ON THIS DAY

FROM THE ARCHIVE MARCH 1, 1996

PRINCESS Diana lashed Buckingham Palace last night over its handling of the royal divorce. She fumed: ‘I have given them everything they wanted and they are still not satisfied. I did not want this divorce, but I have agreed to it. Now they are playing ping-pong with me.’

MARCH 1, 2008

IRISH writer and director Martin McDonagh has told how he left 007 legend Sean Connery shaken and stirred – by telling him to f*** off. The pair clashed at a showbiz bash in London after McDonagh and brother John refused to stand for a toast to the Queen. McDonagh, 37, who has just directed the action comedy In Bruges, said he had been ‘blotto on vodka’ at the time. ‘They were toasting the Queen,’ he said. ‘Good old Irish boys that we are, we don’t like to stand for the Queen.’ He said Connery marched over, telling the brothers to ‘show some respect’ and stand. McDonagh responded with a mouthful for the former Bond actor. Connery is reported to have told him: ‘Calm down, sonny, and mind your language.’

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

CATHERINE BACH, 70. The US actress, right, played Daisy Duke in hit 1980s TV series The Dukes Of Hazzard – and came up with her costume, including tiny denim shorts. She said it was a complete fluke that she got the role, after being fired by her agent: ‘I’m half Mexican and half German, and my agency said, “You’re way too exotic and just not television material.” ’ RON HOWARD, 70. The US former child star played Richie Cunningham in the 1970s sitcom Happy Days before becoming a director, winning an Oscar for A Beautiful Mind in 2002. He used to be bothered by people harking back to his childhood fame, but now says: ‘I’ve come to appreciate my unique place in pop culture.’

BORN ON THIS DAY

HARRY BELAFONTE (19272023). The New York-born singer, actor and civil rights activist, right, popularised calypso music and had hits with Mary’s Boy Child and Day-O (The Banana Boat Song). In 1957, he starred in Island In The Sun, in which there is a suggestion of a romance between a black man and a white woman (played by Joan Fontaine) – it generated so much outrage in South Carolina, cinemas faced fines if they showed the movie. GEORGI MARKOV (1929-1978). The Bulgarian dissident writer died four days after being stabbed in the thigh by the tip of an umbrella poisoned with ricin while waiting for a bus in London. Markov was convinced he had been targeted by the KGB, while secret police files identified his assassin as an agent code-named ‘Piccadilly’, Francesco Gullino, an Italian-born Bulgarian who was never charged.

ON MARCH 1…

IN 1981, Bobby Sands, leader of the IRA in the Maze Prison, begins a hunger strike. IN 1984, US former child star Jackie Coogan dies aged 69.