The princess of put-downs
The life of Princess Margaret is gripping viewers of TV drama The Crown. MARION McMULLEN looks at the world of the right royal rebel
SHE travelled the globe, was pictured with the biggest celebrities of the day and excelled at the art of the put-down remark. Princess Margaret is said to have told Hollywood star Elizabeth Taylor the famous 33.19 carat Krupp diamond ring Richard Burton had bought her was “very vulgar”.
Elizabeth said: “Yes, ain’t it great?” The princess asked if she could try on the sparkler and slipped it on her own finger – the Oscar-winning film star promptly pointed out “Not so vulgar now, is it?”.
Queen Elizabeth’s younger sister is also said to have told High Society leading lady Grace Kelly “You don’t look like a movie star” and once asked supermodel Twiggy her name after ignoring her for two hours at a dinner party. Twiggy explained her name was Lesley Hornby, but people called her Twiggy. “How unfortunate,” said Princess Margaret and turned away again.
British actress Helena Bonham Carter is currently playing the royal rebel in Netflix television drama The Crown and was advised during her research by Lady Anne Glenconner.
Her memoir Lady In Waiting (Hodder & Stoughton), about being lady in waiting to Princess Margaret for more than three decades, came out in October and she says she wrote it because she was “fed up with people writing such horrible things about her”.
The 87-year-old described the princess as a “wonderful friend” .
Helena has said of taking on the royal role: “I met her a few times when I was young, as she had known my uncle for a long time. She once came up to me at Windsor and said [of her acting] ‘You are getting better, aren’t you?.’
“I thought that was such a typical remark because she was brilliant at complimenting and at the same time putting you down.”
Interest in the party-loving royal has never been so high and Margaret Rose made her first entrance in style during a stormy night at Glamis Castle – the first royal baby to be born in Scotland since 1600.
She was born in 1930 – the same year as James Bond actor Sean Connery, Hollywood star Clint Eastwood and American astronaut Neil Armstrong – and once described herself as “the heir apparent to the heir presumptive”.
She was always a colourful and controversial figure and attracted national attention from an early age following her doomed romance to divorcé Group Captain Peter Townsend, who was 16 years her senior. She later made a public announcement about the relationship saying: “I would like it to be known that I have decided not to marry Group Captain Peter
Townsend. Mindful of the church’s teaching that Christian marriage is indissoluble, and conscious of my duty to the Commonwealth, I have resolved to put these considerations before any others.”
She was 29 when she finally tied the knot in 1960 to photographer Anthony ArmstrongJones. It was the first royal wedding to be broadcast on television and crowds slept on the pavements of London overnight to catch a glimpse of the new bride and groom on their way to Westminster Abbey.
Her young niece, Princess Anne, was one of the bridesmaids, and the couple later set off on a six week honeymoon in the Caribbean aboard the royal yacht Britannia.
The glamorous pair continued to travel the world throughout their marriage and mixed with Hollywood royalty when they visited America for the first time in 1965. They reportedly arrived with 75 pieces of luggage for their whirlwind trip.
Princess Margaret visited the set of Alfred Hitchcock’s film Torn Curtain, met Julie Andrews and Paul Newman and attended a Beverly Hills dinner party with guests including Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra, Fred Astaire and James Stewart.
The Stateside trip ended with a black-tie dinner at the White House with President Lyndon B Johnson.
Princess Margaret was also friends with the likes of Peter Sellers, Mick Jagger, David Niven and American actor Warren Beatty during her life.
The mother-of-two’s marriage ended in divorce in 1978.
It was the first divorce for a senior royal since 1901 when Queen Victoria’s granddaughter
Princess Victoria was granted a divorce from Ernest Louis, Grand Duke of Hesse.
Princess Margaret suffered several health issues including two strokes before she passed away in 2002 from another stroke at the age of 71.
She once said “I have always had a dread of becoming a passenger in life,” but her early love Peter Townsend later simply described her in his autobiography Time And Chance as “a girl of unusual, intense beauty”.