ANATOMY OF A TRAGEDY
Marking Diana’s death, 20 years later
THE TV networks have gone into overdrive to commemorate the 20th anniversary of Princess Diana’s grisly death in a Paris car crash.
Not only are they dredging up clips you’ve probably seen countless times before, but they’re interviewing anyone with even the most tangential connection to the “People’s Princess,” who was 36 when she died on Aug. 31, 1997 along with companion Dodi Fayed and chauffeur Henri Paul in a Paris tunnel. (Bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones was severely injured in the crash.)
ABC leads the Princess Di invasion with “The Story
of Diana” (Wednesday and Thursday, 9-11 p.m.), a two-part special co-produced with People magazine (which featured the so-called “Shy Di” on 57 of its covers — talk about branding). Although the past will be raked over and over, the special also aims to show how the Princess of Wales, who was committed to various charities, is relevant today.
“Diana: In Her Own Words” (Aug. 14, 9 p.m., National Geographic) attempts to set itself apart from the competition by stressing that this special is the one in which Diana talks about Diana, in a series of secret interviews recorded in Kensington Palace in 1991. The topics covered will make you think twice about wanting to be famous: bulimia, a “fairytale” marriage that turned into a nightmare and the feeding frenzy of the paparazzi. Sometimes a girl just wants to put her feet up. Di couldn’t do that.
“Diana: Her Story” (Aug. 22, 8 p.m., PBS) features a series of videos Diana recorded with her speech coach in 1992 — and, in these, a more candid portrait of the tragic princess emerges. She discusses her courtship with Prince Charles (“He’d ring me up every day for a week and then not talk to me for three weeks. Very odd.”) and her intuition that she was destined for greatness (“I knew that something profound was coming my way”). She also reveals how she uncovered the fact that Camilla Parker-Bowles was Charles’ long-standing paramour.
“Diana and the Paparazzi” (Aug. 27, 8 p.m., Smithsonian) explores Diana’s entanglement with the paparazzi, which ultimately claimed her life. (The car in which she was riding that fateful night night in Paris was being chased by paparazzi.) Flattered by the media’s attention early on in her royal reign, Diana came to understand that the press was invasive and profit-driven.
Smithsonian will follow this that same night with “Diana: The Day We Said Goodbye” (9 p.m), which recounts how an estimated 2 billion people worldwide watched Diana’s televised funeral, held at Westminster Abbey on Sept. 6, 1997 — a day that brought the world together in grief.