Philip, man of action
‘He rides, sails, fishes, drives horses... really, he could have been James Bond’
LOOKING suave in his tuxedo, and giving a karate-style swipe of his hand, there was more than a touch of the dashing secret agent about the Duke of Edinburgh.At least, to film beauty Honor Blackman there was. It was 1964 and the Avengers actress, soon to appear as Pussy Galore in that year’s James Bond movie Goldfinger, was in the line-up of stars to be introduced to the Duke at the Royal Film Performance of Move Over Darling.
When Prince Philip asked her if she was ready for the public attention being a Bond girl would bring, and waved his arm, she countered with a martial arts pose and assured him, ‘Yes, I certainly am.’ Cue an explosion of flashbulbs.
In fact, the Duke of Edinburgh had been on a secret mission of his own. Prudish American film censors, upset by her character’s saucy name, were threatening to ban the movie. But as soon as the Prince was photographed talking to Honor on the red carpet, all obstacles vanished.
Ruggedly handsome action man and former Royal Navy commander Philip had his own inimitable style which prompted his friend and one-time Bond girl Joanna Lumley to confess: “I think he is just an extraordinary character. He rides, sails, drives horses, fishes, swims… He really could have been Bond.”
Tall, fit, with piercing blue eyes and with a flop of hair so blond it was almost white, as a young man Philip of Greece and Denmark looked every inch a Viking god.
Queen Ingrid of Denmark spoke for many when she wrote at the time of his 1947 marriage to Princess Elizabeth: “Good looking? He was astronomical!”
By the age of 17 he was already attracting girls like moths to a flame and, according to his cousin, Alexandra of the Hellenes, he lapped up the attention ‘like a tail-wagging puppy’. He spent the summer holidays of 1938 in Venice with Alexandra, as the guest of her mother Aspasia, widow of King Alexander of Greece.
ALEXANDRA reported: “Blondes, brunettes, and redhead charmers, Philip gallantly and, I think quite impartially, squired them all!” After Gordonstoun, he joined the Royal Navy, and in 1939, as the man named “best cadet” at Britannia Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, he was famously chosen to entertain the visiting Princess Elizabeth and younger sister Princess Margaret, which he did by offering croquet instruction and jumping over the tennis net repeatedly. From that moment on, there would never be another man for Lilibet, but she was only 13.
Not long after that, Philip was introduced to the beautiful Canadian-born debutante Osla Benning and became infatuated. They went dancing at the popular 400 Club in Leicester Square and were said to be unofficially engaged, but war interrupted.
Midshipman Philip soon proved himself cool under fire at the Battle of Crete and was mentioned in despatches for his command of the battleship HMS Valiant’s searchlights
during the Battle of Cape Matapan in 1941. He was made a First Lieutenant at just 21 and, as second in command of HMS Wallace during the invasion of Sicily in 1943, he saved the ship by launching a raft with smoke flares to deceive an enemy bomber into thinking they had already sunk.
He became close friends with Australian seaman Mike Parker, whose first wife Eileen said: “I recollect so well thinking at the time what a handsome man Philip of Greece was. I was not at all surprised to hear that every unmarried Wren had her sights on him.”
Philip had kept in touch with Osla by letter, but he also sent “cousinly” letters to “Lilibet” who had been writing regularly and sending food parcels, and they had exchanged photographs.
On leave at Christmas 1943, he saw that the shy girl he met at Dartmouth had grown into a shapely 17-year-old, playing Aladdin in the Windsor Castle panto. He visited the princess often when he was back in London on leave.
After the war, when he took up a shorebased posting, he would speed into the quad at Buckingham Palace in his MG Roadster, always “hatless and in a hurry to see Lilibet”, according to royal nanny Marion Crawford.
Hatless was very much Philip’s casual style. His impoverished playboy father, when he
died in Monte Carlo in 1944, left Philip only a signet ring, which he always wore thereafter, an ivory shaving brush, which he took to using, and a few hand-me-down clothes, which he had altered to fit.
After a holiday in France in 1946, Philip was invited late that summer to the King’s grouse shoot at Sandringham where he spent three weeks in intense conversation with Elizabeth and they talked for the first time about marriage. Senior palace courtiers were unconvinced the heartthrob Prince was royal husband material .Tommy Lascelles, private secretary to King George VI, told a friend: “They thought he was rough, illmannered, uneducated and would probably not be faithful.”
