelly was cast as the wife of Gary Cooper in High Noon

and you look on the screen and you can see she's at least 20,

25 years younger than he is.

Please, Will, if you'd just tell me what this is all about.

What Grace Kelly embodies with that Puritan look,

the bonnet on her head,

the kind of Quaker cleanness is the moral compass of the town itself.

Rumours of on-set romances with her sometimes married leading men

became commonplace in the tabloids.

Hollywood tended to cast her opposite actors twice her age.

Grace Kelly was the opposite of the image that she projected

and a lot of Hollywood wives were not happy with that,

but she did what she wanted to do.

In the '50s, women had to be pure and untarnished.

Grace was a bit of a rebel, but took her craft seriously.

Director Alfred Hitchcock would cement her

in the public's consciousness forever as the cool, icy blonde.

He liked the fact that Grace Kelly projected onto the screen

this kind of untouchable image and, at the same time, she's available.

Alfred Hitchcock would say, with a brunette and a redhead,

you kind of expected explosions, you expected something to happen,

but not with an icy blonde.

They embody suspense, which is what Hitchcock was all about,

so Grace Kelly was his ideal.

Hello?

Hitchcock tested this theory in their first film together,

the tightly wound thriller Dial M For Murder.

Hello?

Grace gives an electrifying performance as an unfaithful wife

who is stalked by a crook hired by her cuckolded husband.

Hitchcock loved necks

and a rope around the neck was the ultimate thing,

the strangulation, so in this scene,

the guy throws her backwards

in her negligee over the desk,

strangling her,

on top of her, basically he's raping her, you know, without doing it.

And she then gets to kill him.

HE YELLS

That's Hitchcock in a nutshell

and Grace knew exactly what he was doing.

SHE SOBS

This is Hitchcock's most blatant statement about her as his muse.

Despite her icy image and strict Catholic upbringing,

the actress could happily banter away with the director.

He used to try and shock her by telling bawdy jokes

and he loved how she responded.

Famously, he said, "Do I shock you, Miss Kelly?"

She said, "Oh, no, I went to a girls' convent school, Mr Hitchcock.

"I heard all those things by the time I was 13."

Grace was always seen as this perfect 1950s lady,

but deep down, she was a very independent

and driven person and, you know,

she wasn't afraid of having a sex life,

she wasn't afraid of having affairs,

she wasn't afraid of following her heart.

Grace followed her heart during filming on Dial M For Murder

and had an affair with her on-screen husband, Ray Milland,

that put her fledgling career in jeopardy.

She really messed up when she had an affair with him.

She had to issue a public statement to Hollywood saying,

"I never meant to have an affair with a married man."

Growing up, Grace was said to have had

a difficult relationship with her family.

She had defied her father to become an actress.

He didn't see her as having any of the star quality

that everybody else could see.

Grace Kelly always had to prove something to her father.

She was the third child of four,

so it wasn't that Grace wasn't loved,

but she maybe wasn't noticed.

Intelligent and from a wealthy family,

her background certainly drove her on to succeed.

If her hard work with Hitchcock had boosted her career,

her next film, the modest romance The Country Girl,

would be the making of it.

Oh, no, not me, thank you.

I'm just a girl from the country.

The theatre and the people in it

have always been a complete mystery to me.

In minimal make-up and unfashionable clothes,

Grace was cast against her icy blonde type

as the wife of an alcoholic singer played by Bing Crosby.

When did you get these, Frank?

Last night, after you fell asleep.

No more, Frank.

It was rumoured they carried the relationship off screen, too.

When we get to Boston, I'll get you some sleeping pills.

Even in The Country Girl, playing in those incredibly dowdy clothes,

Grace made it look good and classy.

Whether you like it or not, Frank's weak.

He's a leaner.

And I happen to be the one he leans on.

Hollywood loves to reward

actors and actresses who gain weight or lose weight for pictures

or who look very dowdy and very much against their elegant image.

Grace's steely determination to land the role paid off.

She was just 25 and one of the youngest ever Oscar winners

when she lifted the coveted trophy.

The Oscar was presented by rumoured former flame William Holden.

I can only say thank you with all my heart

to all who made this possible for me. Thank you.

After just four years in film, she was the toast of Hollywood.

The success of The Country Girl was a pivotal moment

that not only changed her professional life,

but personal life, too.

It was through the film she met Prince Rainier of Monaco.

It's a strange series of coincidences

that brings Grace and Rainier together.

She was asked to go to the Cannes Film Festival

to promote The Country Girl

and then Paris Match wanted to do a photo shoot

so they were thinking, "How can we have an interesting photo shoot?

"How about Hollywood royalty with actual royalty?"

The magazine arranged for a PR shoot with Rainier

at his palace in the principality.

He'd ascended the throne in 1949.

a dashing war hero, he'd seen action

and was awarded the French Croix de Guerre with bronze star.

Six years Grace's senior,

their meeting didn't get off to the best of starts.

The electricity was out in her hotel,

so she had to wear a frumpy dress and style her hair herself.

She had to pull it back in a bun.

