Love for Three Dimples

Dwarfed by the hulking form of the American Export liner Constitution, a crowd of hundreds thronged Pier 84 in Manhattan one foggy day last week. Man, woman and teen-ager alike, they were waiting for a glimpse of the movie queen (Grace Patricia Kelly) who was sailing to Monaco to wed the reigning Prince (His Serene Highness Rainier III). Two hours before sailing time, Grace arrived in a black limousine, wearing a beige wool suit, a white straw hat shaped like a mushroom, and a radiant look. Not far to the rear came a retinue of 80--friends, relatives, business associates. And then--tagged "Grace Kelly, The Palace, Monaco"--four trunks and 56 other pieces of luggage, including 20 hatboxes ("I love hats, and at last they've begun to have the saucy look I like").

With a winning smile for even the stolid longshoremen, Grace walked up the gangplank, made her way to the sun deck, where another crowd awaited her.

"Please! Please!" This one represented, in effect, most of the population of the U.S. in the form of 250 reporters, photographers and movie and television cameramen. Because it was raining on deck, Grace appeared for her press conference in the Pool Cafe room, flanked by five pressagents and a platoon of cops. The room was packed from wall to wall. Quickly she was backed into a corner, with cameras and newsmen inches from her face.

It was a mob scene. Crushed together, reporters shouted their questions; photographers climbed on the bar, on tables, stools, railing, on each other's shoulders for height, and, with flashbulbs crunching underfoot, shouted orders at their victim: "Hey, Grace! Looka me!" "Stand up, Grace!" "Take it off, Grace [the hat]!" Other photographers, crowded out onto the deck, whammed their fists against the glass wall to catch her attention. The conference got so out of hand that a pressagent shouted: "Please! Please! Behave like ladies and gentlemen!" Another cried: "This is a press conference, not a riot! Unless you back up and give this lady some air, it will end immediately."

"It Is Quite Frightening!" Through it all, Grace was unruffled, cool, completely gracious, although she was endowed with a bride's right to dissolve into tears, screams or a hysterical combination of both. "I wish people would be more considerate of each other," she said in an accent that is neither Philadelphia, London nor Hollywood, but seems to have traces of each. "The way you are stamping on each other--it is quite frightening." But she never stopped smiling, and all the while three dimples showed in each cheek.

She even managed to answer some questions. Would she raise a large family? "I hope so." What about her citizenship? "I will have dual citizenship, but my son will be Monegasque." Who will be on the yacht during the seagoing honeymoon? "Just a crew of ten--and my poodle Oliver, of course."

When the session was over, she headed demurely for a private family party for friends. Then, after the "All Ashore," she joined a cluster of family and members of her wedding party at the bow to wave to the crowds on the pier. Finally, at 12:05 p.m., the Constitution was warped out into the Hudson River, headed out through the fog so that Grace Kelly could wed her Prince, could give up the good name "Kelly" to become instead Her Serene Highness Princess Grace of Monaco, Duchess of Valentinois, the Marquise of Baux, Countess of Carlades, Baroness of Buis, Seigneuress of Saint-Remy, and many other aristocratic titles too numerous to mention--and also, if possible, give birth to an heir, without whom, under a 1918 treaty, her subjects will come under French law and have to pay taxes.

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