Grace The Musical

BEFORE HER DEATH more than a decade ago, “Kelly” Van Remoortel was well-known in Monaco as the wickedly-droll owner of Le Texan, the restaurant she founded not long after the loss of her long-time “bestie,” Princess Grace, in 1982. She and the princess had met in New York when Grace Kelly was an aspiring young actress and Helen Jeanne Kelly, a dancer at the notorious Copacabana nightclub. They called themselves “The Kelly Girls.” Years later, Grace was a princess and matron of honor at Kelly’s wedding to the chef d’orchestre of the Monte Carlo Philharmonic, Edouard Van Remoortel. Following the tragic car accident that killed Princess Grace, Kelly devoted years to recruiting friends, including myself, to help her write a book about the “true Grace” based on the dozens of personal letters they exchanged over the years and memories of their times together. A book about the extremely private princess, however, proved impossible, but Kelly entrusted me with safeguarding her research and memorabilia upon her death.

A few years later, I stumbled across a red plastic binder that I had ignored in previous forays into Kelly’s boxes of Monaco memories. I opened it and found a thick sheaf of neatly typewritten pages entitled Grace: The Musical. Although I was aware of the many books, TV films, and documentaries on Grace Kelly, this was something totally unfamiliar. My discovery that day would inspire a five-year treasure hunt to uncover the fascinating story of a “crazy Dutchman” who built a fairy-tale prince’s palace in Amsterdam more than 20 years ago and lured a legendary Broadway composer there to create a musical about his childhood idol, Grace Kelly.

It wasn’t an easy search. There were wild goose chases, red herrings, dead ends, and endless scrolling through obscure internet articles in Dutch. Eventually, I began to piece together the story with the help of a documentary maker in Amsterdam who knew the story’s protagonist, a self-made millionaire named Bert Maas. Bert, however, was not interested in telling me his story, and it would be another two years before we would meet.

Bert was the only son of a Dutch textile merchant. He sold cheap jeans and gadgets as a teenager in the markets lining Amsterdam’s canals in the 1970s. He convinced his father to send him to factories in Asia to secure lucrative partnerships for low-cost goods. In the 1980s, uber-trader Bert moved to East Berlin and worked closely with Soviet Bloc regimes to import hard-to-find personal “luxuries,” such as pantyhose and toothbrushes, for East European consumers trapped behind an “Iron Curtain” and cut off from Western markets. By the time the Berlin Wall fell, Bert had acquired a lovely East German wife and amassed a fortune.

As a teen, Bert had fallen in love with Grace Kelly. It was around the same time that America lost her to the tiny principality of Monaco as the new bride of their sovereign, Prince Rainier III. In the mid-1950s, Grace Kelly was already an icon of classic beauty, breeding, and quiet glamour. She was also the legendary “volcano under a snowcap” crafted by director Alfred Hitchcock during their three films together, including Rear Window, To Catch a Thief, and Dial M for Murder.

Young Bert was mesmerized by this tantalizing duality, and he secretly hoped Grace would soon tire of the handsome prince and return to Hollywood. Years later, as a successful businessman, Bert visited Monaco frequently, and although their paths were never to cross, he began to admire his early teenage crush even more. He now saw a different Grace; cooler and more regal. Her marriage to Rainier had revitalized Monaco’s social and economic climate, supercharging the principality’s reputation as THE glamorous destination for the rich and famous.

In the late 1990s, Bert met a young English composer of successful Eurovision songs who, serendipitously, was looking for sponsors to produce his script for a musical about…Grace Kelly! This was the script in the red binder that I had found in Kelly’s memorabilia. (We will probably never know how it landed in Kelly’s possession.) Inspired, Bert immediately bought the rights to the musical and contacted various West End producers, unsuccessfully, in hopes of producing it in London.

Undaunted, he returned to Amsterdam and hired a Dutch lyricist who threw out the original “book” and rewrote a script...in Dutch. It was now the story of Hitchcock’s efforts to lure Grace back to Hollywood and her decision to choose Monaco and family over Tinsel Town.

The dream project, however, demanded an authentic Broadway touch. In late 2000, Bert flew to New York to convince legendary American composer Cy Coleman (Sweet Charity, Hey Big Spender, Witchcraft) to write a brand-new score for Grace: The Musical. Coleman, in his 70s, had recently married for the first time, and with his significantly younger wife, they had a new baby. Bert offered Coleman a generous salary and luxury accommodation on the Amsterdam canals, as well as for his award-winning American production team. Coleman accepted.

