Product Description

In the ten years since Princess Diana’s shocking and tragic death in 1997, her hold on the world’s imagination has only increased. For The People’s Princess, Larry King asked many people who knew Diana, some officially and some more personally, for their favorite memories.

Sir Richard Branson recalls Diana sitting in the cockpit of one of his private planes with baby Prince William on her lap; as they flew past Windsor Castle she announced, “On our right you have Grandma’s house!” Heather Mills, who, like Diana, has been a tireless campaigner for charitable causes, recalls Diana’s work to eradicate the scourge of land mines, as well as the time she was photographed shaking hands with an AIDS patient in a London hospital, doing so much to counteract the stigma associated with the disease at the time. British radio and television personality Chris Tarrant recalls how clearly nervous he was upon meeting Diana for the first time, and how she put him at ease with an incredibly rude joke about Kermit the Frog. Photographer Tim Graham remembers Diana lying on the floor with baby William in order to coax a smile from the young prince. And her chief bodyguard recalls how happy and at peace she seemed on the day he agreed to her simple request: to be allowed to walk, truly alone for once, along a beautiful, deserted beach.

Some of these recollections are warm and intimate, celebrating Diana for her ability to make a human connection with everyone she met, others are perceptive and revealing, even about Diana’s human failings and frailties. Together, they coalesce into a multifaceted portrait of a woman that the world has long desired to know a little better.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #927434 in Books
• Published on: 2007-07-17
• Released on: 2007-07-17
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 240 pages

From Publishers Weekly
The subtitle notwithstanding, at least three of the essayists in this warm collection edited by CNN talk-show host King not only didn't know Diana best, they never met her. On the positive side, those who did know the princess, including her own secretary, Patrick Jephson, as well as less intimate acquaintances like Joan Collins, share some lovely memories of the woman they remember as compassionate, warm, loving and, above all, funny. British journalist Piers Morgan recalls that she had a great laugh. A really earthy, infectious cackle. The queen's former press secretary Dickie Arbiter remembers professing mock horror at a British princess driving a German car, to which Diana retorted, Well, at least it's more reliable than a German husband. While most of the contributors are admiring, several, including actor Robert Powell, mention her shortcomings as well, citing her temper and questioning her status as royal victim. Some of the pieces are simply maudlin, but one of the most genuinely touching ones is by Tessa Dahl (daughter of Roald Dahl and Patricia Neal), a childhood friend of Diana's. Interspersed with recollections of her chum, Dahl reveals painful details of her own life, and a writing talent that leave one hoping she'll write a memoir of her own. (July)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About the Author
Larry King is the host of CNN’s Larry King Live, the first worldwide phone-in television talk show and the network’s highest-rated program. He has written and edited several books, including the recent My Dad and Me. He also recently established a $1 million journalism scholarship at George Washington University’s School of Media and Affairs.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
DICKIE ARBITER
Former press secretary to Queen Elizabeth II Dickie Arbiter is a British broadcaster and journalist. He has covered royalty, heads of state, and other international personalities for more than thirty years, and his unique access to so many important figures of recent history makes him one of the most experienced commentators in Britain. He is currently in high demand throughout the world as a lecturer and commentator on radio and television.

I met Diana, Princess of Wales, at Buckingham Palace a couple of days before she became the "new royal kid on the block" at her wedding, on Wednesday, which took place July 29, 1981. The event stopped the world for most of the day, as a global television audience of 750 million, more than half a million spectators lining the wedding route from Buckingham Palace, and twenty-five hundred guests in St. Paul's Cathedral witnessed "shy Di" say "I will" to her Prince Charming and prepared to "ride off into the sunset to live happily ever after." As one of the commentators on that memorable day, I, too, was carried along by the euphoria of the royal match.

My first impression of Diana on that Monday morning was one of a nervous, apprehensive girl, barely out of her teens, hiding smiling eyes behind her fringe. I wondered how she was going to cope on her big day, whether she could pull off the pomp and ceremony, and how she was going to handle being a newly paid-up member of the Royal Firm. In fact, she did carry the day off, much to her credit, and mercifully she was unaware of what lay ahead of her.

When I joined Buckingham Palace, I'd spent more than twenty years in radio and television, eight of them accredited to the palace as a royal reporter. That naive twenty-year-old girl I met on a sunny July morning was very different from the twenty-six-year-old woman I went to work for six years later.

So when, as poacher turned gamekeeper, I walked through the palace gates, I knew the job wasn't going to be easy, but I was reasonably prepared for the royal ride ahead. My new job included being part of the team responsible for the Queen, as well as advising and managing media relations for the Prince and Princess of Wales, both as a duo and as individuals whenever they went solo.

