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Charles the Heartthrob
As the prince turns 60, Tina Brown believes he and Diana had more in common than they realized.
I know it’s hard to believe, but when I was growing up in Britain in the ’70s, Prince Charles was considered, well, hot. I tried to explain this to American readers who showed up at my book signings for The Diana Chronicles last year, and asked, as they inevitably did, why the beautiful young Spencer girl fell so hard for the big-eared heir to the British throne.
The point is, that the young Lady Diana Spencer wasn’t the only British teenager who had a picture of Charles pinned up behind her bed in the dorm. The Playboy Prince, as he was known, was dashing in those days—the most eligible bachelor in the world. When he toured Australia, leggy models leapt out of the surf to kiss him for a photo op. He was brave. He dived out of helicopters. He whooshed down the ski slopes. He broke the hearts of a string of society beauties including Diana’s elder sister Sarah. That’s why it was so hard for him when Diana’s star power suddenly relegated him to the Royal Stiff no one wanted to see. It wasn’t just Camilla who wrecked the marriage of Charles and Di.
The iron entered the prince’s soul as early as the very first tour of Wales he took with Diana in October 1981. As they worked the rope line together, the side that got Diana went crazy, shrieking with excitement and calling for “Di Di Di!” The side that got Charles groaned with disappointment. “Oh no! We got HIM.” And this, you have to remember, was Wales, of which he was prince, crowned by the queen herself at Caernarfon Castle at a televised ceremony watched by every admiring young British girl, including me.
Sixty is late to come into your own, but the zeitgeist finally caught up with him. It’s OK to talk to plants now.
Ever since that time, Charles has had to endure first the torment and then the shadow of Diana. It is one of the saddest ironies of his life that even as they headed for divorce, they had at last begun to understand each other. On her 35th birthday in July 1996 the prince visited her as a surprise at Kensington Palace and they sat together in her sitting room and had tea and chatted about the children and their philanthropies and their shared anecdotes of royal life. The more mature humanitarian Diana would have been a spouse Charles could have related to well if she had been 30 when he married her instead of an unworldly 20-year-old bride. Though they were sexually hopelessly unsuited, interest-wise they had more in common than they knew. It would never have been a love match, but without the tenacious presence of Camilla, it might have been a permanently negotiated truce.
The trouble was that Charles too was mired in an identity crisis of his own. It wasn’t his fault he had been raised as a little Lord Fauntleroy throwback by nannies and octogenarian mentors and parents who visited him occasionally when they returned from affairs of state. In his own way he was as much a renegade as Diana. His much-mocked passions for organic farming, climate control, interfaith initiatives, and community building were not absurd at all, just ahead of his time. Sixty is late to come into your own, but the zeitgeist finally caught up with him. It’s OK to talk to plants now. Though the British public will never really appreciate him as he would like, he’s having something of an Al Gore moment.
Will he ever be king? I am surprised how much I am asked that question. The line of succession will certainly not jump to Prince William and give media outlets the sexy ermine pictures they want. Being king is a bloodline, not a job in the CEO sense of the word. But there is the longevity of his family to consider. His mother, Queen Elizabeth, is a spry 82 who goes for hearty gallops every morning. The queen mother died at 101 and wore out her guests at Royal Lodge till her last gasp. I have always thought that Charles’ air of humorous self-deprecation comes from knowing in his heart that he might miss the crown by a few months. (“Just my luck” is one of his favorite catchphrases.) That may be as well for Camilla, who will do dowager better than queen. As the Prince of Wales celebrates 60 at Highgrove tomorrow, however, it’s worth considering what an enlightened King Charles III still might have the chance to be.
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Tina -- I think the Queen Mum was 101 when she died.
I have to admit that Charles, in the above picture, looks handsome. What a body! I have to agree with Tina that I believe Diana & Charles understood each other. Their both, astrologically, water signs: Diana (Cancer) and Charles (Scorpio). Water signs are known for being emotional. However, Scorpio's are known to keep their emotional feelings to themselves and they like their own space. I think it was due to the media and countless other factors that drove them apart. But one thing's for sure, they did love each other..
Christopher Hitchens once quiped that the three saddest words in the English languages are: Camila Parker Bowles.
One hopes that Prince Charles has come to terms with the fact he may never be king, unlike Edward VII. It appears HRH has made a life for himself, a worthwhile life, and hopefully can take pride and satisfaction in that. I'm quite sure that if HRH is still alive when Her Majesty dies that nothing will be skipped over to Prince William, but should it go directly to William that way, Prince Charles has not lived in vain, and has, I'm sure, enriched a lot of lives. That, one hopes, is enough.
When in America have we ever had such a forward-thinking, erudite leader? Hmm. Like, er uh, never. I've always been a raving fan.
People worry about Peak Oil, but Charles has made real-world strides on commercial organics, the necessary conceptual & actual step toward our understanding of a much more pressing subject which I call Peak Soil. Topsoil is rare and fragile on our darling planet -- and organic only means that we nurture and tend our soil so it can nurture and tend us back. Charles is a visionary. I wish you'd do an interview with him for The Beast, Tina.
Thank you.
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