When I think of the Queen, I think of her seduction and her glamour; not the hollow gaudiness that passes for these today, but the charm and elegance of an age that is lost.
In the final episodes of the Crown, which dropped on Netflix this week, its three Elizabeths, Claire Foy, Olivia Colman and Imelda Staunton finally meet, in a film-maker’s tribute to the real thing.
I speak as someone who had the honour of meeting ‘the real thing’ on a number of occasions throughout my life.
The trouble with The Crown, however, is that it has been forced to put its fiction alongside fact, and the acting in a series like this shows not how real people looked and behaved but how the producers and writers envisage them.
It is a pity, therefore, that two of its Elizabeths have often failed to shine with anything approaching authenticity.
The stalwart Imelda Staunton, with all her acting prowess, lacked the elusive qualities the real queen possessed, particularly the lively allure that captivated a nation for so long. Staunton’s queen might be mistaken for a charwoman demanding a pay rise, while Olivia Colman has sometimes plumbed the depths of dowdiness in muted colour palettes, and with a permanently pursed expression of joyless disapproval.
Staunton’s queen might be mistaken for a charwoman demanding a pay rise (left), while Olivia Colman has sometimes plumbed the depths of dowdiness in muted colour palettes (right)
Of The Crown’s trio of monarchs, only Claire Foy captured the vivacity and loveliness of the Queen I knew.
For loveliness it was, and age, custom and tele-vision could not dim it, though at times writer Peter Morgan has done his best. (What a shame that The Crown abandoned verisimilitude for headlines and did not continue with the strangely eternal Foy, who comprehended the monarch’s timeless charm.)
Strictly speaking, Queen Elizabeth was not what American author Truman Capote would have called ‘a swan among swans’.
She was neither a Vogue fashion plate, like the current Princess of Wales, nor an ostentatious beauty. Before drink and disappointment ruined her, Princess Margaret was the sister who possessed a peerless physical distinction.
But, as Foy alone seemed cognisant in her appearance and her bearing, the Queen had the bloom of something more.
God had kissed her on the cheek and there she was. British monarchs are not often presentable. Elizabeth I, for all the hagiography surrounding her, had a hooked nose and bad skin.
In its turn, the House of Windsor, with its stolid German origins, has not distinguished itself by its enamelled progeny. Even Queen Victoria had only a palid prettiness that failed to outlive her youth.
But out of the desert of British monarchs, so populous and often so dreary, Elizabeth II stood out.
I first met the Queen when I was 13. My father had attended her Coronation and her mother, the other Queen Elizabeth, was a close family friend. It was a windy winter’s day and I was with my parents in the royal box at Kempton Park racecourse. When the Queen entered with her lady in waiting, we all stood.
I had already had an excruciating encounter with Princess Margaret, who had scolded me for wearing lipstick (‘Did you intend to look 30?’), so I was wary of being introduced.
In retrospect, I needn’t have worried. The Queen may not have met fair tests of beauty all round, but you never realised it when confronted by her charm.
Her complexion was flawless, saturated by Balmoral mists. Her eyes were cerulean and when her smile reached them she could have stood up to any woman in the land.
The second race was about to start and I found myself beside the monarch. As she lifted her binoculars I had a chance to examine her clothes.
Of The Crown’s trio of monarchs, only Claire Foy captured the vivacity and loveliness of the Queen I knew
Claire Foy pictured playing Queen Elizabeth II in The Crown
Everything was coordinated – even her shoes were dyed to match the rest of her outfit. There was elegance and economy to her dress that was typical of upper class women who grew up in the 1930s and 40s.
But what struck me was her surprising sex appeal; a bat squeak it may have been, but it was there. The Queen had powers of allure, partly inherited from her mother, Elizabeth Bowes Lyon.
The Queen Mother was not conventionally lovely (the Duke of Windsor cruelly nicknamed her ‘cookie’, as he thought she looked like a cook), but she could hold a room in a state of enchantment and so could her daughter.
In one of the moments that make life memorable, she noticed I had no binoculars. ‘Would you like to borrow mine?’ she inquired kindly.
I did not distinguish myself by my response. There was a tangle of leather as I tugged at the straps, not realising they were still around her neck. For a terrible moment I thought I was choking her.
‘You must love racing to want them so much,’ she said with a glint of mischief. Lord ‘Porchy’ Carnarvon, her racing manager, and rumoured one time beau, was never far behind.
Everyone said Carnarvon had been madly in love with her and it was easy to see why she had captivated the young Prince Philip, one of the handsomest men in Europe.
