Photography by Anita Zatz
In 1956, the marriage of actress Grace Kelly to Prince Rainier of Monaco—and the couple’s subsequent pregnancy announcement—was front-page news. Four thousand miles away, Saratoga Springs school kids read about the latest happenings with Philadelphia’s sweetheart in magazines like Life and Look, but never imagined they’d get a look at the princess in real life.
That is, until Saratoga social studies teacher Florence Hall took some of her 8th grade students on a field trip to West Point to watch the Army-Colgate football game in November 1956. Also in attendance? The royal couple, pregnant with Princess Caroline.
“We didn’t know that they were going to be there,” says Shirley Schultz, a member of that 8th grade class—the last to attend 8th grade at Saratoga Springs High School before it switched over to grades 9-12. “I used to love going to the movies. One that stands out in my mind is To Catch a Thief. The movie was made in the French Riviera. Amazing that when Grace married Prince Rainier, she would be calling that place her home.”
On the day of the football game, Schultz’s classmate, Anita Figelman (now Anita Zatz), happened to have a camera, and pulled it out just in time to snap this photo of Princess Grace walking by, only an arm’s length away.
West Point ended up winning the game 55-46, not that Schultz remembers that little detail. “I can still remember looking up at them on a balcony,” she says. “I didn’t even watch the game. I mainly kept looking for him and her. Mostly her.”