Cracks were already beginning to form in the "golden couple's" marriage, and as every day brought endless media inquiries about who was doing what, where, with whom, and why, it became increasingly difficult to paper over them.

Charles and Diana crisscrossed the United Kingdom and the globe for eleven years and developed a reputation for being the best double act in the business. They made a lot of people happy in the process. However, during their later tours, questions about where they were going and why became less important for the watching media than how they were copying with the "ordeal" of being in each other's company. The media were always slightly ahead of the game with their questions, but confronting the royals was never going to provide the answers.

During her years on the royal road, Diana did wonderful work. With one simple gesture to HIV patients and leprosy victims, she exploded the "do-not-touch" myth. She drew attention to the plight of the homeless, drug addicts, land-mine victims, and other victims of ill fortune. She was also a very good full-time mother, but, sadly, she became a part-time wife.

I traveled a great deal with her at home and abroad, and we spent many hours in each other's company. We occasionally swam together early in the morning or late at night, and we had many laughs--she had a great sense of humor. She was intoxicating, and any man she met immediately fell in love with her--including me.

But we also had our differences of opinion. She was very good with people she met in her public life but not always so good with the people who worked for her, some of whom she treated appallingly. She blew hot and cold--you were either in or out; there was no halfway house--and there were periods when we did not speak to each other. She would freeze you out, something she was prone to do to anyone who got too close to her.

Since her sudden, violent, and shocking death in August 1997, many people have crawled out of the woodwork, contributing to newspaper and magazine articles or publishing books, all of them claiming to be friends. In reality, Diana had so few real friends that you could count them on one hand. The rest of these self-proclaimed friends were swept up in Diana's wake and were, at best, acquaintances, basking in her reflected glory. Some were just straphangers, hoping one day to cash in, as so many have done since that fateful night in Paris ten years ago.

I stopped working for Diana after her separation from the Prince, but since I lived in the environs of Kensington Palace, we were still able to keep in touch.

What struck me most about her was that despite the acrimony that engulfed both her and the Prince following their separation in 1992, she never lost her sense of humor. Her infamous television interview is largely remembered for her wry comment, "There were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded." Once I came across her rummaging in the trunk of a new car. "Not a German car for an English princess, surely," I said. Quick as a flash she replied, "Well, at least it's more reliable than a German husband."

She was also incredibly generous and loved giving presents, always wanting you to open them in front of her. She always sent a card for my birthday, and when I turned fifty, she hosted a lunch for me at Kensington Palace for twenty of my family and friends.

Diana wasn't beautiful, but she did have the looks, charisma, and glamour that turned heads. She'd been on the front page of every newspaper and magazine worldwide, and hardly a day went by that a photograph of her wasn't published somewhere. She wasn't an intellectual, but she more than made up for that by being very smart and streetwise.

I won't ever forget the day Diana died or the days that followed. So much history was written in those six days between her death and when she was laid to rest at the Spencer family's ancestral home at Althorp.

I was alongside the Queen when she joined mourners outside the Buckingham Palace gates to see for herself the vast bank of flowers that had built up over the week. I was concerned about the reception that she and the Duke of Edinburgh might receive, given the vehemently critical press commentary during the week. I needn't have worried; as the Queen walked through the palace gates, the subdued crowd applauded in sympathy and offered words of comfort.

In this incident, as in so many aspects of Diana's life, the media headlines told only part of the story. She once claimed she was "hunted and haunted" by the media and even went so far as to describe herself as "a media toy." At times she was to blame for this, courting them for her own agenda. Having traveled alongside her on her journey from that fairy-tale wedding to her lying at rest in St. James's Palace's Chapel Royal, I was determined to play my part in ensuring that the media gave her a farewell that befitted not just her status but her impact as an individual who sought always to contribute positively to public life even while she wrestled with her private troubles.

Since her death, the same media have speculated on the advent of a "new Diana" when Princes William and Harry eventually marry and bring their wives into the Royal Firm. But their mother was a one-off. I don't want a new Diana; I was happy with the one we had. She did wonderful work for charity and made many ordinary people happy, and for that we should be grateful. I missed her when she died so tragically in a Paris underpass, I still miss her ten years on, and I will probably always miss her.


LORD JEFFREY ARCHER
Lord Jeffrey Archer is an accomplished British author and former member of Parliament and deputy chairman of the Conservative Party. His novel Kane and Abel reached number one on the New York Times bestseller list and was eventually made into a miniseries. He was a good friend of Diana's and helped her fund-raise for numerous charities.

