Diana in Search of Herself: Portrait of a Troubled Princess

The Diana who was in search of herself was, according to this relatively beefy addition to the writings on the late princess, engaged in a futile exercise. Born after her parents tried three unsuccessful times to produce a male heir--two older sisters and a brother who died within hours of birth preceded Diana Spencer's arrival--she felt unwanted from the start. Her mother's abandonment of the family six years later compounded Diana's feelings of self-worthlessness. At a tender age, the girl who would grow up to be the beloved Princess of Wales had already irrevocably lost her sense of self. The book, which relies heavily on the accounts of anonymous intimates of the late princess, describes her as a deeply conflicted character. A friend is quoted as saying, "Her dark side was that of a wounded trapped animal ... and her bright side was that of a luminous being." The strikingly tall, blond princess who cradled young cancer victims and graciously accepted flowers from admirers, who frolicked on camera with her young sons and flashed her sparkling smile as she exited limousines, was often sulky, depressed, and vengeful in private. "Why?" one might wonder--if volumes hadn't already been written about the awful truth of her life. Author Sally Bedell Smith revisits the well-trod ground of Charles's continuing love affair with Camilla Parker Bowles, Diana's intimidation by her royal in-laws, and her push-me, pull-me relationship with the voracious paparazzi. In addition, she details Diana's numerous love affairs and her acts of self-mutilation and bizarre behavior, such as the incident in which she tap-danced alone in her room until she wore down the wood parquet. Prince Charles comes off as a sympathetic if somewhat wimpy character, while, as the book progresses, Diana grows into a woman navigating the fine line between neurosis and full-blown psychosis. At the time of her marriage, the princess is quoted as saying she was "so in love with my husband that I couldn't take my eyes off him. I just absolutely thought I was the luckiest girl in the world." Years later, she would recall this same day thus: "The day I walked down the aisle at St. Paul's Cathedral, I felt that my personality was taken away from me, and I was taken over by the royal machine." Her bulimia (even while pregnant with Prince William), paranoia, lying, and flightiness are all confirmed in Smith's tome but they are commingled with testimonials to the late princess's generosity, intuition, genuine warmth, and ability to put anyone at ease. Diana was fine--to wit sane--as long as she was in a safe environment. The bosom of the royal family was not one of those havens. But she wasn't a passive victim--her famous comment about her marriage being overcrowded, involving three people, presumably herself, the prince, and Parker Bowles--wasn't quite true, as she was also having an affair at the time, bringing the number up to four. All of these excruciating details--including Smith's analysis of how long the Dodi and Diana match would have lasted, had they not been killed that night in Paris--seem to be carefully researched and attributed when the source allows it, and build to the grand crescendo of the book, in which Smith proffers her diagnosis of the princess's mental health. The punchline here is that the tabloid assertions that hounded Diana throughout her lifetime, asserting that she was "loony," "potty," a "basket case," or "barking mad," may have held more than a kernel of truth. But if the princess was as expert a manipulator as the book suggests, no one, it seems, could ever hope to know the whole truth. --Jordana Moskowitz From Publishers Weekly Devotees who remember Princess Diana as a beautiful, warm-hearted mother dedicated to good works, whom an adulterous husband and the British Royal family unfairly victimized, will find little comfort in this treatment of her life. Smith relentlessly but convincingly portrays Diana as a woman with severe psychological problems (characterized here as a "borderline personality") who never overcame a serious eating disorder and was unable to sustain relationships. Based on research and interviews with Diana's friends, Smith (Reflected Glory: The Life of Pamela Harriman) carefully presents Diana's childhood as darkened by divorce and neglect, leaving Diana with deep feelings of unworthiness; by the time of her marriage she was, Smith contends, not only a bulimic but also a pathological liar. According to Smith, Prince Charles had completely severed relations with Camilla Parker-Bowles out of determination to make his marriage work, and did not revive his affair with her until the relationship with his wife fell apart. Diana, certain that Charles was still seeing Camilla from the date of their wedding, retaliated with a series of tawdry romances, and also engaged in self-mutilation, binge eating and other erratic behaviors that alienated Charles. Though Smith acknowledges that the princess dearly loved her sons, she also describes occasions when Diana placed emotional demands on them that they were too young to handle. This is a sharply etched and engrossing study of an insecure and emotionally damaged woman coming apart at the seams. Photos not seen by PW. 11-city tour; 20-city TV and radio satellite tour. First serial to People magazine. (Sept.) Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library Journal Smith's rather unsympathetic portrait of the late Diana, Princess of Wales, is sure to receive a great deal of publicity (excerpts will be published in People). The author believes that the troubled princess was mentally ill, and she certainly presents a good deal of convincing evidence to bolster her case. Unfortunately, her eagerness to present virtually every incident in Diana's life as "proof" of her instability becomes somewhat tedious, and her assertion that Charles did not resume his affair with Camilla Parker Bowles until 1986, when the royal marriage had "irretrievably broken down," is undermined by its frequent repetition. Little attention is paid to Diana's charity work, and, surprisingly, Smith never manages to convey just what it was about Diana that inspired the love and admiration not only of millions worldwide who never met her but also of the friends and family who knew of her problems and faults. Given the unrelenting interest in Diana's life, however, this title is sure to be requested. The publisher of Diana: A Portrait in Her Own Words states that "this unique book is the result of a scrupulous worldwide search for every one of Diana's significant quotes." The book is organized by subject ("married life," "William and Harry," "The Royal Family," etc.). Unfortunately, the editor has chosen not to include dates and context for many of the quotes. Still, this is a browsable book for anyone interested in Diana's sometimes touching and occasionally contradictory words. Libraries that own Princess Diana: The Book of Love (Eagle Rose Pub., 1997), which covers roughly the same subject area, can probably skip this, unless demand dictates otherwise. As these two books remind us, the definitive biography of Diana remains to be written.AElizabeth Mary Mellett, Brookline P.L., MA Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Kirkus Reviews An engrossing character study of the beautiful, brave, but psychologically bent princess who became an icon, by Vanity Fair contriduting editor Smith. Diana, her family, her friends, and the media who dogged her seemed bent on denying the serious emotional problems that shaped her private and sometimes public actions. According to Smith (Reflected Glory: The Life of Pamela Churchill Harriman, 1996), Diana almost certainly suffered from borderline personality disorder, a psychiatric diagnosis characterized by feelings of inferiority, dependence, and confusion about identity. Borderline personalities are often ``self-destructive, easily depressed, panicky and volatile,'' while superficially ``charming, insightful, witty, and lively.'' As revealed in this profile, backed by archival research and personal interviews, Diana was all of the above and more. Given to bulimia, self-mutilation, lies, and suicide attempts through most of her adult life, Diana's problems began at six years old when her ``childhood was shattered'' by her parents' separation; the pressure of her royal engagement brought all her insecurities to the surface. Charles was unable, although at first not unwilling, to cope. He arranged psychiatric counseling several times, to no avail. In 1985, Diana took the first of a series of lovers, and Charles turned to Camilla; envy, vengeance, pride, fear, rage, despair , and ignorance all played roles in the divorce that followed, says Smith. She maintains an even keel in assessing the princess, giving credit for her genuine devotion to her children as well as her warmth, compassion, and generosity. The author also acknowledges Charles for trying, if ineffectually, to help his wife, while indicting the British tabloid press for using her to sell newspapers. Probably not the definitive study (many witnessses to Diana's life are still unwilling to talk on the record), but an informed and astute appraisal of the 20th century's possibly most celebrated celebrity. (32 pages b&w photos, not seen) (First serial to People magazine; Literary Guild selection; author tour; TV satellite tour) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. Advance praise for Diana in Search of Herself"An engrossing character study of the beautiful, brave, but psychologically bent princess who became an icon . . . an informed and astute appraisal of the twentieth century's possibly most celebrated celebrity."--Kirkus ReviewsPraise for In All His Glory: The Life of William S. Paley"A sweeping study of the emergence of broadcasting, the American immigrant experience, and the ravenous personal and professional tastes of Paley as he charmed and clawed his way to the top of society."--Los Angeles TimesPraise for Reflected Glory: The Life of Pamela Churchill Harriman"The author has left no stone unturned . . . the portrait is finely balanced, and the fullest we are likely to get."--Ben Macintyre, The New York Times Book Review From the Inside Flap rch of Herself is the first authoritative biography of one of the most fabled women of the century. Even those who knew Princess Diana will be surprised by author Sally Bedell Smith's insightful and haunting portrait of Diana's inner life.<br><br>For all that has been written about Diana--the books, the commemorative magazines, the thousands of newspaper articles--we have lacked a sophisticated understanding of the woman, her motivations, and her extreme needs. Most books have been exercises in hagiography or character assassination, sometimes both in the same volume. Sally Bedell Smith, the acclaimed biographer, former New York Times reporter, and Vanity Fair contributing editor, has written the first truly balanced and nuanced portrait of the Princess of Wales, in all her emotional complexity.