by Susan Flantzer
© Unofficial Royalty 2019
Prince Albert II of Monaco (born 1958)
(All photos credits – Wikipedia unless otherwise noted)
Albert II, Sovereign Prince of Monaco was born on March 14, 1958, at the Prince’s Palace in Monaco. He is the only son and the second of three children of Rainier III, Sovereign Prince of Monaco and American actress and Academy Award winner Grace Kelly. Albert’s paternal grandparents were Princess Charlotte of Monaco (illegitimate and adopted daughter of Prince Louis II of Monaco) and Count Pierre de Polignac. His maternal grandparents were John B. Kelly Sr., an American Olympic triple gold medalist in rowing, and Margaret Majer, the first coach of women’s teams at the University of Pennsylvania. In 2005, upon the death of his father, Albert became Sovereign Prince of Monaco. Albert married South African Charlene Wittstock and had twins, a son and a daughter.
Prince Albert had ten first cousins. He shares his first cousins with his siblings Princess Caroline of Monaco, Princess of Hanover and Princess Stéphanie of Monaco.
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Paternal Aunt of Prince Albert II: Child of Princess Charlotte of Monaco and Count Pierre de Polignac
- Princess Antoinette of Monaco, Baroness de Massy (1920 – 2011), married (1) Alexandre-Athenase Noghès, had three children, all born before marriage, divorced; (2) Dr. Jean-Charles Rey, no issue, divorced; (3) John Gilpin, no issue, Gilpin died from a heart attack six weeks after marrying Antoinette
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Maternal Aunts and Uncle of Prince Albert II: Children of John B. Kelly Sr. and Margaret Majer
- Margaret Katherine Kelly (1925–1991), married George Davis, had two children
- John Brendan Kelly, Jr. (1927–1985), married Mary Gray Freeman, had six children
- Elizabeth Anne Kelly (1933–2009), married Donald LeVine, had two children
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PATERNAL FIRST COUSINS
Paternal First Cousins: Children of Princess Antoinette of Monaco, Baroness de Massy and Alexandre-Athenase Noghès
Princess Antoinette had a long-term affair with Alexandre-Athenase Noghès, a tennis player. The couple had three illegitimate children who were later legitimized when their parents married in 1951. The marriage lasted only three years. In 1951, Antoinette was created Baroness de Massy. Her children’s original surname was Grimaldi, the surname of the Princely Family of Monaco. The children changed their surname to de Massy and began to use the titles Baron and Baroness although not entitled to do so. After they were legitimized, Antoinette’s children were in the line of succession to the throne of Monaco until the death of Prince Rainier II in 2005.
Elisabeth-Anne de Massy (born 1947)
Elizabeth-Anne was a flower girl at the wedding of Grace Kelly and her uncle Prince Rainier III of Monaco. She married Baron Bernard Alexandre Taubert-Natta. They had one son before divorcing. Elizabeth-Anne married a second time to choreographer Nicolai Vladimir Costello and they had one daughter:
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Christian de Massy attending his mother’s funeral with his cousins Princess Caroline and Princess Stephanie and his niece Melanie de Massy (2011)
Christian de Massy (born 1949)
Christian de Massy was a page at the wedding of Grace Kelly and his uncle Prince Rainier III of Monaco. He was a professional race driver. Christian has held several diplomatic positions including Economic Attaché to Embassy of Monaco in Washington D.C, Diplomatic Advisor to the Ministry of Foreign, Economic and Financial Affairs and Monaco Chargé d’Affaires for Latin America and the Caribbean. Christian has been married and divorced four times: (1) María Marta Quintana y del Carril, had one daughter, divorced; (2) Anne Michelle Lütken, no children, divorced (3) Julia Lakschin, no children, divorced; (4) Cécile Irène Gelabale, had two sons
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Princess Antoinette with her two daughters, Elisabeth-Anne de Massy and Christine de Massy (1961)
Christine de Massy (1951 – 1989)
Christine was a flower girl at the wedding of Grace Kelly and her uncle Prince Rainier III of Monaco. She married Charles Wayne Knecht, a first cousin once removed of her aunt by marriage Princess Grace. They had one son before divorcing. Christine then married Leon Leroy but the marriage was childless. She died a year after her second marriage from leukemia.
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MATERNAL FIRST COUSINS
Maternal First Cousins: Children of Margaret “Peggy” Kelly and George Davis
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Peggy Kelly Davis with her two daughters
Margaret Ann “Meg” Davis, (born 1946)
Meg Davis, along with her sister Mary Lee, was a flower girl at the wedding of her aunt Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier of Monaco. In 1964, she married Richard Roe and they had three sons. The couple divorced and Meg married William Packer, the ex-husband of her cousin Grace LeVine.