She also didn't have a hat -

she didn't know she was supposed to wear a hat,

so she borrowed a friend's really hideous floral headdress.

He was about an hour late, which she was quite frustrated by,

but when he did turn up, he was extremely charming to her.

He showed her around the Disney World-like palace

that is Monte Carlo and they did hit it off.

He was educated at a number of British boarding schools,

so he did have that kind of cosmopolitan and, of course,

English-speaking background that, again, may have helped.

She sent a thank you note to Rainier and they began corresponding.

She would make 11 films in five years and found Hollywood ruthless.

After numerous unhappy romances and an Oscar win...

.. Was she looking for an out and a new life?

You know, there he was, handsome, eligible bachelor

living in a palace in the south of France, in Monaco, I don't think...

I think she was in love with the idea of being in love.

I think she fell in love through his letters

or she fell in like through his letters.

I don't know if she ever really loved him.

I think she chose her destiny.

A year earlier, Grace's destiny had taken her to the south of France

for Hitchcock's To Catch A Thief.

During filming, she'd fallen in love with the area

which would later shape her future.

To Catch A Thief is an incredibly glamorous Riviera caper.

I mean, is really qualifies as one of the most beautiful films

ever made, I think.

We have Grace Kelly playing the beautiful American heiress,

Frances Stevens, who spies Cary Grant on the beach

and decide that this is the man for her.

The film is not regarded as one of Hitchcock's best,

but it's well remembered for the sparkling interplay

between Grant and Kelly.

Her part in the film appeared to mirror her own life.

You're here in Europe to buy a husband, aren't you?

The man I want doesn't have a price.

Well, that eliminates me.

Grace would, indeed, catch a husband on the French Riviera

when she later married Rainier.

It's strange to encapture her life in that we see

in the car with Cary Grant with the whole of the Mediterranean

and below Monaco spilt out in front of us.

Oh! Lovely day.

Have you ever seen any place in the world more beautiful?

Well, she doesn't know at this time that she's pointing to

the beautiful, pink Palace of Monaco where she would become the princess.

At 26, Grace had it all.

She was a style icon, rich, beautiful, an Oscar winner

and had dated some of the most handsome leading men in film.

The whole of Hollywood was stunned when she left, really.

She arrived like a meteorite.

She was a shining star - six years, she was gone.

She turned her back on Hollywood when she landed

the biggest role of her life as Princess Grace of Monaco.

But was it a part she would later regret playing?

When you see her as a bride in the famous outfit,

I think she does look like a bit of a caged bird,

trapped behind the veil.

ARCHIVE: The principality of Monaco.

An independent state with its own rulers and its own laws.

Monica was already well-known for attracting the jet-set.

An international playground,

this coastline along the blue Mediterranean has become the Mecca

for those who have been captivated by its charms.

It's new ruler, Prince Rainier, was the only son.

He'd become the direct heir on his 21st birthday.

He now wanted to make his principality the ultimate paradise,

not just for millionaires, but wealthy tourists, too.

Cameras are not allowed to show the faces of gamblers in the casino.

Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis

was one of the principality's big players.

After a third purchase, Mr Onassis now controls Monte Carlo.

Is that true?

His headquarters for his ships and all that are here in Monte Carlo,

but he never runs Monaco or anything like it.

Is he friendly with Prince Rainier?

Why, yes.

It's rumoured the prince's friend hatched a plan

to enhance Rainier's and the principality's fortunes.

Ari Onassis was a showman.

He said, "What you really need to do is marry a movie star

"and that will bring back all the glamour to Monaco."

So Onassis himself created a shortlist of actresses

for Rainier to marry.

Was Grace Kelly just one of a number of candidates in the mix?

Screen goddess Marilyn Monroe, one of Grace's contemporaries,

was supposedly on the shortlist but turned him down.

Marilyn Monroe kept referring to Prince Rainier as Prince Reindeer.

Whether she did it because she was playing dumb

or whether she really did not want to

give up her movie career, who knows? But she kept saying,

"Well, I don't know if I want to marry Prince Reindeer."

Rainier had been in a long affair which had broken up.

He found it very, very difficult

to sort of meet a woman on equal terms

without being harassed and speculated about.

It was rumoured Prince Rainier wanted a glamorous and rich wife

for another reason, too.

There is a law in Monaco that if the Prince dies without a male heir,

Monaco becomes part of France.

At their first meeting in Monaco in the spring, Rainier had been charmed

by the beautiful, witty and successful Grace Kelly.

Around eight months after their photo shoot,

he set sail for America to meet her family.

Within three days, he had proposed to Grace and, in that time,

according to her sister, they fell very much in love.

ARCHIVE: And then a press conference was told that the Prince of Monaco

had chosen his princess and his bride-to-be never looked lovelier.

But behind the cameras, there was said to be a tough business deal

Rainier wanted thrashed out.

In line with royal custom, he allegedly wanted a large dowry,

but to the American Kelly family, this seemed bizarre.

Grace Kelly was expected to bring to the marriage

not only her high-profile glamour,

but also quite a large cash dowry,

$2 million.