<br><br>Drawing on scores of interviews with friends and associates who had not previously talked about Diana, Ms. Smith explores the events and relationships that shaped the Princess, the flashpoin Sally Bedell Smith is the author of the bestselling biography of William S. Paley, In All His Glory, and Reflected Glory: The Life of Pamela Churchill Harriman. Ms. Smith began her career at Time magazine and has since worked at TV Guide and The New York Times, where she was a cultural-news reporter. She joined Vanity Fair as a contributing editor in 1996. She was awarded a Sigma Delta Chi Distinguished Service Award for magazine reporting in 1982 and was a fellow at the Freedom Forum Media Studies Center in 1986. She lives in Washington, D.C., with her husband, Stephen G. Smith, editor of U.S. News & World Report, and their three children. She can be contacted via the website www.sallybedellsmith.com. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Diana was driving through the English countryside one day in 1984 with Michael Shea, press secretary to the Queen, when they noticed a huge billboard ahead with an enormous photograph of Diana's face. "Oh no!" Diana exclaimed. "What's that?" As they came closer, they could see that the billboard was an advertisement for a book that had been written about her. Diana buried her face in her hands, exclaiming that she could no longer tell where her public image stopped and her private self began.She spoke those words three years into her marriage to Prince Charles, but her anguished confusion stayed with her to the end. From the moment she stepped into the limelight in September 1980 to her violent death seventeen years later, Diana was swept along in an ever-expanding persona, even as she searched frantically for her own identity. When she first appeared on the world stage, Lady Diana Spencer was a nineteen-year-old who had been raised with limited expectations: that she marry a fellow aristocrat and fulfill her duty as a wife and mother. Her marriage to the future King of England thrust on her a public identity that she could never square with her muddled sense of self.The world probably would have heard little of Diana Spencer had she not married the Prince of Wales. "She would either have been a countrywoman, just like her sisters, and dissolved into the atmosphere," said a male friend who knew her from her teenage years, "or she would have married an achiever who offered more of a challenge but would have gone off and had an affair, and she would have divorced the husband in short order."Diana lived only thirty-six years, all of them amid privilege and wealth: the first half in the rarefied cocoon of the British upper class, the second in the highly visible bubble of royal protocol and pageantry. Her married life was unnatural by any measure-"bizarre," her brother Charles, Earl Spencer, called it in his eulogy of Diana. Much of her royal existence was lonely and regimented, but tabloid headlines invested its large and small events with high drama.Simply assuming the title of princess transformed Diana. As Douglas Hurd, the former foreign secretary, put it, "She needed to be royal to succeed." But others have joined the royal family without becoming larger-than-life celebrities. Diana's extraordinary impact resulted to a great degree from her physical presence.She was endowed with undeniable attributes. Her beauty was singular, especially her big blue eyes, the most expressive of all facial features. "They look so wondering and modest," a Norwegian photographer once remarked. Her height (five foot ten) and lithe figure allowed her to carry clothing exquisitely. If she had been a haughty ice queen, or even strikingly confident, her appeal would have been limited. What made her so charismatic was the combination of her looks and her air of accessibility. "She has a sympathetic face," her father once said, "the sort that you can't help but trust."Diana had a knack for seeming to be open with people-offering the same small glimpses to everyone, while effectively masking what was really going on. "People adore her because whenever she speaks to them she reveals some small nugget of information about herself or her family," observed Catherine Stott in The Sunday Telegraph in 1984. "Nothing she says is ever embarrassing or indiscreet. People feel that they are getting more than they actually are from her." As one of Diana's former aides explained it, Diana knew just how far to go: "People would ask her the most intimate questions, and she knew how to answer them sweetly while actually blowing them off. But because all those intimate details were out there, people felt they knew her."She lacked arrogance, and she connected effortlessly with her social inferiors. "She had the gift of making other people feel very good," said one of her friends. "She was a princess, but she could step down and make you feel special." With her informality and easy small talk, she seemed an outsider in her own class. Before marrying Charles she even worked as a housecleaner. "I am much closer to people at the bottom than to people at the top," she told Le Monde in the last interview before her