Monaco’s Prince Rainier, 81
Posted: Wednesday, April 6th, 2005 4:55 amPrince Rainier III of Monaco, Europe’s longest-reigning monarch, died today at the age of 81 in a hospital overlooking the tiny state he turned into a billionaires’ paradise.
In a statement, his palace said he had been suffering heart, lung and kidney disorders. He died at 6.35am (0535 BST) with his son and heir, 47-year-old Prince Albert, at his side.
Prince Rainier, who had ruled Monaco since 1949, brought Hollywood glamour to the world’s second smallest state when he married the actress Grace Kelly and transformed the principality from a faded gambling centre into a playground for the rich.
Flags in Monaco were today already at half-mast in honour of Pope John Paul II, and the mood was sombre. “Everyone here feels orphaned,” Patrick Leclercq, Monaco’s minister of state, said in a statement broadcast on French television.
The prince is expected to be buried next to his wife, who died after a car crash in 1982, following at least a week of mourning in the principality. … Read full obituary
