On Sept. 13, 1982, actress Grace Kelly, later known as Princess Grace of Monaco, was driving home when she suffered a stroke, plunging her car off a mountainside near Monte Carlo. The following day, the Country Girl actress died from her injuries at the age of 52.

The daughter of a former model and a wealthy industrialist, Kelly was a child actor and the epitome of glamour in the early 1950s, often modeling and appearing in TV commercials. Then, just as her career began to crest, the Oscar-winning actress took a step back from acting at the age of 26 and married Prince Rainier III of Monaco in 1956. The couple had three children: Princess Caroline, 68, Prince Albert, 67, who’s had a 20-year reign over Monaco, and Princess Stéphanie, 60.

Stéphanie was in the car with her mother the evening of the fatal crash, but she refused to speak about the accident for several years.

While Kelly often feuded with the media, she granted PEOPLE a rare interview at the reigning family’s Paris residence in April 1982, five months before her death. In the chat, the Rear Window star made it clear she had no regrets about fleeing the United States for love.

“I don’t look back. I haven’t had the time. I haven’t retired, you know,” she said, adding that a return to the big screen was “unlikely.”

She continued, “I think no matter what we do in life we have the same problems to face—problems of our own personality, our own limitations, our own shortcomings. People’s lives are going to be pretty much the same because of the people they are. We can cite environment, or parents or society only up to a certain point. After you’re 25, you do it to yourself.”

Kelly eschewed the idea that she would return to film, despite speculation at the time, noting that she didn’t feel like her life was lacking in any way.

“Well, there it is again—the media trying to pigeonhole me. To act, to have a career, and do it well, you have to do it completely, and I don’t have the time for this. I did enjoy and take pride in my work as an actress, yet I’m bemused by suppositions that my life since has somehow been less fulfilling. That certainly is not the case,” she said in the April 5, 1982, cover story. “Rather the reverse. For me as a woman, it was an easy decision to make and has remained easy to keep. In the last 26 years, I have been more of a producer in the artistic and cultural fields than anything else. But the press doesn’t seem to be interested in that side of my life.”

Elsewhere in the interview, the princess reflected on her parenting, but refused to delve into her children’s personal lives, particularly her daughter Caroline’s 1980 divorce from Philippe Junot.

At the time, ABC was producing a TV movie about Kelly, which she bristled at, calling the storyline “rather icky and revolting.”

“I think that no one has the right to exploit what I have done—my name and my life and my career—without permission. All you have is your name and your reputation. When people try to take that away, you are naturally going to resist,” she said, adding that she’d written letters to dissuade the project from happening.

She continued, “I certainly don’t think of my life as a fairy tale. I think of myself as a modern, contemporary woman who has had to deal with all kinds of problems that many women today have to deal with. I am still coping — trying to cope.”

While a return to the screen wasn’t on the royal’s radar, grandchildren were, although she had none when she died.

“No one likes the idea of getting older. It’s a question of facing the inevitable and not getting upset about it. One doesn’t feel older until you start getting aches and pains and have to curtail or adjust your activities. That hasn’t happened to me — yet,” she said at the time. “I’m lucky, and am just looking forward to what comes next. Being a grandmother would be an exciting experience.”

Between the three of them, Kelly’s children went on to have 11 kids of their own. Although they never got to meet their grandmother, they affectionately call the late princess “Mémé des anges,” which translates to “Grandma of the Angels.”