But Princess Elizabeth knew her beau, and she was determined.The wedding was a colourful boost for austere, post-war Britain.
As a new husband Philip threw himself into high-adrenaline sports, and patronages of charities that interested him, aided by celebrity friends that his new position brought him.
The first was the National Playing Fields Association, naturally enough, and he recruited Frank Sinatra and his wife Ava Gardner for a lucrative fundraiser.
Philip later played a key part in the creation of the World Wildlife Fund (now the World Wide Fund for Nature).
Hanging on to a semblance of his bachelor independence, he enjoyed weekly all-male meetings of the Thursday club. A dozen or so friends, including actors David Niven and Peter Ustinov, poet John Betjeman, photographer Cecil Beaton, and his friend and aide Mike Parker, would meet in a private room at Wheeler’s fish restaurant in Soho.
Parker, Philip’s Private Secretary, later insisted: “We’ve been given the reputation of being wild, but the truth is we enjoyed fun and going around with people who knew what was going on. People got very merry but never drunk.As far as being wild, not guilty. As far as hanging around women, not guilty.”
One night, however, Philip and Parker were back home so late that the gates to Clarence House had been locked and they had to climb over. “Serves them both right,” was Elizabeth’s reaction, but she was happy enough with the Thursday Club and “Philip’s funny friends”.
PHILIP’S posting to HMS Chequers in Malta could not have been more welcome for both of them. He was back doing the job he loved, far away from the constraints of Buckingham Palace. He was in his element, socialising with fellow officers, water-skiing, swimming and scuba-diving during time off. He was also introduced by his Uncle Dickie Mountbatten to the sport of polo and was soon representing Great Britain.
He was given command of his first ship, HMS Magpie.The crew called him Dukey and one recalled: “He made us work like dogs but treated us like gentlemen.”
But the King’s illness – he had lung cancer – brought the happy days in Malta to an abrupt end and in 1951 Philip left the Navy to concentrate on helping his wife support her father.The following year, the King died, and Philip became her consort.
He threw himself into the demands of his new position with stoic determination. But the action man was always there beneath the dinner jacket or country tweeds. Hunting, shooting, fishing were what he lived for… along with flying.
As the newly-appointed Marshal of the Royal Air Force he started pilot training in November 1952 and got his wings in May 1953 having shown “above average airmanship”. He got his helicopter licence three years later, and his private pilot’s licence in 1959. He would go on to fly 59 types of aircraft and notch up 5,984 flying hours
‘Good looking? He was astronomical!’ QUEEN INGRID OF DENMARK
before calling it a day in 1997, aged 76. His love of physical challenges and the great outdoors led him to set up the Duke of Edinburgh Awards in 1956.
The crack shot Duke enjoyed shooting, and saw no conflict with his support for the World Wildlife Fund. In 1961, as the guest of the Maharaja of Jaipur, in India, he personally shot a tiger and continued to shoot wild boar in Germany and pheasant with his guests on the Sandringham estate.
In 1962 he bought a 63ft ocean-going 1930s racing yacht, Bloodhound, which he raced at Cowes that year.
And, with the Queen or without her, he continued meeting the world’s celebrities. Over the years, he charmed many of the world’s most glamorous first ladies, from Jackie Kennedy to French President’s wife Carla Bruni, and met showbiz stars from Marilyn Monroe, Lauren Bacall and Britt Ekland to Gwyneth Paltrow and Cameron Diaz.
The Queen was comfortable with his friendships with beautiful women. But he found the attention it attracted irritating.
He was 85 when he told broadcaster Jeremy Paxman: “As far as I am concerned, every time I talk to a woman they say I’ve been to bed with her.Well, I’m bloody flattered at my age to think some girl is interested in me. It’s absolutely cuckoo.”
REFUSING to give an inch to old age any more than to the gossips, Philip was still competing in and occasionally winning national carriage driving competitions in 2006, aged 85. In 2012 he had to give up shooting after being warned by doctors that the recoil from the shotgun could damage a stent fitted during emergency heart surgery.
Even in his last years, when all the sports and hobbies he loved had been stripped away, there was still a hint of the swagger and the style that stole Elizabeth’s heart, more than 80 years ago. Phillip Schofield, who met him for a TV programme to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Duke of Edinburgh awards in 2016, said: “He’s blessed with some extraordinary James Bond-esque genes.
“He was very much the action man figure and what better way to encourage people than to lead by example.”