Once Upon a Time: Behind the Fairy Tale of Princess Grace and Prince Rainier

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• 3.88
  1,370 ratings by Goodreads

Synopsis: Traces the marriage of Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier, citing the factors that prompted her to marry a man who she did not completely know and consequently sacrifice her desires and ambitions for her family, in a portrait that draws on hundreds of interviews with family members and friends. 250,000 first printing.

Review: She was an Oscar-winning Hollywood actress; he the scion of Europe's longest reigning monarchy. The marriage of movie star Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier Grimaldi of Monaco (a romance ironically spawned by a chance, MGM publicity-driven photo op) was one of the 20th century's most enchanting fables come to life. Yet, in veteran Hollywood biographer J. Randy Taraborelli's retelling, (the first comprehensive chronicle of the royal couple's romance and quarter-century reign) their day-to-day struggle with romantic inertia and a legacy of familial dysfunction cast their fairy tale existence in a bittersweet light long before the 1982 automobile accident that took Grace's life.

Taraborelli's struggle to walk the fine line between the respectful biography he intends and the salacious, tell-all exposes he decries makes for occasionally awkward passages. However, the author eventually succeeds in giving his royal subjects--and the ongoing conflicts with their respective families--a familiar, all-too-human scale. --Jerry McCulley

Bibliographic Details

Title: Once Upon a Time: Behind the Fairy Tale of ...
Publisher: Warner Books
Publication Date: 2003
Binding: Hardcover
Condition: Very Good