Charles’s secret... he’s a devil of a dancer
EVEN after a lifetime in the public eye, Prince Charles can still surprise – as this secret let slip by actress Emma Thompson shows.
An old friend of our future king, she revealed that “dancing with him is better than sex”.
The Oscar- winning star made the light- hearted comment when interviewed by the writer Catherine Mayer for a new Time magazine profi le of the Prince of Wales.
Miss Thompson, 54, who won a Best Actress Academy Award for her role in Howard’s End and was formerly married to actor Sir Kenneth Branagh, added: “There’s a long history of relationships between Princes of Wales and actors — not just actresses, not just the rude relationships as [ Charles] would say, though God knows I’ve tried. He wasn’t having any of it.”
Miss Mayer, who spent months following the Prince, concludes that he is a passionate philanthropist committed to making the most of his inherited position.
But in her extensive new piece on 64- year- old Charles, entitled The Forgotten Prince, she also tells how he has been plagued by the perception that he is aloof, spoilt and desperate to become king.
He says in the Time article: “I’ve had this extraordinary feeling, for years and years, ever since I can remember really, of wanting to heal and make things better. I feel more than anything else it’s my duty to worry about everybody and their lives in this country, to try to fi nd a way of improving things if I possibly can.”
The Prince says his grandson Prince George is now “what this is all about” and describes Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, as a “wonderful wife”. Talking about his charity, The Prince’s Trust, which over 37 years has helped 650,000 young people launch businesses and careers, Charles speaks proudly of how it has given youngsters ambition.
He says: “A few people are lucky enough to know exactly what they want to do. But there’s a hell of a lot of others who don’t really know and may not be obviously academic, who suffer from low self- esteem.”
Miss Mayer visited Charles’s homes in England, Scotland and Wales and interviewed more than 50 of his friends and associates.