This is part of an article from The Philadelphia Inquirer on October 9, 1977, the year I "knew" her because I taught French at the University of Pennsylvania and saw her in the hallways and on campus.
"More often than not she is identified simply as 'Princess Caroline's beautiful American cousin from Philadelphia.'
'It took them awhile to figure out who I was,' the beautiful American cousin, otherwise known as Grace LeVine, said the other day"(... )'I guess they figured with my blond hair and slight resemblance to my aunt, I was some relation. It didn't matter though, because they never got the stories right anyway.'
It will be some time before they get any stories, right or wrong, about the peripatetic Miss LeVine, who recently returned to Philadelphia and is currently enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania.
A French major who attended three other colleges (freshman year at Franklin College in Lugano, Switzerland, sophomore year at Georgetown University in Washington, and junior year at the University of Paris), Miss LeVine said she needed 'about three semesters' of course work to receive her degree from Penn.
Why did she give up la vie Parisienne?
'I just didn't want to stay in Paris any longer and I thought it would be nice to come to Philadelphia and get to know the city,' said Miss LeVine who grew up in Gladwyne and graduated from Harriton High School in Rosemont. 'I really don't know that much about center city. When you live in the suburbs you never really have any reason to come into town. So for me it's like moving to a new city that happens to be close to home.'
'I haven't been around too much except for here on campus,' she went on. 'But it looks like it will be pretty neat.'
'Neat' is an appropriate adjective to describe the reed-slim, 21-year-old namesake of Princess Grace who was wearing a crisp white shirt with a beige cardigan slung over her shoulders, and tweed slacks and red clogs. The resemblance to her famous aunt was evident in her delicately chiselled features, sea-blue eyes and ash blond hair, yet she looked less like a serene royal highness than a fresh-scrubbed All-American homecoming queen.
Indeed, she seemed refreshingly open and matter-of-fact as she described her recent sojourn in Paris where she lived in the elegant Grimaldi townhouse on a secluded square off the fashionable Avenue Foch.
Princess Grace, she said, often resides there, looking after her niece and daughters Stephanie, 12, and Caroline, 20, a philosophy student at the Sorbonne.
'There were just so many things to do!' said Miss LeVine with an exuberant gesture of a hand adorned with a tiny emerald-and-diamond ring. 'Paris has really good theaters-especially the Comedie Francaise-and lots of different cafes and restaurants. Everything starts much later there. You didn't eat dinner till 10 or 10:30 and you don't start going out dancing and stuff until nearly midnight.'
'It's crazy,' she continued in a tone that implied she loved such craziness. 'I had 8 o'clock classes some mornings which meant I had to leave the house by 7 to take the Metro. I don't know how I did it.'
Despite the social whirl, Miss LeVine said she had managed to pass all her courses, which required rigorous three-hour written and oral examinations.
'Caroline is a very good student,' she said when asked about the rumor that her cousin transferred to the Sorbonne because she had failed her final exams at the Institute of Political Studies. 'She has a very, very good memory. And we both cracked the books-every once in awhile.'
She went on to say that neither she nor her cousin were considered 'anything special' by her French classmates ('You'd have trouble picking out Caroline from a bunch of kids on campus').
On the other hand, photographers trailed the young women all over Paris, not to mention Monaco.
'We got to be pretty good at ditching them,' she said with a grin. She also said she usually spoke English with Caroline except when Prince Rainier was around and everyone conversed in French. 'Sometimes when we were driving we'd stop some stranger and say, 'Oh, sir, please help us we're being followed.' He'd block the photographer's car and we'd zip off.'(...)
Miss LeVine, who said there was no special man in her life just now, described American men as being more "mature" than European men who she described as "more polite."
'There really isn't any woman's lib in Europe,' said the poised, softspoken student who spent the last three summers working in the group sales department at Atlantic City Race Course. 'Men there light your cigarettes, pour your wine, and things like that. I like having my wine poured for me but I don't like being treated like a little girl. I mean, some European men carry these things too far.'
Miss LeVine, who commuted between her parent's Main Line home and the university in her red Honda, said she planned, within the next few weeks, to move into her brother Christopher's West Philadelphia apartment. She added that she was "really close" to her 20-year-old brother who is a junior at Penn. ('I guess not that many brothers and sisters get along, but we do.')
Later, relaxing on a bench outside Furness Hall, Miss LeVine revealed that she was a chocolate addict whose favorite dish was a "spinach and rice type quiche" concocted by the palace chef in Monaco; that she bought her clothes at a Paris discount store because 'you'd need a gold mine to afford anything otherwise;' that she does decoupage designs for friends; that she helps her mother with charity events for the Medical College of Pennsylvania.
Her career plans, she said, are "undecided," adding that she was toying with the idea of becoming an interpretor.
'A lot of people suggested modeling to me,' she said, brushing back her hair to reveal two tiny earrings in her right earlobe. 'But the only modeling I've done has been for my mother's benefit fashion shows.'
She smiled and shook her head when asked whether she had any ambition to be an actress. What did she think of her aunt's films?
'I don't think I've seen all of them,' said Miss LeVine with a shrug. 'I liked 'High Society' but I fell asleep halfway through 'The Swan.'
'It's funny, but when I see her on screen it's like watching a different person,' she added, reflectively. 'She doesn't look like that now and I was never around when she was an actress. To me, she's just my aunt.'
I only added this guy for the brick wall.
