The princess of put-downs
Baby Margaret with big sister Elizabeth and their mother
Helena Bonham Carter as Margaret in The Crown
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
In the garden at Windsor in 1941, left, and, right, in costume for the royal panto, Aladdin, in 1943 travel the world throughout their marriage and mixed with Hollywood royalty when they v visited America for the first time in 1965. They reportedly arrived w 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
An evening at Ronnie Scott’s with Peter Sellers in 1970
Princess Margaret in Jamaica in 1962
At the White House with President Lyndon B Johnson in 1965
On an Arizona ranch with Lord Snowdon
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”.
With Elizabeth Taylor at a fund-raising dinner