Grace Kelly, the last Christmas bachelor

On the eve of New Year's Eve 1955, during a party in her New York apartment, the actress introduced her fiancé, Rainier, Prince of Monaco, a minimal European country unknown to almost everyone present. Days later the commitment for everything big was made public, and nobody was amused in the least. In fact, there was no shortage of people who tried to dissuade Grace from her idea of ​​marrying that little man...

The streamers from the Macy's windows competed with the lights that illuminated the opulence of the Plaza, St. Moritz, Park Lane and other lavish hotels in the Big Apple. The New York City Ballet performed 'The Nutcracker' at the 51st Street Theater with choreography by Balanchine. There were lines at Radio City Music Hall to see 'Christmas Spectacular', the show that was offered five times a day, seven days a week; it was a 'must' see the Rockettes in their most circus-like routine: the chorus line kicking in unison up to eye level. Those precise and precious legs announced that Santa Claus was in town. But designer Oleg Cassini, Grace Kelly's ex-boyfriend, didn't have the body for colored lights and fat old men in red pajamas. He was a broken man. If you want to know why, you'll have to keep reading. Well, a hint: Grace Kelly was strutting around Manhattan with a Monegasque prince and having a picnic.

On New Year's Eve 1955, Grace hosted a soiree at her Fifth Avenue apartment to introduce the new fiancé who had dethroned Cassini. MGM Chairman Dore Schary, writer Gore Vidal, model Carolyn Reybold, and actors David Niven, Bing Crosby, Gloria Swanson, James Stewart, and Cary Grant were wowed when the prince told them to skip the formalities and just call him Rainier. . Although His Highness was shorter than Grace and less muscular than most of her previous suitors, he had the charisma of those who have come into the world escorted by the rusty spears of their ancestors. When Dore Schary found out about Monaco's ridiculous size, she snapped at the prince: "Wow, that's half of the MGM garden." Rainier felt like a poppy in a field of thistles, he said nothing, but went to a corner and had a few words with Father Tucker who, at 70, was the shadow of Rainier and his Richelieu.

That priest had dissuaded him from marrying Princess Torlonia, the most posh heiress in Italy, so as not to offend France; he too should not marry a French princess so as not to upset Italy. He left her no choice but to marry a princess-dollar or a Hollywood star "as long as she's a devout Catholic." Rainier did not like the fact that his girlfriend's friends disregarded his principality. "Who do they think they are?" he hissed at Father Tucker, "I'm a reigning prince! How dare they?" "Okay!" his confessor admonished him, "don't you dare become a pain in the ass of Grace's friends, respect them or you'll lose her." Rainier stormed away, muttering. The atmosphere had become so addicted that it didn't seem like Christmas anymore or anything at all, on top of that the wren began to treat the guests as subjects. "Get me a vodka," he said to Schary as if he were the butler, "quickly, with ice and salt." That guy was terrifying, really, and they called him Prince again instead of Rainier. They had started the evening interpreting familiarity as friendship and ended up suffering from arrogance as regal attitude. "I suppose he could be a little more flexible," Grace later confessed to Gore Vidal, "but he's a Gemini after all." The zodiacal excuse did not convince the writer, who replied: "You just won an Oscar, you're the star of MGM, why the hell marry a casino manager?" "I know what I'm doing," Grace replied, not stitching without thread.

The tension between the prince and his showgirl had dissipated the night of January 3, when they went to the Stork Club at East 3rd and 53rd. World famous, he was a symbol of the Café Society: of power, money and glamour, the nest where the moneyed elite of movie stars, socialites, mobsters and other filibusters hatched fat eggs. Descendant of medieval pirates, Rainier intended to make the engagement announcement there. He had to be dissuaded by Jack Kelly, the father of the bride, who warned him that a press conference had to be called: "You in your kingdom, or whatever you are, do things your way; but here we have our customs, so you'll have to swallow it, friend." Although Rainier wasn't used to having a cowboy read his primer to him, he found Jack amused and smiled and shook his hand. "You just have to talk to him straight," Jack told his lawyer Laurence Lanier, "people kiss his ass too much, that's all."

On Thursday, January 5, Jack and Margaret Kelly invited nine friends to dinner at the Country Club in Philadelphia. Rainier and Grace—resplendent in her silk dress patterned with tiny gold crowns and a pink chiffon scarf—entered through the back door. Jack Kelly was at home in this atmosphere of wealthy provincials, having himself supervised the table setting and inspecting the liveried footmen. After lunch, the Kellys hosted the press at their redbrick home on Henry Avenue. Next to the grand piano, before a hundred reporters who were filling the room, the proud father announced his daughter's wedding to "His Serene Highness Prince Rainier III of Monaco." "And where do you say that this kingdom of yours is?" a little pen asked the prince with an awkward attitude. His Serene Highness lost his composure and ordered Father Tucker to throw them all out. But the páter gave him a poisonous look and the prince sheathed it. Deep down he was afraid that the priest would stare at him and call him an asshole. The next day, 'Time' magazine described the engagement as "that of a Philadelphia blonde to an amusement park owner."