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Mary Lee Davis (born 1948)
Along with her sister Meg, Mary Lee Davis was a flower girl at the wedding of Prince Rainier of Monaco and her aunt Grace Kelly. She eloped when she was fifteen-years-old and married eighteen-year-old John Paul Jones Jr., the son of a local architect. Mary Lee had three children with her first husband. She married a second time to Hugh M Kentworthy and the couple had two children.
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Maternal First Cousins: Children of John B. Kelly Jr. and Mary Gray Freeman
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(L-R) John B. Kelly III President of the Prince Albert of Monaco USA Foundation, his cousin Prince Albert II of Monaco and Miles White Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Field Museum
John B. Kelly III
John B. Kelly III received his bachelor’s degree in Economics from Harvard University. He married Karen Spencer, an attorney, and they had one daughter and one son. John is a banker and serves on the boards of the Fairmount Park Conservancy and the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation – USA.
In September 2016, Prince Albert II of Monaco purchased his mother’s childhood home, a 17-room house on Henry Avenue in East Falls, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with the intention to restore it. His cousin John B. Kelly III supervised the work on the house. Several other of Prince Albert’s cousins, including artist Susan Kelly von Medicus and her son William von Medicus, also helped out with the project. The home will serve as regional offices for the Princess Grace Foundation, as well as an exchange program with the Princess Grace Irish Library in Monaco. Tours of the house will benefit the Princess Grace Foundation and the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation.
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(L-R) William von Medicus (Susan Kelly von Medicus’s son) with baby Nora, Christopher LeVine, Susan Kelly von Medicus, Meg Davis Packer, Prince Albert II of Monaco, John B. Kelly III, Margaret Kelly, Nick Kelly (John B. Kelly III’s son), Megan von Medicus (William’s wife), and Karen Spencer Kelly stand in front of the newly renovated Princess Grace Kelly of Monaco’s Childhood Home in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on May 9, 2018
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Susan Kelly von Medicus (in blue)
Susan Kelly von Medicus
Susan married Richard von Medicus and they had three sons. Susan is an art instructor at Villanova University in Pennsylvania and an artist specializing in iconography. Check out her artwork at her website: https://www.susanvonmedicus.com/
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Elizabeth “ Liz” Kelly (1959 – 2006)
Elizabeth Kelly earned a dual degree in 1981 in English and archaeology from Harvard University, where she was on the swim team and ran a catering service. She opened Brickworks in 1988 at 119 South 19th Street in Philadelphia. It was a bakery and lunch cafe named after the bricklaying industry in which her grandfather John B. Kelly Sr. made his fortune. Elizabeth died of cancer.
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No information on these cousins, all daughters of John B. Kelly, Jr.
- Ann Kelly Ogle
- Maura Kelly Casey (1957 – 2010) married Kevin Casey.
- Margaret Christina “Buttons” Kelly
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Maternal First Cousins: Children of Elizabeth Anne “Lizanne” Kelly and Donald LeVine
Grace LeVine (1956 – 1999)
Grace was born in the year of the wedding of her aunt Princess Grace and was named after her. She attended the University of Pennsylvania. In 1978, she was a witness for her cousin Princess Caroline at her first wedding to Philippe Junot. Grace married William Packer. The couple had no children and divorced. Grace owned Sweetwater Farm, a bed-and-breakfast in Glen Mills in Chester County, Pennsylvania. She died of cancer in 1999. An annual award for young people in the arts, given by the Princess Grace Foundation, is named the Grace LeVine Award. Grace left Sweetwater Farm to her brother Christopher who renamed it The Inn at Grace Winery in honor of his sister.
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Christopher LeVine with his cousins Princess Caroline and Princess Stephanie
Christopher LeVine (born 1958)
Christopher LeVine married Mary Victoria McNeil. The couple had two daughters and one son. Their daughter Ginna LeVine is an actress. Christopher was best man at Prince Albert’s wedding and is the godfather of Hereditary Prince Jacques of Monaco, Prince Albert’s son. Christopher and his wife run the bed and breakfast, mentioned above, that Christopher’s sister left him after her death.
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Works Cited
- Lundy, D. (2019). Main Page. [online] Thepeerage.com. Available at: http://www.thepeerage.com/. (for genealogy information)
- Unofficial Royalty. (2019). Unofficial Royalty. [online] Available at: https://www.unofficialroyalty.com. (for biographical and genealogy information)
- Wikipedia. (2019). Main Page. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/. (for biographical and genealogy information)