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The
current chapter of the Saga of the British Royal Family came
crashing through this past week. The matter of the secret Diana Tapes
and What the Butler Knew provoked Prince
Charles to publicly admit that he was the subject
of a rumor that alleged a “senior member of the
royal family” having been caught in a sexual moment
with a senior member of the Prince’s household
staff.
I first heard this story last year and made reference to it
in the Diary
last January, without mentioning names.
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And if
I heard it, then there must have been hundreds if not thousands
of others who’ve heard it and more. Stories about the
prince being gay have been circulating for years, especially
among gay members upper circles of London. Which is not to
say they are true.
The roots of this particular drama go way back. Diana was very
much alive and very much the scorned woman. Charles and his
set of advisers (which evidently included the mistress) and
admirers believed they could terminate Diana’s importance
in the scheme of things. One example of their approach to the
problem? Her title was rescinded. Her Royal Highness she could
no longer be. Princess, yes; but HRH? Nu.
But did it really matter in the big wide world where Diana
held sway? Diana was still the princess (and the star of the
world) and Charles was still the dorky husband, the guy with
the perpetually wrinkled brow who was always adjusting his
shirt cuffs.
It is all just very unfortunate. He never got it. At this age,
it is not unreasonable to think that he ever will get it. He
can’t be faulted; he’s lived all his life in a
most difficult circumstance: waiting for the death of his mother.
He’s lived his life before the loving, adoring, and now
leering eyes of the world, from birth and childhood to his
investiture of the ancient title he now bears, to his coming
of age and thence fatherhood.
But the world saw only the trappings of what is really a most
terrible, even cruel dilemma for a man. The system successfully
emasculated him.
It is also now being rumored that the courtiers around Buckhouse
(which is what the staff calls Buckingham Palace) are watching
this matter of Charles and the Diana Tapes very carefully.
And not haplessly, it is said, but hopefully.
The question has been posed: is this matter, now almost a decade
old, being used to make it possible for the Prince to step
aside? Has it already been concluded by those who draw the
conclusions that Prince Charles, like his great-uncle David,
briefly Edward VIII and later the Duke of
Windsor, is as weak and inept as he appears to be, and therefore
in the name of what’s best for the House of Windsor and
the Realm, must go? |
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CZ
at The Frick. October 2003.
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CZ
on the cover of the April 2003 issue of Quest magazine
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At
a cocktail reception for CZ Guest and her book Garden
Talk; Ask Me Anything. April 2002.
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CZ
Guest passed away at the age of 83 on Saturday after
a long bout with cancer which she characteristically treated
as nothing more than annoying. When she lost her hair from
chemotherapy a few years back, this lifelong member of the
Best Dressed List simply put on a scarf and went back out into
the world, chic as ever. When her hair began to grow back,
she sported a new crewcut, which she kept thereafter, and even
had the wit to pose for a Nike (or was it Adidas?) ad wearing
a sneaker on her new coiff as if to suggest a Mohawk.
She was one of the most photographed women of the American 20th century.
She was chic and elegant with an aristocrat’s irreverence — the
quintessential personification of the term “the Beautiful People.” She
enjoyed publicity which she treated as a kind of soft notoriety.
Although, as much as she was willing to be interviewed and to pose
for the camera, she claimed it never occurred to her to have “saved” any
of the articles or the pictures.
Mrs. Guest married a Phipps heir, Winston
F.C. Guest when she was 27 and bore him two children, Alexander
and Cornelia. Very early into the marriage, she had a acquired
a certain fame that remained with her throughout her life. As a young
adult she was known as a socialite horsewomen (and was photographed
for the cover of Time). As she got older she became known
for her gardening and turned it into a career selling books, garden
tools and implements and writing a gardening column for 350 newspapers.
She had a press agent’s genius for promotion and never tired
of selling her wares.
She liked people and befriended a variety
of personalities from the Duke
and Duchess of Windsor to movie stars to Andy
Warhol to gangster’s molls to all kinds
of people unknown to the world but nevertheless fun
and full of beans. She also loved dogs and always rescued
lots of them, keeping them living well on her Long
Island estate (which recently served as background
in a Ralph Lauren advertising campaign — in which
she makes a brief appearance).
It can be said fairly that she lived her life to the fullest. There
was the famous nude Diego Rivera did of her before
she was married, to hang, however briefly, over the bar in the Hotel
Reforma in Mexico City. Most women of the society of that time (the
1940s) would have been scandalized by the painter’s request,
not to mention its subsequent public unveiling. Not so for the former Lucy
Cochrane, a girl from the Brahmin side of Boston, Mass.
Like everything else she participated in, she thought it was fun.
As irreverent and free-thinking as she could appear to be, she had
little patience for those who did not follow the rules that maintained
the status quo. For years, she and Mr. Guest kept a place
in town in the penthouse at One Sutton Place South. One day she ran
into a new resident of the building, a woman about her age, also
an aristocrat with a famous name, carrying some groceries through
the lobby to the elevator. “Groceries are delivered only through
the service entrance,” she reprimanded; “rules are rules.”
On a Monday night, three weeks ago, at
the Autumn Dinner of The Frick Collection, I was wandering
around having a look and taking pictures when I saw
her looking camera ready, casually yet elegantly sitting
on a bench in the atrium with her friend. Naturally
I asked if I could take her picture and naturally she
agreed, pointing out how beautiful the atrium garden
we were in looked on this night. I took one picture
(with the Digital), didn’t like the result and
asked if she minded if I take another. Not a problem.
I took another, which appears above.
The moment reminded me of an incident that had occurred a few months
ago when she was being photographed for a magazine layout. She arrived
on time, which was her habit, only to find that they weren’t
ready for her. A young woman who was being photographed before her
was holding up the process (and everybody else) because she didn’t
like her hair and makeup.
When Mrs. Guest realized vanity was the problem, she stepped right
in.
“
Look,” she said to the young woman in her soft,
flat, but authoritative mid-Atlantic accent, “I’m
a lot older than you and I’ve been doing this
all my life. It’s very simple. Get in front of
the camera and let them take your picture. Then get
out of here so the rest of us can get on with it.”
The young woman heeded the advice and CZ got on with it, which was
her wont. |
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