Diana’s Fairy Tale Life Often a Story of Tragedy, Scandal

The death of Princess Diana, at age 36 in a Paris car crash early today, brought a sudden, brutal end to a life torn with contradictions.

The aristocratic beauty’s fairy tale marriage to the Prince of Wales crumbled in scandal that shook the foundations of the British throne. She had tasted triumph and failure: Childhood friendship with a prince whose elder brother rediscovered and married her; royal marriage that soared before collapsing in tawdry confessions of adultery; rebirth as a humanitarian committed to such causes as banning antipersonnel mines.

The death of Diana, arguably the most photographed woman in the world, casts still another pall on the future of a British crown that one day may grace the head of her eldest son, Prince William, or even his younger brother, Prince Harry.

From the time that Charles began courting her to the time of her death, the fashionable Diana seemed to captivate the world, the object of insatiable curiosity and constant observation, speculation and reporting.

And although Diana often railed at the obtrusiveness of the press, both before and after her marriage, she also was well aware of her impact (it was once said that she pored over her press clippings) and could charm reporters and photographers like the best of Hollywood celebrities.

She knew that Americans were more agog over her than even Britons. When she auctioned off 79 of her old evening gowns this summer for charity, it was decided that the auction should be held in the United States, where bids were expected to be higher.

Born July 1, 1961, the third of Lord and Lady Althrop’s four children, the former Lady Diana Frances Spencer grew up in a mansion next door to the royal family’s Sandringham estate. One of her childhood friends was Prince Andrew, the outgoing brother of the more reserved Prince Charles.

Diana, herself a quiet child, had what seemed to many an idyllic childhood until the bitter divorce of her parents when she was 8.

Her mother left with the heir to a business fortune; her father won custody of Diana, her brother and her two sisters.

Tutored at home until she was 9, Diana then attended several boarding schools, where, according to classmates, she developed a special affection for the ballet, a pet guinea pig and Prince Charles.

She reportedly told a classmate: “I would love to be a dancer--or the Princess of Wales.”

Academics never appealed much to the blond, blue-eyed teenager, and she dropped out of school within a few years, abandoned the trappings of a titled upbringing for work as a cleaning woman and eventually a job as a kindergarten teacher’s aide.

Although he had known her for most of his life, Charles and she had little close contact until he was reintroduced to her at a pheasant hunt in 1977.

Charles was struck by “what a very amusing and jolly and attractive 16-year-old she was,” according to Time magazine.

Diana found him “pretty amazing.”

But it wasn’t until three years later, Charles told a reporter, that he “began to realize what was going on” and that a romance was budding.

By then the press had descended on the couple, beginning a constant pressure that reportedly continued until a few moments before Diana’s tragic death.

When Charles proposed to Diana on Feb. 3, 1981, their nation was enthralled. She seemed the perfect bride for a Prince of Wales--the first British citizen to wed an heir to the British throne since 1659; an Anglican wife for a man apparently destined one day to head the Church of England; a woman whose past was unblemished in any way.

Their wedding, televised globally, was one of the major news events of 1981. After a spectacular ceremony at St. Paul’s Cathedral presided over by the Archbishop of Canterbury and attended by scores of dignitaries, the couple embarked on a honeymoon aboard the royal yacht, Britannia.

In the seven years that followed, Diana experienced the painful transformation from a private person to a public princess, shaking thousands of hands, attending hundreds of ceremonies and visiting 19 countries within seven years.

Despite the couple’s apparent fondness for one another during those early years, the pressures of a royal marriage began to take their toll. Their first public spat, during a pheasant hunt, was followed by another, and then another. Diana was said to be disenchanted; Charles was said to be bored. And the worse things got, the more the news media hounded them.

Charles’ mother, Queen Elizabeth II, was said to be disenchanted with Diana, and there were increasing rumors of friction within the royal household.

Charles’ enduring friendship with an old flame, Camilla Parker Bowles, did nothing to ease the situation, which deteriorated even further with increasing rumors of Diana’s dalliances with her riding instructor, James Hewitt.

And end to the marriage seemed unthinkable. The King of England is the supreme governor of the Church of England, and divorce would gravely endanger Charles’ ascendancy to the throne.

Nonetheless, on Dec. 9, 1992, the royal couple announced a formal separation. The split ended whatever code of silence there had been, and each told different interviewers about their true feeling about the marriage.

On June 29, 1994, in a television documentary, Charles admitted that he had committed adultery. He did not name the woman with whom he was involved.

On Nov. 20, 1995, Diana acknowledged during a television interview that she had committed adultery with Hewitt.

Later that year, Queen Elizabeth II urged the couple to get a divorce. A year ago, the marriage that had once seemed so perfect came to an official end.

While news of the prince faded toward the back pages, Diana--perhaps the most famous single mother in the world--remained headline news. Her picture graced magazine covers around the world as she immersed herself in an ever-increasing number of charitable and humanitarian causes, and rumors of romance fueled the tabloids.

On July 25, Diana was spotted in a Paris restaurant with a handsome, dark-haired man, later identified as Dodi Fayed, son of Mohamed Fayed, owner of the storied Harrods department store in London.

Photographs of the attractive couple soon appeared on magazine covers, and rumormongers whispered that this was it: Diana had finally found the man of her dreams.

Whatever those dreams, they ended in nightmare.

Diana and Fayed were riding in the back seat of a chauffeur-driven car, reportedly speeding to escape the paparazzi who hounded so much of her public life, when they died together in the crash early Sunday.

Look to The Times Web site for more on Princess Diana’s death, including photographs, additional coverage and archive stories, as well as a bulletin board for reactions to Diana’s death. On the Internet: https://www.latimes.com