When this was first put to Jack Kelly, her father, he said,

"My daughter Grace doesn't have to pay anyone to marry her."

And when Rainier came to visit him,

he was like, "Hey, I'm the king of Philadelphia.

"You're in my kingdom now, Mister."

Grace was determined, despite her father's reservations.

There was this sense, in a way, that this was the ultimate role.

The information about the money remains unclear.

Full financial details of any dowry have never been disclosed.

But it's rumoured the wealthy actress

may have stumped up some of the cash herself.

Grace had to show up with not only her glamour

and her cachet as an Oscar-winning actress,

not only with her catholic womb, but with her cheque-book.

ARCHIVE: The people of Monaco received the news

of Prince Rainier's engagement with joyful enthusiasm.

After her wedding, this delightful actress

will be known as Her Serene Highness Princess of Monaco.

With the marriage brokered,

Grace was still under contract with the studio,

and had one more film to do - a musical.

She was going out on a top note.

Grace's final film was High Society,

by which time she was engaged to Prince Rainier,

and everyone really knew

that this was the last film before her wedding.

In the best tradition of Hollywood musicals,

High Society combines witty and energetic songs

with a feel-good storyline.

In an echo of Grace Kelly's true life romance with Prince Rainier,

the film revolves around Bing Crosby's attempts to win her heart.

I would like to talk to you...

Rainier visited the set as their own wedding was only weeks away.

You've lost a little weight, haven't you, Sam?

She's very thin in High Society.

It was a very stressful whirlwind time for her.

I just wanted to know what you are doing here

the day before my wedding.

It's quite extraordinary to think of Rainier being around the set.

He was this world-famous prince, and they were going to get married.

It was all romance, and they were able to spend a bit of time together

as a result, getting to know each other.

Get in.

Did Rainier also want to keep an eye on Grace?

Her other co-star, Frank Sinatra, was a renowned womaniser,

while Crosby was apparently an old flame,

constantly wooing her in the movie with romantic ballads.

# While I give to you and you give to me

# True love... #

Grace is on the yacht with Bing Crosby

and they're singing True Love,

and I guess people were thinking

that, really, is mirroring what is going on with her -

and, of course, it would have been wonderful fodder

for the gossip columns.

Miss Lord, would you please lift your chin?

In a publicity coup for the studio,

the actress wears Rainier's ring in the film.

Hey, that's some rock you got there, Sam.

Did you mine that yourself, George?

It was a stunning emerald cut diamond

that rapidly became one of the most famous engagement rings in the world.

She was wearing this great gift from the man in her life

while she was leaving her old world behind.

Sort of couldn't write it in a fairy tale,

because nobody would believe it - but it did happen.

# But you're sensational... #

There's also the idea that she's kind of sending herself up

a little bit in High Society.

# "The Fair Miss Frigid Air"... #

There's the number You're Sensational,

when Frank Sinatra serenades her. It's a very sexy number, actually,

and, in that, he is suggesting to her that although she is deemed

to be a bronze goddess, this icy Fair Miss Frigid Air,

he can see beneath that, and beyond that,

that actually she is sensational and that she is warm and sexy and fun.

# Cos you're sensational... #

As Grace left Hollywood,

she might have hoped she would be back on a film set one day...

..but this was before women's lib,

and now her career was out of her hands and in her fiance's.

You said that whether or not you continued your career

after your marriage would depend in part on Prince Rainier.

Yes, that is the... On the Prince approving.

Has it already been discussed, may I ask?

Oh, yes.

I think, probably, Rainier was controlling.

He was older than Grace.

He had come from that social background

where girls were girls, decorative,

and men ran everything.

The marriage would be the end of her incredible, award-winning career.

Within weeks, Grace was leaving her old life behind.

It was an amazingly short period between the end of High Society

and the time when she had to leave for Monaco.

Roughly a month.

Grace and her family sailed to Monaco on an eight-day voyage.

The move to Monaco is a very, very dramatic change in her life,

and a slightly terrifying step.

So, she surrounds herself with lots and lots of activity.

It's a very exciting thing, and I'm very, very happy.

Of course, I'm a little sad to be leaving home,

but I hope to be back quite often.

Here was the Princess coming into this amazing port in Monte Carlo,

and it seemed everybody who lived in Monaco was out in the streets.

It was... It was the stuff of fairy tale.

It made headlines around the world.

The shot was picture perfect - but was the fairy tale real?

Would Grace miss the old life she left behind,

and which she soon come to tire of her new role?

A lot of fairy tales do have a dark side to them,

and perhaps her life did, too.

In little more than five years,

Grace Kelly had grown from obscurity on the New York stage

to being a world-famous Oscar-winning movie star -

and now her life story was about to take a more romantic twist,

as she became a real-life princess.

ARCHIVE: The joyous day of the religious wedding.

It's 10:30, and the morning sun shines brightly.

Grace married Prince Rainier in Monaco

over the course of two days in April 1956,

in both civil and religious ceremonies -

an event now dubbed the Wedding of the Century.

Solemnly, on her father's arm, she enters the cathedral.

All eyes are on her - an entrancing picture in her magnificent gown,

as she takes her place before the high altar.

