Queen for a New Day

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She behaved, in short, like a star. Her usual soft, smiling evasiveness around the press earned her the temporary nickname "Shy Di." "My name is Diana," she would say whenever anyone addressed her by the diminutive, a cameo of grace under unexpected pressure that could not have failed to impress the Prince. What the pursuing press interpreted as reticence was more probably caution, even determination. "She's reserved rather than shy," reports a former schoolmate. "She's got her own ideas, and she isn't easily swayed by what people say. She's got a lot of go in her." Diana did develop a kind of protective stoop. Says an old friend: "She never used to put her head down. She was literally ducking the press."

Once the game was up and the engagement was announced on Feb. 24 and the 18-carat sapphire in its 14-diamond garland materialized on her ringer, Lady Diana straightened up and really stepped out. According to a source close to the palace, she consulted with "someone" in the royal family, then appeared with the Prince in a $1,000 black silk taffeta strapless evening gown. The total effect was stunningly theatrical. A BBC announcer reported "audible gasps," and as they died so did the notion of Shy Di. R.I.P.

"Lady Diana was saying, 'Here I am beside my fiancé, able to hold my head high,' " noted a friend. Holding her head high was admirable, holding the dress up perhaps even more so. Something else was going on here, though. There was a kind of gleeful collaboration by the Prince's charmer in the making of her own image. This business had been left up to the news media too long, and they had got it wrong besides. Lady Diana took control of the process of popular myth in a way that would have made some of the old hands at MGM proud. They would have approved the tall, cantilevered figure, added little makeup to the petal-soft skin. But what would really have warmed those Hollywood pros was the instant revelation, as the strobes popped, of star quality. This is something that cannot be instilled, only enhanced. Movie stars were sometimes said to have a royal bearing. Lady Diana Spencer brings star quality back to Buckingham Palace.

MGM would have made only one change: they would have supplied a piquant biography. Color, however, is not wanted in a royal bride. Indeed, several earlier candidates for the Prince's chosen were dropped from competition because they had been rather too brightly painted in shades of scarlet. One, Fiona Watson, was discovered to have posed deshabille for Penthouse. Another, Davina Sheffield, was scratched after a former swain mouthed off about their life together. Perhaps a double standard should be etched into the royal coat of arms. "I wonder how the British people would react if they knew the extent of Charles' 'social' life," mused a man connected with court circles. "It is very extensive."