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At 9 pm on Friday, January 6, Grace and Rainier descended on Park Avenue from a massive Chrysler and walked through the 'art deco lobby' of the Waldorf-Astoria to preside over the Imperial Ball. In suite 2728 lived Marilyn Monroe, who had fled Hollywood after her crisis with Joe DiMaggio. The smug sovereign, in a morning coat and with a hardware store of decorations, could not hide the fact that Grace - who measured 1.73 - was much taller than him, and that she wore low-heeled shoes. Despite her strapless white Dior gown and orchid bustier, she "looked like a General Patton tank—cold as steel," as her drama teacher Don Richardson would recall. The organizers had built such a ridiculous Royal Box that the Monegasque prince looked disgusted. At nearby tables sat the crème de la crème, New York-based heirs to Central European royal houses, including Alexandra, Archduchess of Austria and her cousin Maria Ileana of Romania, Hungarian princess Elisabeth de Croy, soprano Lily Pons, the tycoon Jack Chrysler and Gary Cooper with gray hair at the temples. He was 28 years older than Grace, but they had an affair during the filming of Alone in Danger. One of many, as Zsa Zsa Gabor recounted in her autobiography: "At that time Grace had more lovers in a month than I could have in my entire life."

The grand ballroom was decorated with red draperies and white flowers, the national colors of Monaco. Among the 1,300 extras in the operetta were the gossipy Elsa Maxwell and Truman Capote, who shared with that forked-tongued 'salonnière' a passion for skinning celebrities, a vice that he turned into his job, which basically consisted of confusing literature with gossip . Rainier found her "as sexy as a pissing toad". Maxwell's eyes widened at Grace's engagement ring, a 12-carat diamond. He didn't know the gossip that that Cartier fancy dress was Rainier's plan B, who had bought a cheaper ring at Balanche, the jeweler of the Monegasque court; but his consul in New York suggested that the boulder was not thick enough and Rainier had no choice but to stretch a little further. If pride is involved, even the miser throws the house out the window.

Standing at the microphone, Father Tucker grew sullen and sentimental: "This is a moment my Prince and I have prayed for, for we are about to welcome the most wonderful woman in the world, the lovely Miss Grace Kelly." Amid thunderous applause, the aforementioned stood up and greeted her claque. He didn't say anything, tears prevented him, but perhaps he remembered that in that same place, six years ago, he had colonized the wet dreams of the Shah of Persia. Muhammad Reza Pahlevi was 30 years old and had taken advantage of his official visit to the United States to make out with his new lover, they were seen together at the Morocco and the Stork Club. The Persian was drooling over her and at the Waldorf he made it known to the beast; that is, with three jewels from Van Cleef & Arpels: a gold cage with a bird of diamonds and sapphires, a gold minaudière with 32 diamonds and a pearl bracelet. Grace accepted the treasure, but did not find it graceful to become empress of Persia. Now, after the announcement of her marriage to a minor prince, she had decided to give her friends the satrap's jewels.

After the Waldorf event, Grace and Rainier went to the Harwyn Club, whose owners, Frank Harris and Ed Wynne, used to host the actress's birthdays. On the dance floor of this former speakeasy between Park and Lexington, the couple rocked cheek to cheek to the music of A Woman in Love, from the musical Guys and Dolls. They seemed to levitate above the ground and a hubbub of fans surrounded them captivated by their sudden coup de foudre. Normally, who does not put a Christmas story? As if no one was watching, Rainier slid his hands down Grace's back and didn't stop until they reached her buttocks. San Juan Bautista lost his head for a less sensual dance. Bodyguard Tom D'Orazio couldn't stop an Associated Press photographer from catching the moment.

I guess they've forgotten about Oleg Cassini. It's okay, I don't. The cheerful and boastful man who had animated Grace Kelly's nights was not for jokes, he lived in an icy sidereal realm encapsulated in the thunderous vortex of New York. The son of a countess and the grandson of the tsar's ambassador to the United States, he was a very refined fellow and had been married to Gene Tierney. Later, after a month of dating, Oleg and Grace got engaged, they were in a hurry because she was pregnant, although she decided to have an abortion. They continued dating until, at the beginning of that Christmas, Grace made an appointment with him on the Staten Island ferry. The lovers were wrapped in the thick fog of the East River, like on a movie set. According to Cassini's own recollection, she took a breath and told him, "I want you to know that you have counted for more in my life than anyone else and probably always will." Then she dropped the bomb: she was going to marry Rainier. "But do you love him?" he asked. "I will learn to love him," she replied. "Grace, I think you're marrying that man because it's the best script of your life," he ventured as the ferry docked.

Manhattan was a fabulous whirlwind wrapped in a luminous atmosphere. At Rockefeller Center lucky few skated at the foot of NBC's 80-foot Norway spruce, while The Salvation Army handed out coffee and hot dogs to homeless shivering under electric billboards in Times Square. Also at Christmas life is according to the story that touches you.