Bert now had a script, a notable Dutch cast, and a Cy Coleman score…but no theatre for the opening night only six months away. Local impresarios were outraged that a “cheap salesman” with NO theatre experience was invading their domain and quickly acted to block Bert, making it impossible to rent a venue, hire tradesmen, or secure decorations for a set.

Bert’s solution was to hire a Belgian constructor and Catherine Feff, a well-known French trompe l’oeil artist, to build his own temporary theatre next to the enormous ArenA football stadium on the outskirts of Amsterdam...as an amazing replica of the Prince’s Palace in Monaco. On opening night, Amsterdam’s theatre-going community would drink champagne in flutes etched with a golden “G” for Grace, seated in red velvet “love seats” under crystal chandeliers that Bert had outsourced from his own suppliers in Poland, Asia, and Italy. There would also be an elegant restaurant, imposing gilt-rimmed portraits of European aristocrats, and a small man-made mini-Mediterranean at the “palace” entrance, equipped with cannons and Riva speedboats. Rehearsals were held in a tent next to the theatre construction site, and the Dutch cast did their best to adapt to the meticulous stylings of a seasoned American production crew that included an Oscar-nominated choreographer and a Tony-winning orchestrator. Bert, on the other hand, had hired a film director rather than a musical theatre director, and he soon realized that there would be no “final cut”…success would depend on each “in the moment,” live performance before a real and unpredictable audience.

As it turned out, opening night nearly never happened. One month before the opening, two airplanes struck the Twin Towers in New York City, and the horrified American team rushed home. They had not abandoned Bert and soon returned. Not before ANOTHER setback, however. The Amsterdam mayor’s office had approved the construction of the theatre but hadn’t authorized electricity or telephone service. Bert decided to make his own electricity and hired 12 massive trucks to deliver gas-powered generators. And then there was light.

On October 23, 2001, Grace: The Musical opened triumphantly...if only briefly. The musical was forced to close its doors after three months. There had been too much haste in creating an entirely new production and, worse, Bert was sure that the local theatre “mafia” had rigged the phone-in ticket sales, making it difficult to purchase tickets for the show.

Coleman was convinced that the show’s “bugs” could be worked out and took the show back with him to New York. He recruited Broadway luminaries to produce an American version and showcased Grace: The Musical and its Dutch stars in a Carnegie Hall Tribute. Unfortunately, Coleman suffered a fatal heart attack on November 18, 2004, and Grace: The Musical was officially DOA. Bert had spent nearly 25 million guilders (roughly 18 million euros today) on his dream project.

When I was finally able to speak directly to Bert from his elegant abode in Belgium in 2022, I found a delightful, chatty, and funny man in his early 70s. During our FaceTime call, he confided that he hadn’t wanted to speak to me about Grace: The Musical because it was a “failure.” Au contraire, I told him, his journey to celebrate the princess despite all the obstacles laid in his path was inspiring!

And so, over the next two years, Bert and I would piece together amazing anecdotes from his one and only foray into musical theatre and hatch a scheme to rescue Grace: The Musical for a new generation.

The biggest challenge was the Cy Coleman music. It had “disappeared.” For months and months, I spoke with as many of the original players as possible: the Dutch performers, the family of the Grammy and Tony Award-winning American arranger, Coleman’s long-time archivist/PA, as well as his protégé music director (both who had worked on the project in Amsterdam), and the composer’s brother-in-law who managed the Cy Coleman Catalogue. The sheet music was nowhere to be found in Coleman’s Broadway archives. A promising lead on the Library of Congress was a dead end, and the show’s Dutch conductor refused my calls. Finally, an exhaustive—and exhausting—search turned up a small binder containing original sheet music for the 28 songs listed in the Grace: The Musical program. It had been collecting dust in the basement of a small music publishing company in California. The search was over.

Five years on from the start of my treasure hunt inspired by my friend Kelly Van Remoortel, there have been discussions with Broadway producers, TV streaming companies, and talk of a

 book. But there are still so many questions. Should we let someone else tell the story of Grace: The Musical? Will the Princess’s family welcome another retelling of her story? Would media giants like Netflix and HBO “reimagine” the facts, rendering the original story unrecognizable? Will Generations X, Y, and Z even care?

Should we risk it? I can’t really say. Ultimately, it will be Bert’s decision as it is his story. But...what a lovely treasure hunt it inspired!

By Annette Anderson

Contributor