…aren’t the things you did wrong, but the things you didn’t do. These are the things that will surely haunt your soul into eternity.
Roger W. Smith is one such haunted individual — tortured by the fact that Grace Kelly expressed a covert interest in meeting him clandestinely in Paris 40-odd years ago, in response to which Smith dropped the damn ball. Shame!
HE friendo Bill McCuddy has recorded 18 podcasts with this writer, marketing whiz, editor and entrepreneur. Yeah, I don’t know him either.
Smith (not the late husband of Ann-Margret) is the co-founder and executive editor of Global Media Intelligence, a media research service for major investors in media companies, and a former entertainment industry executive (1974-1996) with Warner Bros., Carolco and Live! Entertainment.
Smith worked for Carolco (Andy Vajna, Mario Kassar) in the mid ’80s, which is also when I worked as a Carolco under-publicist in the employ of Bobby Zarem and Dick Delson, so maybe I ran into him at one point. My memory is a blank.
The only thing that stands out for me is the Kelly episode. Smith was allegedly “hit on” by Monaco’s princess in July ’82. Smith took a meeting in Monaco with Grace and Prince Rainer, and in so doing pitched her on playing the Mary Astor part (a divorcee) in a remake of Dodsworth. Kelly was allegedly “quite keen” to play the part but was killed in a car crash, of course, in September of that year.
The important thing is that after the meeting Kelly discreetly asked Smith to pay her a visit a week or two hence at a certain Paris hotel. If you know anything about Kelly’s adventurous sexual history the invitation may have led to something (who knows?), but any self-respecting, red-blooded male would have at least given Kelly a call when she was in town.
What did Smith do? He either blew her off or forgot or had another appointment or something. Ignominious!
Here’s the podcast link.
