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From the Editor

True Love takes us back to Monaco

by Judi McLeod
Thursday, April 7, 2005

The haunting ballad True Love, played often over stellar stations like Radio 640 AM, keeps the legend of Monaco alive. The words of the signature song from the film High Society, sung by Bing Crosby and Grace Kelly, served as a sad reminder as Prince Rainier 111 lay dying in a Monaco hospital.

"Crosby serenades Grace Kelly as they drift at sea, suntanned, windblown honeymooners, at last alone, on the boat called True Love. Crosby begins the song alone (accompanied by a concertina) and then Grace Kelly joins in midway through the chorus. Grace Kelly became Princess Grace of Monaco after the filming of High Society was completed." (WarnerChappel.com).

In her first major leading actress role, Kelly played the Sheriff’s wife in High Noon, skyrocketing her to world fame.

The Irish actress stepped down from the silver screen to marry Prince Rainier III, and had played in 11 films before ending a Hollywood career.

Her wedding to Rainier on April 19, 1956 was straight out of a fairytale, happening in more innocent times when many little girls still dreamed of marrying a prince.

It was a time when teenaged girls briefly returned to wearing crinolines under their skirts and an era when they pressed prom roses between the pages of their diaries.

Some of those girls, now matrons in their 60s log onto the BBC where they can relive the time of the royal wedding, via live footage.

Clad in a beige lace dress, Kelly was "noticeably nervous during the proceedings," the BBC reported.

After marrying Rainier, Kelly became "Her Serene Highness". The marriage introduced glamour and elegance to one of Europe’s oldest dynasties.

Prince Rainier was the son of Europe’s longest ruling family, the Grimaldis, who were right up there with the Romanovs in terms of romance, legend and intrigue.

The bride and her 65-member wedding party sailed to Monaco on the ocean liner Constitution on April 4, 1956 to meet her groom.

Eerily reminiscent of the windblown honeymooners of the boat True Love, after a Monaco Cathedral wedding, the couple spent their honeymoon cruising around the Mediterranean, aboard Prince Rainier’s yacht, Deo Juvante II.

Who could ever have known that some 26 years later, the princess would be killed in a car crash? It was on September 14, 1982 that her car went off a road over a cliff in Monaco.

Pictures of the prince, literally staggering with grief as he followed his wife’s coffin up to the altar, captured the hearts of a watching world at her somber funeral.

With her beauty, elegance and poise and her passion for good works, Prince Grace was the Diana of her day.

The 49th anniversary of the wedding is on April 19, this year.

While Rainier’s death at age 81, on Wednesday marks the end of an era, the legend lives on.

We go back to Monaco every time we hear the words of True Love on the radio.