Princess Grace`s Fatal Crash: Her Daughter`s Account
Princess Grace`s Fatal Crash: Her Daughter`s Account
On Sept. 13, 1982, Princess Grace of Monaco was killed when the car she was driving somersaulted over a cliff. Her daughter, Princess Stephanie, who was with her, had not spoken on the record about the crash until an interview with author Jeffrey Robinson for his book, “Rainier and Grace: An Intimate Portrait.“ She recounts the accident in this excerpt from the book.
At about nine a.m., on Monday, Sept. 13, 1982, Princess Grace of Monaco woke her daughter, Stephanie. They had tickets for a train to Paris, where Stephanie, 17, would embark school on Wednesday.
While Grace was getting ready to leave for the palace, her chauffeur brought the 11-year-old metallic green Rover three thousand five hundred out of the garage and parked it in front of the house at Roc Agel, the royal family`s farm, in the hills above Monaco.
When Grace came out of the house, her arms were utter of dresses which she spread vapid across the rear seat of the car.
A maid followed with other dresses and large hat boxes, and together they packed the rear seat.
Then she called for Stephanie.
Grace`s chauffeur was standing by the car, ready to drive the two of them to the palace.
Grace didn`t much like driving and didn`t do a lot of it, albeit she liked the Rover. There wasn`t a lot of mileage on it because she didn`t use it much. Still, she always insisted it be well maintained. It hardly, if ever, went any further from the palace garage than Roc Agel. And even then it usually was driven by a chauffeur.
Now, however, with the back seat covered, there wasn`t room enough for Grace and Stephanie and a chauffeur.
Grace told her chauffeur that it would be lighter if she drove.
He said that there was no need for that. If she left the dresses there, he would drive her down and then come back for the clothes.
She said, no, please don`t bother, she would drive. He kept attempting to persuade her, but Grace insisted.
So Grace got behind the wheel, and Stephanie climbed into the passenger seat. At about ten a.m. they pulled away from Roc Agel.
The road from the farm winds down the hill and into La Turbie. The road from there down to the Moyenne Corniche, which takes you into Monaco, is called the D37. Approximately two miles from La Turbie, there is an especially steep arch where you have to brake very hard and steer cautiously to go after the road one hundred fifty degrees to the right.
Grace missed that turn.
The Rover slammed into the petite retaining wall and went through it. The car somersaulted as it crashed one hundred twenty feet through branches of trees, careening off the slope, throwing Grace and Stephanie around inwards.
The accident that claimed the life of the former Grace Kelly captured the attention of the world. Almost one hundred million people observed the funeral of the former American movie starlet on Saturday, Sept. Eighteen: Her spouse, Prince Rainier, in his uniform, shattered with trouble, his oldest child, Caroline, veiled in black, reaching out to touch him. His son, Albert, walked at his side, holding his father`s arm.
Stephanie, the youngest of Grace and Rainier`s three children, was not present at the funeral. Still hospitalized for minor injuries from the accident, she wasn`t told of her mother`s death until two days after the crash.
Caroline is the only member of the family to have discussed with Stephanie what happened in the car that morning.
“Stephanie told me, `Mommy kept telling, I can`t stop. The brakes don`t work. I can`t stop.` She said that Mommy was in a finish funk. Stephanie grabbed the arm brake. She told me right after the accident, `I pulled on the arm brake but it wouldn`t stop. I attempted but I just couldn`t stop the car.` “ Stephanie, now 24, says she has never discussed the accident with her father or brother. Some people close to the family say they think that Stephanie has since blocked the accident out of her mind, that she remembers nothing of what happened.
This is not the case, she said in a taped interview.
“I reminisce every minute of it,“ she says, attempting to retain her composure. `It`s only in the last few years that I`ve been commencing to cope with it. I had some professional help and especially in the last eight months I`ve been learning to deal with it. I still can`t go down that road, even if someone else is driving. I always ask them to take the other road. But at least I can talk about it without sobbing. Albeit it`s hard for me to get it out in front of my dad. As far as I`m worried, I can live with it. But I still can`t talk to my dad about it because I know it hurts him and I don`t want to do that because I love him.“
Black out at the wheel
Family members recall that Grace was tired at the end of that busy summer. They recall her being irritable, suffering from high blood pressure (later published reports quote her doctors as telling that she did not have high blood pressure) and going through menopause.