The ceremony was filmed by MGM and by TV companies

who broadcast it to 30 million viewers around the world.

There was the civil ceremony one day,

then the religious ceremony at the cathedral the next,

attended by so many guests, including Hollywood royalty -

Cary Grant, David Niven, Ava Gardner.

We are now out of the '40s.

The world has settled down after the Second World War,

and this is glamour.

This was the stuff that, you know, dreams are made of,

and I can still see that picture,

black and white, of course, in my mind's eye.

This was Hollywood with bells on.

Couldn't have been any more exciting.

When the wedding did come, it really was an unparalleled event

in terms of glamour and significance, newsworthiness.

Grace's wedding dress is one of the best remembered

and most elegant bridal gowns of all time.

She didn't order it from a fashion house.

It was a gift from her former studio, MGM, and created by Helen Rose,

the chief costume designer

who had worked on two of Grace's previous films.

It's notable that MGM would make Grace a present

of the wedding dress, the staggering dress

involving vast amounts of fabric,

vast amounts - you know, hours and hours of work.

The dress had been the subject of intense press interest.

Miss Kelly, we understand that you changed the idea

about your gown already.

Was that your decision, or Helen Rose's at MGM?

Oh, no, I don't know where you heard that.

It's... It's always been the same.

And it's still the original dress that we planned.

I understand it took three dozen seamstresses three weeks,

with an estimated cost, back then, of $7,200.

Can you imagine how much it would cost today?

It was the beginning of the iconic wedding dress

that people dreamed about.

ARCHIVE: Now, by civil authority and by the church,

Prince Rainier and his film star bride

have been pronounced man and wife.

Princess Grace's wedding dress seems to have inspired bridal fashions

for more than six decades.

Many royal watchers believe that it influenced the design

of Kate Middleton's wedding dress in 2011

for her marriage to Prince William.

I was reporting for Catherine's wedding,

the Duchess of Cambridge's dress,

and as soon as I saw it, I thought, "Princess Grace."

I can see the similarity.

I can see, slightly, the high collar. Lots of lace.

I'm sure, with Catherine, you know,

it's a very tight bond with your designer, so I wouldn't be surprised

if she references Grace Kelly's dress.

Wouldn't be surprised at all.

Instead of the conventional, for royals, tiara,

which perhaps she didn't possess,

she wore this little sort of Juliet cap,

beautifully embroidered and decorated,

which, again, allowed a sight of that very beautiful face.

Grace and Rainier had invited many VIP guests

such as the Aga Khan of India

and the Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis,

who first came up with the idea of Rainier marrying a Hollywood star,

to raise the profile of Monaco...

..but the restrained European monarchs of the 1950s stayed away.

It's said that Queen Elizabeth II, in England,

said, "No, no, I'm not going,"

you know, "Far too many celebrities.

"Far too many Hollywood types."

Maybe they were slightly sniffy -

and, in fact, later Grace became very, very friendly

with members of the British royal family,

but, certainly, they didn't seem to be rushing to Monaco.

ARCHIVE: Yes, indeed, it certainly was a great day

in the long history of the principality.

A great day for the loyal people of Monaco.

Prince Rainier and Princess Grace's first child, Caroline,

was born on the 23rd of January 1957,

prompting Monegasques to ring church bells.

The couple went on to have two more children, Albert and Stephanie.

Caroline, their eldest child,

was born nine months, four days after their wedding -

so, they were very keen to be parents,

and very keen to provide an heir.

So, from, really, before they had even celebrated a year together,

they were already mother and father to somebody.

They then had to live every day, like all of us do,

with the ups and downs of everyday.

ARCHIVE: At the moment, the little principality

is waiting for news of another birth at the palace -

news which will be proclaimed by a gun salute.

21 for a girl, 101 for a boy.

Grace had been an ambitious film star,

but, as a commoner who married into a royal family,

she found herself working hard to fit into her new role,

even hiring a private French tutor.

She would have had to learn the accent,

she would have had to have learned the ways people speak,

how they eat, what they did on Sundays -

because it's a very conservative Catholic country.

She would have been called Her Serene Highness,

and she would have had to be serene.

So, all of that must have taken a toll on her.

Whatever the stresses of her new royal life,

Princess Grace continued to be a role model for generations to come.

She became a style icon, perhaps, because of her own personal style,

her figure, those very beautifully cut suits,

the dresses with the narrow waist and the huge flaring skirt.

When I was growing up, in the '60s,

there were two paper dolls that I had, and every girl had.

It was one of Grace Kelly and one of Jackie Kennedy.

These were the ideals.

You are meant to be a mom, that was your duty,

but you never were supposed to gain weight.

You are supposed to make it all look flawless and beautiful -

and that's what we were meant to grow up to be.

Perhaps the most enduring fashion statement

associated with Princess Grace

is the Hermes bag that was named in her honour.

When you saw Grace Kelly travelling, apart from the luggage,

she always had with her an Hermes handbag.

Some would say - some would say to hide, perhaps,

her pregnancy from the public - but it was always there,

and it was quite a significant look.

