‘Frump tower’ can’t escape former rival
The Charles & Camilla Oldies Road Show last night attended a performance of Beach Blanket Babylon in San Francisco, which at least sounds age- appropriate for two fossils who passed through teen- hood in the ’ 60s.
Apologists for the Duchess of Cornwall would describe the recently minted and legitimized royal as a game trooper, for venturing boldly into the United States — loyal Dianaland — on her first formal foreign assignment since the April nuptials.
I would call her gamy.
Lots of miles and plenty of betrayals on a woman formerly known as The Rottweiler, now rehabilitated through ferocious image- spinning as a jolly gal, devoted spouse and solid emotional anchor for The Man Who Will Be King. Aman — who can forget — who famously wished he were a tampon whilst cooing sweet nothings to Mrs. Parker- Bowles down an unsecured telephone line.
Their romance may have been sturdy, surviving marriage to others and the shrill tabloid opprobrium directed at their tawdry affair, but it was also, endlessly, sophomoric. Which speaks volumes about a monarchwaiting who is struggling to have himself taken seriously on weighty issues such as global warming and organic farming.
Exactly two decades ago, I happened to be at the White House when the Princess of Wales — a title Wife No. 2 does not possess — took Washington by storm, charming politicians and celebrities alike, completely winning over the same media hounds she would later play like a maestro, when the battle lines had become openly entrenched and everyone was picking sides and the former Diana Spencer needed allies in influential places.
It is interesting that many media organizations used the opportunity of Camilla’s introduction to American society this past week to re- publish and reair those famous images of Diana, in her off-the-shoulder midnight blue ball gown, tripping the light fandango with John Travolta following a state dinner hosted by the Reagans. Even eight years gone, Diana can still knock ’ em dead. And sell papers, or glossy magazines — witness the December issue of Vanity Fair, with never- before published pictures of the princess.
Diana always looked as if totheCamilla, wearing a diadem on loan from her mother-in-law, Queen Elizabeth II, at a recent state dinner in London, looked like a drag queen in rhinestone, for all that the jewels were real. Royal stature does not sit easily on this stiffly hairsprayed head. As mightily as palace PR- pros tried, in cahoots with their own friends in the establishment media, they couldn’t erase the ghost of Diana from this Wales II: The Sequel spectacle. Indeed, so exacting were the efforts to stage- manage this American debut for the Duchess that officials carefully avoided an Oct. 31 arrival state- side, apparently to prevent headlines such as: “ Camilla flies in on Halloween.” But no amount of puffing and bluffing, to say nothing of revisionist history, could discourage commentators from comparing Camilla unfavourably with her predecessor. Yes, 20 years have passed since that first White House fling. For Diana, not for Charles, who recalled his first visit to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. in 1970 during after- dinner remarks he made in Washington last week — how the press was “ busy trying to marry me off to Tricia Nixon.”
Perhaps match-making jokes are not terribly wise, under the circumstances, for Charles and “ my darling wife,” a woman who is profoundly not the trophywife so common to second marriages for successful men. But, despite two fine sons that were the product of their doomed union, the prince seems determined to act as if that first headlock wedlock never happened.
He’s dreaming. And in the U. S., the Waleses got a rude awakening, even if the Bushes did lay on only the fourth state dinner of their entire Washington tenure, Oscar de la Renta dressing both Laura Bush and Condoleezza Rice for a glittery if decidedly low- voltage soirée, with a guest list short on A- list celebrity power. ( Former First Lady Nancy Reagan brought Merv Griffin as her date.) More impressive was the gang summoned to a cocktail reception in New York City, which included the likes of Yoko Ono, Sting and Robert De Niro. At that champagne fete, Mrs. Windsor led with a flattering dress that revealed a prominent décolletage. In this one department, as a catty correspondent noted, the late and lanky Diana could never compete. Although she did look mighty stacked at her debut as affianced princess- to- be — back in those pre- bulimic days when she was still a ripe 19- year- old — causing the paparazzi to drool as she emerged from a limousine in that shoulder- less black taffeta gown.
In any event, as I was saying, there’s been a lot of adultery under the bridge since those halcyon days of Dianamania. Were she still alive, Diana would now be 44 and no doubt a glamorous, fashion- plate sophisticate. Camilla is 58, one year older than Charles, yet and still a dowdy blah, for all that she may find support and morale-boosting among middle- aged women who want desperately to believe in mature love and romance- everlasting and sexual seduction that doesn’t wane with the passage of time.
In England, sycophants of majesty have gone so far as declaring the advent of something called Camilla Chic — all tweedy and Burberry — now that the Duchess has undergone a quasistyle makeover.
It is, clearly, unfair to compare Camilla with the young and charismatic Diana, but it’s also inescapable. The royals are there for show; it’s their family business. But when you get the likes of Joan Rivers, she of the re- upholstered face, waxing romantically about this second marriage, as she did the other night on Larry King Live — Rivers purports to be a pal of the couple — it’s natural to ponder on the scarcity of Duchess enthusiasts. What next, late night endorsement-for-hire Camilla infomercials? Most American media pundits were not buying this fairytale romance redux, even if the loving between the Waleses is palpably genuine. The Miami Herald described their visit as “ the Un- Diana tour, in which a couple of middle- aged, earnest eccentrics from the English countryside take an educational holiday abroad.” One opinion poll showed that 81 per cent of Americans — who traditionally champion the underdog — don’t give a toss about the pair.
For those who do care, Camilla will always be the interloper, the cause of Diana’s unhappiness, and the “ Frump Tower” as one New York tabloid put it. The most famous backstreet girl in the world, tarted up as a royal and future Queen. Our Queen.