Monaco's Prince Rainier Dead At 81

(CBS/AP)  She was a Hollywood star. He was a European prince. They wed, capturing hearts worldwide, but didn't live happily ever after.

The final chapter in the fairy tale and tragedy that was Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier III closed Wednesday with the monarch's death at age 81.

Prince Albert II, their only son, takes over the principality no larger than New York City's Central Park. Some fear Monaco's golden days will end with Rainier.

"It was a life, a way of living, of managing the principality," said Odette Sainsaulieu, a 66-year-old resident who went to the hospital overlooking Monaco's yacht-filled harbor where Rainier died at 6:35 a.m., with Albert at his side.

Sainsaulieu said she wanted "to say a final goodbye."

Europe's longest-serving monarch, in power for 56 years, Rainier was the only ruler many of Monaco's 32,000 residents had ever known.

Monaco is a very different place from the one Rainier inherited, reports CBS News Correspondent Elaine Cobbe. He increased its stature, its wealth and its size, by reclaiming land from the sea. And by marrying Kelly, he brought glamour — and the jet set — to the tiny state.

A veritable father-figure to some, he dragged Monaco into the modern age, worked to overcome its reputation as "a sunny place for shady people," while preserving much of its Mediterranean charm and royal trappings.

But he also endured the tragedy of Princess Grace's death in a car accident on Sept. 14, 1982, and the indignity of seeing their children become the target of paparazzi who pursued their divorces and dalliances. Rainier never remarried — and often cut a lonely figure in the latter years of his life.

"She was always present and ready to do things either with me or for me if I couldn't do them," Rainier said of Grace in a 1983 interview. "Let's say the change is that we worked as a team and the team has been split up."

Albert, 47 and groomed from birth to succeed Rainier, has been spared the tabloid torment to some extent — partly because he has yet to marry. But that, too, was a source of consternation for Rainier, who worried about continuing his ancient Grimaldi family line.

"Prince Albert possesses all the qualities to one day become the next sovereign prince," Rainier said in an interview with the French daily Le Figaro published in 2000. "But first I want him to have descendants because this is essential for the future of the principality and that of our family."

Multilingual, U.S.-educated and a five-time bobsledding Olympian, Albert already had taken over royal powers — but not the throne — last Thursday because Rainier, in intensive care with heart, breathing and kidney problems, was too sick to rule.

Rainier's funeral will be held at midday April 15 at the 19th-century Monaco Cathedral where he and Princess Grace wed. He is expected to be buried alongside her.

Rainier's death will briefly transform this Mediterranean enclave noted for high-end fun. The government said there would be no musical entertainment open to the public until after Rainier is buried.

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