It became so popular that Hermes turned round

and called it the Kelly bag, which, today - today - costs a fortune.

She liked dark brown and navy - and crocodile,

which is a little controversial.

On their engagement,

Grace and Rainier had announced that she would stop making films

after the wedding, but rumours circulated

of tensions in the marriage,

that Rainier banned Grace's films from being shown in Monaco,

and tried to buy up all the copies.

As with so much about Grace and Rainier,

there's rumours that Rainier banned the films -

but I'm not sure that's convincingly the case,

because the films were out there.

I mean, she made some of the greatest films in movie history.

It's like, it's great in a story that somebody's made up third-hand.

The idea that he's going to ban Mogambo or To Catch A Thief,

or whatever, is sort of ridiculous.

It seems that she hadn't quite realised

how completely she would have to give up her career,

because it wasn't that long into the marriage

that Alfred Hitchcock came calling, with a very, very spectacular role.

In 1962, Alfred Hitchcock offered Grace the chance

to make a fourth film together.

The title character, Marnie,

would have been her greatest acting challenge yet -

but when news broke of her casting, it caused an outcry.

The Monegasques didn't want their beloved

Princess in a Hollywood film.

They certainly wouldn't have, I suspect,

if they had known that there was a rape scene in the film.

Despite the controversial script,

Rainier was apparently relaxed about his wife taking part -

but Grace was forced to withdraw after suffering a miscarriage,

the second since the birth of their son Albert in 1958.

She wrote to her friend saying that it was a catastrophe

and she was very, very shaken.

She also then wrote to Hitch

and said, "I'm terribly sorry, I can't do the film."

He said, "It's only a movie, I entirely understand why."

Alfred Hitchcock eventually cast Tippi Hedren in Grace's role.

The devout Monegasques might have found the traumatic rape scene

too disturbing to handle if their Princess had been involved.

Sean Connery rapes Tippi Hedren in this film.

It's in a marriage, and, in those days,

that rape didn't exist, legally, in marriage -

but that's what happens.

Of course, we can't see it, but it is implied.

The day after that, she attempts to kill herself.

So, this is an incredibly dark and disturbing storyline.

It's very hard to see the Princess of Monaco playing that role.

I'm sure Rainier didn't want Grace to take part in that.

Biographers later contradicted the rumours

that Rainier had effectively killed off Grace's acting career.

I think it was a great source of sadness to Grace

that she wasn't able to play Marnie,

and I think she then had to accept, really,

that she wasn't going to go back to Hollywood

and make Hollywood films again.

Gossip was rife about Rainier's controlling nature,

and the rumours about their relationship

continued in the years ahead.

There were rumours of various - what they used to call toy boys,

and she had a flat in Paris,

and there were all kinds of stuff about affairs and all of this.

She was a good person, and she didn't hurt anybody.

After turning down the role of Marnie in Alfred Hitchcock's 1962 film,

Princess Grace never again returned to screen acting.

She balanced her time as the wife of Prince Rainier,

the mother of three children and her various state duties.

During the 1970s, she made tours of Europe and America,

performing classics of literature to sell-out audiences.

Grace was continually looking for ways to express herself creatively.

She had hobbies.

She created pressed flower arrangements -

these are actually published in a book -

and she also did poetry readings.

Princess Grace gave a revealing interview to Desert Island Discs

in 1981, admitting how much pleasure the readings were giving her.

You've been giving poetry recitals.

Yes, this is something I started a few years ago,

and I've enjoyed it very much.

It's been very pleasant, and it's something that I can do

without being away from Monaco for, you know, any long period of time.

People still realise that she had an innate talent and ability,

and that they really wanted to still see her,

and, you know, she was a great supporter of the arts,

of ballet and the performing arts, in her role as Princess.

In 1977, Grace's love of ballet gave her the opportunity

to make one last return to cinema,

as the presenter of an enchanting documentary

about a renowned Russian ballet school.

The film you're going to see

is about the children of Theatre Street in Leningrad.

Grace had wanted to be a dancer in her teens,

and ballet was still very close to her heart.

This touching film was among the nominees for best documentary feature

at the 1978 Oscars.

This is where all that effortless grace began.

Only years of study and practice

can make the ballet movements look unstudied and natural,

and perfectly confident.

Grace brought real prestige to the film

and is said to have donated her fee and a portion of the takings

to support an academy of dance in Monaco which still bears her name.

Grace understood that she was privileged.

She got that - and so she tried to use her privilege

as best she could in helping children, in particular,

and being a patron of the arts -

and I think, in that, she was a good person.

She was never able to satisfy herself

on the scale, anything remotely like the scale

that she was used to in Hollywood.

Grace's creative pursuits were often framed in the press

as her desperate attempts to escape from a controlling husband.

I think there's no question

that there were undoubtedly ups and downs,

because she was trapped in a gilded cage by the very nature of the job.

You could think of it as a gilded cage -

I don't think her life was like that at all,

and I think she was actually a very hard-working

and professional person all her life.

There were reports that Rainier and Grace endured a loveless marriage,

and rumours that both were having affairs,

which had been repeated in numerous books and tabloid articles.

