Raducanu and Craig in line for honours
EMMA RADUCANU is to be awarded an MBE in the New Year’s honours list, while Daniel Craig, the James Bond star, and Barbara Broccoli, the long-time producer of the films, are also expected to receive gongs, The Sunday Telegraph understands.
The honour for Raducanu rounds off a dream year for the teenage tennis player, who won the US Open, aged 18, in September and only a week ago was describing her delight at winning the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award. Last night, it emerged that Prof Chris Whitty, the Chief Medical Officer, was in line for a knighthood.
Meanwhile, Craig is believed to be in line for a CMG – a high award usually handed to senior diplomats and spies – following the release of his fifth and final Bond film, No Time to Die.
In Ian Fleming’s From Russia With Love, General Grubozaboyschikov, the head of Smersh, the Soviet Union’s counter-intelligence agency, notes the fact that 007 “was decorated with the CMG in 1953, an award usually given only on retirement from the Secret Service, is a measure of his worth.”
Broccoli, 61, the US-born daughter of Albert “Cubby” Broccoli, the original producer of Bond, is to be made a dame, following more than three decades at the helm of EON, the production company behind the films, along with her half-brother, Michael G Wilson.
A CMG, or Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George, is an unusual choice of honour for the Queen to hand to an actor – rather than an ambassador or senior mandarin – but, then again, there are few people who can claim to have walked the monarch through her film debut. In a vignette recorded for the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympics, Craig was seen arriving at Buckingham Palace to pick up the Queen, before the pair appeared to board a helicopter bound for the London stadium and parachuted to the ground.
Buckingham Palace had said the Queen was “very happy” to take part in
the film and Mr Craig said: “She was great – calmer than me.”
Ms Broccoli, who received an OBE in 2008 and has dual British and US citizenship, said: “How wonderful of her to have done it.”
The MBE for Miss Raducanu would see the 19-year-old follow in the footsteps of Ellie Simmonds, who was awarded the honour, aged 14, as part of the 2009 New Year’s list, having won two golds at the Beijing Olympics and also went on to become BBC Sports Personality of the Year.
It is a remarkable feat for a teenager who sat her A-levels in the early summer, before making it through to the fourth round of the Wimbledon Championships.
Miss Raducanu, from Bromley, south-east London, went on to win the US Open two months later, describing the moment as “an absolute dream”.
The Queen was moved to write an open letter to the teenager, saying her triumph was a “remarkable achievement at such a young age”.
Ms Broccoli was educated in London and spent school holidays on Bond sets at Pinewood Studios.