death. Yet unlike her sister-in-law Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, Diana maintained a regal dignity."I don't go by a rule book, I lead from the heart, not the head," Diana said. Her meager formal education enhanced her appeal as well. She frequently belittled her intelligence, saying she was "thick as a plank" or had a "brain the size of a pea." While she lacked intellectual curiosity and discipline, she had a practical, canny mind. "She was an entirely intuitive person," said journalist and historian Paul Johnson. "She was not particularly good at rational processes, but she could get on well with people because she could grasp ideas if they had emotional importance to her. She was very quick, and quick to sense what people wanted." One secret of her charm, according to interior designer Nicholas Haslam, a friend for several years, was "she could appear to be talking about something to anyone. She was a conversational chameleon."She had an agile, teasing sense of humor that included a sure grasp of the absurd and an instinct for punchy ripostes. During a party at Christie's auction house in London, "My friend Paolo said to Diana, 'Gosh, you're brown,' " recalled Haslam. " 'W-8!' Diana said. I thought a minute and realized she meant she had been sitting in the sun outside Kensington Palace," her home in the London postal code W-8. "She was sharp as a sharp pencil," said a woman who knew her well, "fast with repartee. She got the point of stories. She got the point of all the people in the room."But in the solitude of her apartment at Kensington Palace, the engaging public Diana often descended into a lonely, adolescent solipsism. "The time spent alone reviewing every situation and having no friends was for planning and plotting," said Haslam. Diana would dwell on her perceived inadequacies, ponder the betrayals of her past and present, and think obsessively about her enemies, both real and imagined. Her thoughts would plunge her into tears and sometimes vengeful schemes. At such moments, she made her worst decisions. "If you have a mind that doesn't connect together in a coherent way, and great instincts on the other hand, it is an interesting but odd mind," said film producer David Puttnam, a friend for more than a decade who adored her. "I don't like it that she sat around alone. When people like Diana put together bits of intuition and they don't have the ability to really analyze, they start spinning in space."In public, Diana betrayed little evidence of her emotional storms-a testament to her stiff upper lip, her talent for disguise, and her determination to keep the lid on. "I always used to think Diana would make a very good actress because she would play out any role she chose," wrote her former nanny Mary Clarke.Because of her quicksilver temperament, Diana could slip easily from one mood to another, confounding those around her. "If she would say we will do this or go here, she was totally reliable," said fashion entrepreneur Roberto Devorik, a longtime friend. "But in her actions, she was like a roller coaster." In his eulogy, her brother Charles lauded Diana's "levelheadedness and strength." In some circumstances-giving advice or supporting friends in distress-she admirably displayed these traits. In many other situations, usually those in which she was emotionally involved, she could as easily be irrational and weak. "She was a curious mixture of incredible maturity and immaturity, like a split personality," said one of her friends. "It was so extraordinary how she handled ordinary people, but at the same time she did silly and childlike things. She was very impulsive."Charles Spencer also praised her "honesty," but as he once admitted, "She had real difficulty telling the truth purely because she liked to embellish things." It was hard to take Diana's words at face value, since she so often said things to make a point, whether or not she contradicted a previous account. She had other motivations for dissembling as well-protecting herself or attracting attention-and throughout her adult life, her tendency to take liberties with the truth often caused problems.Many of the people around Diana tolerated her dishonesty. "At least once . . . she lied to me outright," wrote her friend Clive James. "She looked me straight in the eye when she said this so I could see how plausible she could be when she was telling a whopper." Her friend Peter Palumbo believed that Diana's special circumstances excused her. "I would ask her whether this had happened or that had happened, and she would tell me a complete lie, which I believed," said Palumbo. "But I never held it against her because that was her way, and that was her character, and she was under a lot of pressure." Such "enabling" by her friends emboldened her to lie even more.Diana had many fine traits that were evident both in public and in private: warmth, sweetness, affection, femininity, naturalness, grace, sensitivity, reserve, humility, wit, instinctive sympathy, thoughtfulness, generosity, kindness, courtesy, resilience, exuberance, energy, self-discipline, courage. "The nice side of her was fresh and unspoiled and almost childlike," said Nicholas Haslam. "Her nature was spontaneous."But Diana also had darker traits that were largely hidden from the world. "Her dark side was that of a wounded trapped animal," noted her friend Rosa Monckton, "and her br... Read more