It's a shame, in a way,

that if you're a famous and beautiful person,

any time you're photographed with somebody,

it's assumed that you're being intimate with them.

They're often just friendships.

There were rumours of various - what they used to call toy boys,

and she had a flat in Paris,

and there were all kinds of stuff about affairs and all of this.

She was a good person, and she didn't hurt anybody.

In her lifetime, Princess Grace was aware of all these unproven stories,

and felt powerless to stop them.

She understood that public figures are subject to press speculation,

but sometimes she pointed out the excesses of tabloid invention,

as in this frank interview from 1982.

You know, if you believe some of the things,

I would have had at least 52 babies by now.

For many years, I was always expecting a baby,

according to the press, or that my husband

and I are constantly being divorced, which also is not the case.

To put words in our mouths that are not true or to quote us

on things that we have never said, then I resent that and, er...

..unfortunately, there's very little one can do about it.

Even if their relationship had been strained,

it's thought that in the contract grace signed with

Rainier in 1956, she agreed that if their marriage should ever end,

it would result in her losing access to their children.

Divorce was an impossibility because if she had divorced,

the children would stay with her husband, that she

wouldn't even necessarily have access to them, because

they would be regarded as part of Monaco's royal establishment.

After a lifetime of facing down colourful tabloid stories,

Princess Grace was a veteran of handling the press.

In 1981, she read poetry at a gala event in London in front

of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer.

ARCHIVE: The charity concert at £50 a ticket

was in aid of the Royal Opera House

and one of the performers was Princess Grace of Monaco.

She, of course, is very experienced at this sort of occasion.

She also knows how to give a helping hand to a newcomer.

This was Diana's first public event since her engagement

before the intimidating glare of paparazzi cameras.

David Emanuel designed the dress she wore that night.

I think it was possibly, at that stage, a bit too much for Diana,

and Princess Grace gave Diana a piece of advice,

and apparently, I quote,

"Don't worry, dear. It'll only get worse."

And, of course, it did.

I think that Grace was a very maternal person.

Her eldest daughter, Caroline, was close in age to Diana herself.

Grace is still an actor so she would've known,

intuition and instinctively,

what Diana needed to hear.

Because Diana made some comment about the attention,

it's really quite a moving set of footage to see this woman who

knows exactly what's ahead of Diana, to meet her at this stage when Diana

really has no idea what's ahead of her.

She made the news and when she didn't make the news,

in her mind, the news was made up about her.

She did not really understand

exactly how much of a bubble you live in,

like Diana did not, like Meghan Markle did not.

Away from the rumours about her unhappy marriage,

Princess Grace was also said to have faced health issues

during her later years, especially migraines, possibly connected

to her lifelong issue of poor eyesight.

She also had a minor car crash.

She had been involved in an accident driving a black London taxi cab,

which was owned by the royal family in Monaco.

It wasn't a major accident - she hit another car - but that led to the

theory that she was never comfortable

behind the wheel of a car.

Later, tabloids like the National Enquirer would go much further.

In its famously salacious style,

the paper claimed that, before her death, Grace was trapped in a

nightmare world of tranquillisers, depression and loneliness.

But do we believe the National Enquirer?

Surely the headaches actually could also have been

a sign of other health issues.

She was in her early 50s, perhaps the time of the menopause.

There were stories that she was lonely,

there were stories that she was depressed.

I think trying to keep three kids in order

and trying to make sure they're happy

and they're not doing things they shouldn't do, it's going to be hard.

Perhaps the most surprising story of all was that Grace allegedly

joined a cult - the Order of the Solar Temple,

which had branches all over Europe and Canada.

They filmed their rituals in grainy, poor-quality videos.

Film-maker David Cohen dug deep into the story of Grace's involvement.

Grace Kelly had gotten mixed up with an order that was into all

kinds of criminality under the disguise of spiritual wisdom.

When we first got this story allegation,

we were, of course, sceptical.

In exchange for the promise of enlightenment,

devotees were expected to hand over substantial membership fees.

The cult was run by Luc Jouret, a doctor,

and Joseph Di Mambro, a businessman convicted of fraud.

In their hands, the Order had become a front

for money laundering and arms dealing.

We traced the abbey where Grace was inducted into the Order

in a ceremony which was semi-sexual at least.

The Order made news in the 1990s when disturbing reports showed

several of their temples destroyed by fire and 74 devotees dead,

including the Order's leaders, Jouret and Di Mambro.

ARCHIVE: As theories shift between murder and suicide,

police can confirm they're investigating an

international money-laundering operation by certain cult members.

When the story of Grace and the cult was broadcast in 1997,

a spokesman for the furious Prince Rainier described it as a

"cheap shot at someone who couldn't answer back".

One of the things that I learned in many, many years as a reporter,

particularly covering the royal family, is that when journalists

get together in large numbers,

any number of bizarre stories can come out.

Was Princess Grace part of some bizarre cult?

Personally I would regard stories like that as most likely nonsense,

most likely fabrications, but who knows?

On the 13th of September 1982,

Princess Grace and her daughter Stephanie

set off to Monaco from their hilltop home in France.