Like Foy, who epitomised the understated sparkle of the upper-class woman who loves the outdoors, the Queen’s warmth was that of a cosy fire that might suddenly burst into flame. She had a horse running in the third race, and as it pulled ahead she stamped one of her tiny feet.
When it came second, she turned to Carnarvon and said: ‘I told you the ground was too hard.’ ‘I don’t believe you said anything of the sort Ma’am.’ She then uttered a phrase I remembered when it was used again to such devastating effect after Harry and Meghan’s Oprah interview: ‘Recollections may vary.’ It was magic.
In 1998, I dined with Sir Hardy Amies, who not only made most of the Queen’s formal dresses but had a keen appreciation of the female form. He had dressed A-list film stars of the era like Jean Simmons.
Sir Hardy’s association with Elizabeth had begun in 1950. When I met him he was a frail old man but he became animated when conversation turned to his best known and most illustrious client.
‘You know,’ he said, ‘strictly speaking, she was short, but she literally grew on you.’ I asked him what he meant.
He stared as if he was seeing her before him and then replied carefully: ‘Her Majesty had a marvellous waist, lovely arms and a very attractive bosom, particularly when she was young. You don’t see many figures like hers now. We could get her waist down to 21 inches and offset it with a flared skirt.’
The Queen had another great advantage, said Sir Hardy: she could wear any colour, from electric blues and yellows to tweeds. She had style, a look unique to her, which he called ‘very English, reassuring. Genius, really’.
Strictly speaking, Queen Elizabeth was not what American author Truman Capote would have called ‘a swan among swans’
And timeless, he said. Wallis Simpson, who was achingly chic, now seems very much of the 1930s and 40s, like a sepia photograph. The Queen’s look, however, never dated. Her appearance was the embodiment of how foreigners imagined the English ought to be.
When I met the Queen for the second time, in the 1990s, it dawned on me that, unintentionally, she had become a modern style icon.
It was a wet day at the Badminton Horse Trials and we were near one of the jumps. Her nose was pink from the cold and she wore powder on her face, plus a slash of red lipstick, but that was her only concession to the artificial (by contrast, the maquillage of Imelda Staunton has been more akin to a Watusi get-up for a tribal dance).
She was about 70, yet her clothes still showed the English upper class country dressing that designers like Ralph Lauren still cannot resist. In many ways, the Queen was its pioneer.
She also had a way of throwing a silk scarf over her head that was as careless and elegant as anything on the catwalk. (Poor Olivia Colman tried but couldn’t capture that elan, while Ms Staunton’s scarves seemed glued to her head to withstand hurricanes).
A family friend who knew the Queen when she was Princess Elizabeth told me many years ago: ‘She never had overtly seductive looks, but she was lit from within. She always managed to put herself together in a way that made her look statuesque.
‘She had a voluptuous figure and when she was young she made the most of that, but always discreetly. She had natural, scrubbed prettiness.’
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It didn’t matter that her prettiness wasn’t of the Hollywood kind. The Queen never confused royalty with celebrity, a distinction that illustrates the dangers of having her played by famous actresses.
As Sir Hardy said: ‘She wanted people to see her, not her clothes. We had disagreements because she wanted to wear colours all the time. She would say to me, ‘I need to be seen to be believed’.’
Above all, she dressed for the nation and her clothes reflected its mood as only women’s clothes can.
Her bridal dress, worn when she married Philip in 1947, and recreated for Ms Foy, was a perfect example of this. It was attuned to the national mood of ration books and a hope of regrowth.
To pay for the gown, the Princess had saved up clothing coupons, like every other British bride. The result was a simple but ethereal off-white silk dress embroidered with the flowers of the Commonwealth.
If this was meant to send a message to those countries that had been part of the British Empire.
Canada, , Pakistan, Jamaica, and New Zealand were among those that had joined the Commonwealth as independent nations. There was no longer any place for empires or empresses.
We thought we didn’t know what the Queen was thinking, but she expressed herself through dress more deftly than any politician.
With her sense of honour, public service and an extraordinary lack of vanity, Elizabeth II was the ideal of queenship in a post-war Britain.
The beauty she possessed was not that of a solar myth, but an organic living thing to which every woman in the country could relate.
I miss her on the balcony of Buckingham Palace; that bright speck of colour that cheered our grey days and reflected our summers back at us.
Our Queen had true glamour, besides which the merely fashionable is as evanescent as steam.
And as The Crown’s pretend Queens walk off into a televisual sunset, it is the joyful, crystalline Claire Foy who will forever impinge on my gratitude for bringing it back to us.