I first met Princess Diana at a Red Cross function twenty-five years ago, when I was the charity auctioneer and she was the guest of honor. After that, she regularly requested that I carry out the same duties at all her charity functions, which, of course, I was delighted to do. Over the years, what had started as a professional relationship developed into a personal friendship, and we often dined privately in each others' homes.

In 1993, the prime minister (John Major) asked me to be with her on the day the palace and the government were announcing that she would be retiring from public life. I think my saddest memory of that occasion was taking her home to Kensington Palace after she had received a standing ovation from the thousand people who had listened to her speech at the Hilton Hotel. I later learned from her butler that she had a TV dinner and sat alone in the drawing room before going to bed.

I learned of the Princess's tragic death when Sir Nicholas Lloyd, the newspaper editor, phoned me at four o'clock in the morning on August 31. I refused to turn on the television or the radio, as I attempted to convince myself that it couldn't be true.

Her funeral at Westminster Abbey was one of the most poignant events I have ever attended, and I was touched by Earl Spencer's kindness in seating Mary and me with the family in the private part of the abbey.

Following the hugely successful sale of her dresses in June 1997, at her request I purchased the remaining four hundred catalogs for £27,000, and the Princess promised to sign them for any auction she attended, where, on average, ten years ago, they would make £5,000 each. But sadly, her premature death meant that we didn't make the million pounds for...

Customer Reviews

Horrible
You know its bad when you have Barbara Eden as one of the people who pay tribute to Diana. Yes that Barbra Eden as in "I Dream of Jeannie". Did I miss something? The book's title suggests that the tributes are written by "those who knew her best" Who are these people coming out of the woodwork..Tyra Banks, Donald Trump, etc. Some of these people never even met her how can they know her best? I am a die hard Diana fan and have most of her books but I must say this one put me to sleep. Did you ever hear the expression,"I was so bored I couldn't kill myself"? Well lets just say it was that bad. Don't waste your time nor money. If you really must read this just go to the library. This has got to be the worst Diana book I have ever read.

King of Cashing In on The Anniversary
Unlike the other reviewers to date, I disliked this book and found it a bid to cash in on the anniversary of Princess Diana's death. How well did Larry King - or many of those who contributed to the book - really know her?

I usually enjoy compilations and had there been more substance, this would have been no exception. Instead, I found the book shallow and barely skims the surface. Perhaps these people did know her, but after reading the book, a more appropriate title would seem to be ".... From Those Who Met Her". I wanted to like this book, but it was like going to dinner and getting only a few hors d'oeuvres.

Tributes to Diana from her friends and fans from the heart
A really wonderful book--a series of tributes to the late Princess of Wales by people from all walks of life, the famous and not so famous.The tributes are from people who knew Diana and met her and some were close friends, some were from people who admired her and were inspired. Each tribute is a vignette from one paragraph to several pages summing up their impressions of Diana and their experiences. Among these are: Larry King, Donald Trump,Sarah Bradford, Heather Mills, Joan Collins, Barbara Eden, Richard Kay, Twiggy, Catherine Walker, Tessa Dahl, and Ken Wharfe. I was moved by Tessa Dahl, a contemporary of the late Princess, she wrote about the parallel lives she and the Princess led and her story was quite moving. Bravo to Heather Mills who wrote in her tribute: "Remember--monuments are not erected to those who criticize, but rather to those who have been criticized." I also liked actr Christopher Biggins tribute and agreed fully when he wrote: "The biggest mistake of her (Diana's)life was to fall in love with her husband. If she hadn't cared for him so much it would have made everything easier to deal with. I don't think anyone had ever taken her aside and explained that her husband had a mistress. She was too young and innocent..." This is a vivid book that captures the personality of Diana. I do have several quibbles but these don't detract from the excellence and spirit of this book. One is that in Joan Hanger's tribute she writes that Will Carling "admitted" having an affair with Diana. I don't recall this happening and Carling who was in the middle of a nasty divorce would not have said a word. And those who knew the late Princess deny that there ever was a physical affair. The second is that in the Timeline at the end of the book, James Hewitt is said to be the man that Diana conversed with on the Squidgy Gate tapes, it was not Hewitt but James Gilbey. The third is the rather sour "tribute" by Dickie Arbiter who seems to pay tribute a little too grudgingly. I am thankful that Joan Rivers was not asked to pay "tribute" to Diana particularly after her rather acid appraisal of Diana after she died (she was invited to Charles and Camilla's wedding and appeared on Larry King and added particularly nasty comments about Diana). This is a fantastic book, Diana fans will want to buy this.