The Unofficial British Royal Family Pages

Wednesday 7 April 2004

Princess Diana: The Secret Tapes

First of all, the title of the show, broadcast in March on the NBC network here in the U.S., was an embarrassing American faux pas. According to the late royal biographer Theo Aronson in his charming book Royal Subjects, her title following her divorce was Diana, Princess of Wales. Because Diana was not born a princess, but only became one by marrying a prince, calling her 'Princess Diana' was, and is, quite incorrect.

Never daunted by such subtleties, nor by a lack of knowledge of royal protocol, host Jane Pauley and the crew at the National Broadcasting Company forged on ahead, producing yet another thoroughly American (read: glitzy, gossipy, starstruck, tabloid-style) 'documentary' on Diana. I can't recall which TV network produced the obviously CSI-influenced 'investigation' of Diana's death, last year, with author Patricia Cornwell using modern police and forensic methods to "unravel" the mystery and 'detect' whether there had been a conspiracy in it. But the two 'docudramas' show many similarities, most of all in their revisionist pseudo-history.

In this newest entry into the Diana hagiography stakes, there was suitably dramatic music, professionally scored like a movie soundtrack, for each phase of her short life, from childhood to regal wedding to bitter divorce to mysterious demise. There were pregnant pauses, with teasing questions posed just before the commercial breaks, to make you dash back in haste from the kitchen or the toilet. There were self-proclaimed Diana experts: Ken Lennox, who sometimes photographed her; Penny Junor, the only voice in the entire two-hour program lifted up in support of Charles, not so oddly enough; Andrew Morton, trying not to gloat too much over his royal windfall; Ken Wharfe, one of Diana's bodyguards; James Colthurst, her friend; Peter Settelen, her voice coach.

Such an assemblage of Diana's peripherals might have been expected to drop some bombshells, aye? But they didn't say anything new. There was little royal 'insider' gossip, no exciting revelations of secret rituals or criminal habits or sex orgies. The nearest to royal criticism any of the interviewees came was when Junor said (after the video clip showing Charles' televised confession of adultery) it was 'the single biggest mistake he ever made.' Well, quelle surprise!

These folk served mainly to introduce and comment on the vaunted 'secret tapes,' a collection of commentaries Diana apparently made in the last years of her life, when she was looking back on all that had happened in her whirlwind career as a royal bride and wife. The tapes were played against video montages of her, the famous moments of her life that we've all seen hundreds of times, captured forever: the engagement announcement, the royal wedding, the kiss on the palace balcony, Diana romping in her bikini while she was pregnant with William, the famous black dress with plunging neckline, tours abroad by the royal couple, the Taj Mahal scene, the Panorama interview, Charles' own admission of adultery, John Major in the House of Commons announcing the royal split, Diana's charity work, Diana with Dodi, the wreck in the tunnel.

It was a very public life indeed, a life known to all the world. But the words on the tapes told the different, inner story: how unhappy/depressed/bored/hurt/furious she really was inside, despite the glory of it all, and the world's adoration of her. If she was in fact thinking these very thoughts or doing these reckless things (suicide attempts, purging, throwing herself downstairs, taking lovers) when the video footage matched to her words was being shot, it's an extraordinary revelation of reality versus illusion. Of the dichotomy of any public figure: how she/he is viewed on the outside, and how it all looks from the inside.

But how are we to know that Diana did indeed have these insights at each of these times? Some of them must have been hindsight. If not hers, then perhaps the show's producers'. Did they painstakingly match Diana's taped comments to these famous pieces of film? Or did they just take her (or Morton's) word for it, that she was so exquisitely and painfully perceptive at the time of each event?

The sound quality of the tapes was not very good. They certainly weren't made for posterity, or to become her preserved legacy to history. I had to turn up the volume on the TV set very loud, in order to distinguish her words. And subtitles were provided for us American viewers, who are presumably not used to pristine British accents even after years of Masterpiece Theatre.

Diana's voice sounded dry, sometimes faintly bemused, often sullen, occasionally acidic. Almost like a very old lady looking back on her life, and unerringly pinpointing what was right, and where things went wrong. Maybe she was just in confessional mode; maybe just letting off steam, venting, 'bitching and moaning,' as we Americans say. Could someone so young really be so honest and self-aware? Or was she being playful, mischievous, spiteful, or what? What was the context of her tapings when she made them? Some commentary on when, where, why, how (from Diana herself, not Morton) would have been helpful. For all she knew, she was going to live to a ripe old age, so why agonize so bitterly over the marital slate she had wiped clean, over what was after all a relatively short time (eleven years) in most people's lives?

