Even royal wedding can’t ruffle editor’s feathers
She seems serene, perched in a small nook away from her fiefdom in the Rogers Publishing Toronto headquarters.
Only weeks away from the biggest story in the history of the tiara-chasing Hello! Canada — a royal equivalent to the lunar landing — Alison Eastwood matter-of-facts about the coverage plans of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s impending nuptials.
“We’ve essentially got two issues at once, Monday and Tuesday,” the editorin-chief says about the deadlines looming immediately following the Wedding of the Year on May 19. There is the regular edition destined for the stands on Thursday, but also a “100 pagebound edition” being prepared: stat. It’s the biggest event to hit Hello! since, well, William and Kate’s wedding seven years ago.
“It’s the nature of what we do,” she half-sighs, showing a steel that, no doubt, comes naturally to someone who publishes 46 issues a year and, for the record, just put out the 600th issue of the outsized glossy earlier this month. (Full disclosure: I’m a contributor to the magazine.)
“We are news-driven,” says Eastwood, editor for the last eight years, all Bambiwide eyes and signature Sarandon-hue lid. “It’s celebrity news but news, nonetheless. So it depends on the cycle … and we’re going to follow the throughline.”
“A few years ago, it was Angelina (Jolie) and we followed that. Today, Harry and Meghan have eclipsed any Hollywood star.”
And what a cycle it has been. It’s a story that’s not only royal in scope but also one that signified a fresh social tide: Lovable prince who is the World’s Most Eligible Bachelor makes the choice of a bride who is an outside choice in every way. As an added bonus for Hello!, the unfolding story enjoyed a solid Canadian connection, with Markle living in Toronto and Harry sneaking in to see her.
“What was really eye-opening,” Eastwood reflects, thinking back to the early days of their then-secret romance, “was seeing how much a whole community can go on lockdown.
“We knew how serious it was when, all of a sudden … people we used to talk to all the time (friends and colleagues of Markle) wouldn’t even return a Facebook message. It was probably advised against doing so in some quarters.”
Because she, and the mag, were in the eye of the storm, and they’d had contact with Markle for years, they wound up becoming an indispensable link in the wider Hello! galaxy.
“We even had the good fortune of having done these little videos with her … pop questionnaires. There was one where (randomly) she was asked the question: Prince William or Prince Harry?”
“I don’t know,” she said, laughing it off. Of course, this was months before Markle would fatefully cross paths with the ginger prince. Only after prompting did the then-actress give her noncommittal answer: “Harry? Sure.”
As a child growing up in England, Eastwood vividly remembers following the nuptials of Charles and Diana on TV.
“I remember watching with the whole family … it was more magical then, in a way, because there were not so many platforms like there are now. It was a true live experience.”
“I wouldn’t say I grew up in a family of rah-rah royalists,” she goes on. “They were more like, well, celebrities. But at the same time, it wasn’t an era when we passionately debated about the monarchy being relevant or not. It was just … there.” Like the furniture. In terms of the enduring appeal of Hello! — which began as the Madridbased weekly Hola! in 1988, then expanded to a phalanx of offshoots in places as far-flung as the United Kingdom, Dubai, Russia, Argentina and Thailand — Eastwood cannot stress enough the photo- heavy tilt of the brand.
“Hello! was ahead of its time. We allconsume images now … live our days flicking from image to image (on screens). Hello! was doing it decades prior.”
There’s always been an Instagram-ness to it, but what’s also true — particularly with Hello! Canada, launched by Rogers in 2006 — is the extent to which its ethos remains a “friendly” one.
“People do underestimate the benefit, and worth, of bringing good news stories,” Eastwood says. “It takes courage to tell tough stories, they say … but, equally, it needs courage to tell good stories.
“There are so many dark and sad stories in the atmosphere right now … our challenge is not to make it too candycoated but, where we can, do stories that uplift.”
When she’s not chasing royals, Eastwood spends her time honing octaves. An all-in member of the local choir SoundCrowd — which describes its mission as one that endeavours “to enrich the Toronto community with the proven social and health benefits of participating and experiencing choral music” — the editor-by-day has even performed with her group at Carnegie Hall in New York City. Twice.
It’s her other life, but maybe it inevitably informs her first one.
Having grown up singing and in a household full of music, the mother of three cedes to the idea that it’s “sort of my yoga, yes.” There have been, of course, countless studies done on the therapeutic effects of music but, for Eastwood, it’s just a way of “getting out of my own head.”
And possibly even makes her a better team leader.
“There’s definitely a parallel … when an opportunity presents itself (for the choir) you have to quickly learn an arrangement and just do it,” she muses. “You have to learn your individual parts, and then bring it together and blend. Very similar in creating a magazine, yup!”
Meanwhile, the wedding. That, of course, is what occupies the largest file in Eastwood’s head these days.
Darting around some of the signposts and biggest questions surrounding this occasion, we touch on the much-ado dress (she’s rooting for Erdem, a British brand with a Canadian-born designer, to be Markle’s bridal outfitter), the somewhat hipster cake-maker that was recently announced (“Elderflower!” we both say at once) and the prospect of a guest stealing some of the spotlight (Lady Kitty Spencer — Princess Diana’s It Girl niece — is someone to keep an eye on).
Something that the editor-in-chief is certain will happen on the big day? A nod, of some sort, to Harry’s late mother. Because he was so young when she died, and the images are forever imprinted of a stricken 12-year-old walking in the funeral procession, there’s a special connection between him and the royalwatching public.
Plus, as Eastwood points out, “Harry has always been the one that talks about his mother more. He’s the one that summons up the nostalgia for her more.” He even named his charity, Sentebale, after a word in the language of Lesotho that means “Forget me not,” founded in the memory of his late mother, to support orphans and vulnerable children in sub-Saharan Africa.
“It’s all going to be very emotional,” she predicts.