Grace had vowed not to drive again after her previous crash,

but she took the wheel and followed a route that one of her

movie characters had driven more than 25 years earlier.

In Alfred Hitchcock's rousing thriller, To Catch a Thief,

Kelly gave a thrilling performance

while also giving Cary Grant a scare.

Slow down! And let them catch us?

In the film, their white-knuckle ride was achieved with clever

back projection, but now Grace was racing down the hairpin bends

for real, to ensure that Stephanie made it onto a train

back to school in Paris.

She'd had accidents before,

maybe didn't drive that frequently.

It's very sad that she seems to have

been driving the day of the terrible accident.

So they go over the hill and it's catastrophic.

As Princess Grace and her daughter Stephanie were rushed to hospital,

a rumour mill of wild conspiracy theories was

already running up to full speed.

The mafia was supposed to run Monaco,

so they did something to the brakes as a message to Rainier.

It couldn't just be as simple as driver error.

There had to be some kind of meaning in it.

Princesse Grace and her 17-year-old daughter Stephanie had

plunged more than 120 feet down a cliff face in France and crashed.

They were rushed to hospital

and initial reports suggested both were stable.

Television news reporter Tim Ewart was sent to cover the accident.

Immediately after the crash,

the royal spokesman in Monaco said very, very little about it.

They carried on almost as if nothing had happened.

They did not want to cause panic or alarm and royal press officers

in that situation always steer a more cautious path.

First, the opinion given not only to the public, but to her family in

the States was that, while injured, she was expected to recover.

It was confirmed that, fortunately, Stephanie was in a stable condition.

Princess Stephanie has a broken vertebrae,

but she's fully conscious, sitting up in bed and eating normally.

If you look at the pictures of that car after the crash,

it really is, actually, quite extraordinary

that Stephanie survived.

Locals waited desperately outside the palace for news about Grace.

The day after the accident, the announcement came.

Princess Grace of Monaco had died, aged 52.

A palace spokeswoman in Monte Carlo

said that when the Princess died,

her husband, Prince Rainier, and her

three children were at her bedside.

Well, Monaco was in a state of shock.

A total state of shock.

She was a hugely popular figure.

This nation went into a complete state of mourning.

She was beloved.

Nobody could believe it was over.

ARCHIVE: Her death has stunned the principality.

Businesses closed out of respect.

Everywhere flags flew at half-mast.

Even the famous casino locked its doors until tomorrow.

Princess Grace's funeral was broadcast around the world.

This emotional footage was watched by an estimated 100 million people.

It captured the grief as hundreds in Monaco mourned

the loss of Princess Grace.

The principality of Monaco has been in mourning

since Princess Grace died on Tuesday,

and today only the people who live here were allowed onto the streets

around the royal palace to watch her funeral procession go by.

It was a morning of intense emotion.

The Princess was an enormously popular figure.

Her death has come as a painful blow.

Just as her wedding had been beamed round the world, of course,

her funeral those years later was beamed around the world.

This, of course, was the end of the romance,

the end of the Cinderella effect,

and it was terribly tragic.

Whatever mystery may surround the death of Princess Grace is,

for the moment, overshadowed by grief.

Doing the job that I was doing and I did for many, many years,

you're frequently exposed to extremes of emotion,

people in distress.

I think that trip to Monaco was one of the more intense that I did

because there was, genuinely there,

a quite extraordinary sense of grief.

Many, many places that I went to

and events that I reported on I've forgotten, but not this one.

Over 400 people attended the funeral at the same cathedral where

she was married 26 years earlier.

For Rainier, Grace had been absolutely

the centre of both his private and his public life

so, whatever difficulties there may have been in the marriage,

I think it was a strong union.

I think he was pretty much, certainly at the time of her death,

a broken man.

The news reports from the day captured the family's heartbreak.

As Rainier walked alongside his daughter, Caroline, and son, Albert,

they were caught in the full media glare, unable to hide their anguish.

You only have to see the pictures

to see how distressed the members of the family were.

Prince Rainier was distraught.

There were rumours that he would abdicate in favour of Albert,

who was still, of course, quite young,

because he couldn't go on without Grace.

Princess Grace's global impact was clear to see.

Family, royalty, celebrities

and people the world over were united in the loss.

A number of her old friends from Hollywood came -

Cary Grant, James Stewart gave the eulogy,

saying that she was the nicest person he'd ever known.

Grace's life of Hollywood stardom, royalty and tragedy

continued to play out even after her death.

And apparently it was Princess Diana herself who was very insistent with

the Buckingham Palace establishment that she should be allowed to go.

Diana herself was to die in a car crash 15 years after Princess Grace.

The connection was, I think, looking back on it, almost eerie.

Of course, one of the most tragic elements of the funeral is

that Stephanie was still in hospital

and not able to attend her own mother's funeral.

Following Grace's death, important questions were being asked -

was it an accident?

And what really caused the crash that claimed her life?

The big rumour at the time was that her younger daughter, Stephanie,

was at the wheel, actually, and she lost control of the car.