The tapes weren't newsworthy, either. They served merely to confirm what anyone who's read any of the Diana cottage industry's books already knows about. The bulimia. The Camilla confrontation. How Diana decided to break free by telling her story to Morton, who is going to publish yet another book on her this summer. (Funny how authors with upcoming publication dates always manage to get on prime time.) So most of the show, if not all of it, was very old news. It's the way it was presented as fact that is novel.

How did the tapes come to be made? Once Diana had decided to tell her story to someone, and the deal was arranged with Andrew Morton and his publisher (who was also interviewed, and made it all sound like some grand James Bond caper), her friend Colthurst became the go-between. He rode to visit her at Kensington Palace on a bike, with a basket attached. In the basket were blank tapes. Upon receiving them from him, she would plug in her tape recorder, clip on her microphone and go to it. Left unmentioned was how she did this so very privately, although presumably butler Paul Burrell and her other servants were always lurking about, not to mention visiting friends, children, gardeners, and assorted MI5 'bugs.' Surely someone heard her 'talking to herself'?

Colthurst the trusty courier smuggled out her revelations, and then later brought in manuscript pages for her to edit, after the tapes were transcribed. At one point in the show he told amusingly of how he took a spill in the road, and some of the pages fell out and were scattered. Luckily, he retrieved them all before Goldfinger or Professor Moriarty or Mini-Me snatched them away and brought down the Empire with the News for Which the World Was Not Yet Prepared.

At the end of the program, Diana was shown in private, very relaxed and unguarded and playful, even silly, with her voice coach. Settelen made videotapes of her practicing elocution and formal speechmaking with him, presumably to improve her performance as a public figure. These were presented as mind-boggling, candid, revealing, never-before-seen footage! In actuality, they merely served to show Diana as the ordinary person in an extraordinary position, to paraphrase Theo Aronson, that she really was. We learned that she chided her children when they misbehaved, just like any other mom (Harry was playing in the room, and she repeatedly told him to 'Shush!'). We learned that she got giggly when she was tired. We learned that she couldn't pronounce very long words, but tried very hard to please. This was nice, and sweet, but was it interesting? Not really. The video wasn't very good either: it was full of shadows and off-camera noise. It was royal reality TV. I suppose. NBC will buy anything with Diana stamped on it!

We know the central issue in the royal marriage was Charles' continued regard for Camilla. Otherwise, Diana seemingly enjoyed the fame, attention, wealth, children, material possessions, friendships, influence, etc. that her marriage brought her. The program didn't address the question of her truthfulness on these tapes, nor how her thoughts might have been colored by her illnesses and moods, nor how her recollections might have been changed, favorably or unfavorably, by the passage of time. It simply assumed that she was right.

But anyone who's been in a relationship that has ended will look back both in anger and in sorrow. It wasn't all bad; everyone has also shared good times with the ex. And we're told (not in the program, but by Burrell among others) that Diana made a sort of reconciliation with Charles just before her death. So can these sometimes hateful comments be what she really meant to leave behind? When did she think them, did she believe them true at the time, were they uttered just to get attention or love, and would she take them back now, if she were here to do so? No one on the program could answer that.

Burrell, who was not interviewed for the show, has said that Diana regretted collaborating with Andrew Morton on his infamous book. But this show never disavowed her taped words at all, nor gave any caveat that she might have been exaggerating or winging. It merely presented them, against a glamorous video backdrop of her life and times, in the most sensational manner possible, as the last gospel truths from her lips.

In that I think it did her a disservice, as all sensationalizing does its subject, no matter how fondly he or she is remembered. If the purpose of the program was to elevate Diana to sainthood and make Charles the villain, it certainly did that. It also made money by exposing her innermost thoughts, got ratings, pandered retread royal gossip turned into myth to a fickle public, gave Andrew Morton priceless publicity for his next book, and commercialized royalty. As American TV shows about royals always do. Coronation music and elegant visuals, right before the ads for Depends and Viagra.

But Diana's memory shouldn't be tarnished with the brush of mean-spiritedness, or the corrosion of American network dollars. She was a sweet, innocent person who sometimes went sour. Like all of us. We already know how she felt. Did we really need a rewind and instant replay of her pain?

- Mel Whitney

Notes and Asides: Many thanks to all who have posted comments about my columns and good wishes. Your response is gratifying! I plan to answer some of your questions in a future column for the benefit of other readers. And to those who sent attachments, I am sorry, but I can't open them. I tried several applications, but in translation to my Macintosh they are all reduced to digital gibberish.