A Prince and His Princess Arrive: Charles and Di

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Gossips have speculated that the dream couple has not been living happily ever after. Onscreen, they displayed the gentle chafing that is the sign of marital harmony, not discord. Diana, far from coming across as the Princess Peabrain that some have called her, was confident and rarely tongue-tied; with that ever so sly, slightly lidded look of hers, she imparted the gentlest hint of irony to the proceedings. The coaching that she received from Gandhi Director Sir Richard Attenborough paid off. Charles even provided a touch of Piccadilly farce by draping a handkerchief over his head to distract Sons William, 3, and Henry, 1, and then mugging like an attenuated version of his great-great-great-grandmother Queen Victoria. The children were amused.

Last week as the Prince and Princess were in the midst of their twelve-day trip to Australia, Charles was the center of a political brouhaha at home. Rod Hackney, an architect who advises Charles on community planning, had told the press that the Prince was deeply concerned about urban and racial unrest and did not want to succeed to the throne of a divided Britain. It came out that the Prince, who has recently been depicted as something of a royal layabout, has actually been making clandestine visits to the homeless of London and seeking advice on how to remedy inner-city decay. Critics of the government applauded, while Conservatives gave indignant speeches protesting what they saw as a breach of the taboo against royalty dabbling in politics.

The Australian trip revealed the couple's considerable public relations skills, and turned into a showcase for their uninhibited style of royal excursion. With her nimble spontaneity, Diana is invigorating the staid ritual of the walkabout, the traditional version of which presents a gloved and hatted royal frowning to show interest as a dusty foreman laboriously explains how a widget is manufactured. Touring an aluminum smelter in the city of Portland, Diana could not stop giggling at the sight of Charles wearing a too small hard hat and protective goggles; with his Clark Gable ears, he looked rather like a Volkswagen with both doors wide open. A sheepish Charles turned to one man and said, "Does your wife laugh at you when you put a hat on?"

Preparations for the couple's arrival in the U.S., meanwhile, were spiked with a bit of scandal. Originally it had been announced that the co-chairman of the $10,000-a-couple Palm Beach charity ball would be Pat Kluge, the dishy wife of Billionaire John Kluge, chairman of Metromedia, Inc. Last week the British press uncovered a part of her past that had eluded the careful perusal of Buckingham Palace. In the 1970s the former Patricia Rose had posed as a full-frontal nude for the raunchy British skin magazine Knave. It transpired that Mr. and Mrs. Kluge will be traveling abroad the night of the ball.