Stephanie eventually said,

"I've actually lived through the last moments of her life.

"Can I please be left alone?"

Following the death of Princess Grace, Monaco was in mourning,

but immediately questions were being asked about what caused the

accident that claimed her life and speculation spiralled.

When someone that famous dies young and that suddenly,

there's almost a feeling, as with the death of Princess Diana

or of James Dean - you know, both also car crashes - that it couldn't

just be as simple as driver error.

Oh, there were all sorts of rumours like, you know,

the mafia was supposed to run Monaco

so they did something to the brakes, and then some kind of cult

she was supposed to have been a part of

and she was going to blow the whistle on them

and so they took care of her, stuff like that.

The palace insisted brake failure had caused the crash,

but questions were asked as to why Grace was driving at all.

Rainier did not want Grace to drive, not just then,

but for a long time before that

because she had terrible eyesight and wouldn't wear her glasses,

and because she had been having these debilitating headaches

and because he knew she didn't like driving.

Normally a chauffeur would have driven them,

but on this occasion, because there was so much luggage to

put in the car, covering the back seat,

there was only room for two people in the car.

The chauffeur offered to take them and to go back and get the clothing,

but Princess Grace insisted that she should drive.

There were rumours that Grace's daughter Stephanie was

driving at the time of the accident.

The big rumour that actually survived at the time was that

her younger daughter Stephanie was at the wheel, actually, and she

lost control of the car, but she was underage and so they covered it up.

The suggestion that Stephanie was driving came out very quickly

after the crash because when the car landed on its roof,

the first people to get there, to help,

saw Stephanie emerging from the driver's door of the car.

However, a witness came forward confirming

he saw Grace at the wheel that morning.

For many years,

Stephanie did not want to talk to anyone about the accident.

She didn't want to talk to the press,

she didn't want to discuss it.

It's an incredible trauma to go through,

to have your mother beside you, and she was blamed for it.

It was revealed in the press that Stephanie attempted to stop the car.

ARCHIVE: So the mystery of what happened on the twisting mountain

road into Monaco appears, at last, to have been cleared up.

Princess Grace, according to tonight's medical reports,

was driving. As the car careered out of control, her 17-year-old

daughter Stephanie desperately tried to reach the steering wheel.

There was nothing she could do

and the Rover plunged over a steep ravine.

Did the brakes fail?

Well, that was one theory.

There were no skid marks in the road where the accident happened.

Engineers who came over from Rover in the United Kingdom

insisted that there was no brake failure.

Doctors revealed that Grace

had suffered a brain haemorrhage whilst driving.

It's thought that, although she thought she had her

foot on the brake, it could have well been on the accelerator.

Stephanie and Grace got in without putting their safety belts on.

The car, the fall had pushed her mother towards the back seat

and Stephanie had not been able to get out of her own seat,

which had been bashed, so she had to wriggle out of the driver's seat

and she tried to shout, "Please take us to Monaco."

Princess Grace suffered a second haemorrhage in hospital,

most likely caused by the accident.

ARCHIVE: The medical staff led by the hospital director,

Professor Louis Chatelaine,

finally had to tell Prince Rainier his wife

had no hope of recovery.

The Prince asked for the machine to be switched off.

The doctors have said, had she been at home sitting on a sofa, she might

have been fine five minutes later and nothing happened.

Unfortunately, she was at the wheel of a car, and that car

was on these very bendy roads

on the side of these very, very steep cliffs.

Stephanie eventually said,

"I've actually lived through the last moments of her life, really.

"Can I please be left alone?"

And Rainier himself said, "It's tragic enough on its own

"without repeating these terrible stories."

After losing his beloved wife of 26 years,

Prince Rainier never remarried.

After the funeral, Rainier was really not to be seen

and he lived on over 20 years more as a widower.

Prince Rainier died aged 81.

He was buried next to his late wife

in the Grimaldi royal family vault.

Grace Kelly embraced her role as princess, but could never

escape the goldfish bowl she existed in, fuelled by her Hollywood fame.

Her movie career may have lasted just five years,

but her legacy remains one of the most enduring

of all Hollywood actresses.

She's absolutely continued to be a legend.

Her star power has never diminished.

In a sense, an awful sense,

her terrifying death actually just gave another element to her legend.

She had an extraordinary life.

She had the best of Hollywood,

she had the best of royalty,

and she actually contributed so much to the small country

who will remember her forever.

Her presence is felt everywhere,

whether it's the Princesse Grace Theatre

or her patronage of the arts, and, clearly, I think

it's fair to say that her name will forever be associated with Monaco.

Grace rarely gave interviews,

but less than three months before her death, she spoke publicly.

In the revealing conversation,

she answered personal questions about her legacy.

I would like to be remembered as trying to do my job well,

of being understanding and kind.

I'd like to be remembered as a decent human being.

When we say that Princess Grace was the ultimate fairy-tale heroine,

perhaps we remember that fairy tales do have a darker side to them, too.

It does really seem as though she is someone for whom all

the fairies aligned to give her all the gifts that,

whether or not they gave her a perfectly happy life,

gave her the kind of iconic status that lasts.

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