Monday, February 28, 2011

A Fairy Tale Wedding

Grace Kelly and the Prince of Monaco.
Grace Kelly had a seven year contract with MGM at the time of her marriage, which was irksome as Prince Rainier was insisting that she give up acting as soon as she was married. This wasn’t unusual at all – it was still generally accepted at this time that women should give up work when they became wives and the duties of a Princess of Monaco would be particularly time consuming. Okay, maybe Rainier went a bit far when he banned Grace’s films from being shown in her new country but it was important to him that his wife should be fully respected by his people. Remember how Marie Antoinette’s harmless amateur theatricals with her closest friends harmed her reputation and dignity in France?

As part of the conditions of her release from MGM, Grace had to agree to the wedding being filmed for distribution worldwide as a film. Grace hated the intrusion of dozens of cameras filming what was supposed to be the best day of her life, but I am sure cinema goers of the time and the estimated thirty million people who watched on television loved the spectacle of celebrities turning up to the star studded event before the bride herself appeared, followed by her husband.
Share

3 comments:

MadMonarchist said...

The video of the wedding MGM did was great I thought. I last saw it in 09 during TCM month-long tribute to Princess Grace. You certainly could not tell she was less than enthusiastic about it. It was not very long but I thought it was very well done, showing her arrival, a little tour of her new palace and the wedding.

May said...

Stunning lady!

papabear said...

If only this year's royal wedding could have the same sort of religiosity and symbolism as that between Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier.