All Things Diana

Keira Knightley, the actress who plays Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire in a new film about the aristocrat’s adulterous life, has criticised the trailer because it implies that the movie is also about Diana, Princess of Wales.

“I am Georgiana,” said Knightley, 23, who was nominated for an Oscar for her role in Pride & Prejudice. “I am not Diana. The film is not about Diana.”

The trailer for The Duchess, which is being shown in cinemas, shows a clip of Diana juxtaposed with one of Georgiana. On the screen appear the words: “The two were related by ancestry and united by destiny” before a voice says: “History repeats itself.”

The duchess, an 18th-century beauty and socialite, was born Georgiana Spencer and was the great-great-great-great aunt of Diana.

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• The Duchess and me

Knightley is not the only one annoyed by the trailer.

Amanda Foreman, who wrote the biography on which the film is based, said: “There is absolutely no reason to have done this trailer, which is a bad joke.

“The marketing people probably thought the only way they could get the young popcorn-eating brigade to see this film was if they made some comparison with Diana. But they did not need to and should not have done it.”

While there are some similarities between the lives of Georgiana and Diana, nether Foreman’s book nor the film makes any reference to the former Princess of Wales.

Both women married important men, who then took up with mistresses. Georgiana’s husband, the Duke of Devonshire, had an affair with Lady Elizabeth Foster.

Georgiana, who, like Diana, was very fashion-conscious, then formed a relationship with Earl Grey, the politician after whom the tea is named. She was also an active political campaigner.

Knightley, Foreman and Saul Dibb, the film’s British director, all blame “the marketing men” for the trailer for the film, which opens on September 5.

“We didn’t want to make any parallels between the two women whatsoever,” said Dibb. “It didn’t govern the shooting of the film or the performances.”

Foreman added: “Trailers should be what the film is about. But in this case, the trailer is not connected to the film.”

She is also annoyed with the “united by destiny” tag. “I don’t actually think that Georgiana died in a carriage crash.”

Pathé Pictures and BBC Films, which produced The Duchess, said marketing was carried out separately from film-making.

Intimate: The tapes included Princess Diana's most private thoughts

The BBC has wasted £100,000 on a controversial documentary about Princess Diana that will never be seen.

Diana, In Her Own Words was made by an award-winning producer and was to have included extracts from video tapes of the Princess recorded by her speech coach, Peter Settelen.

Despite the cost of buying the intimate footage, the BBC has now shelved the project. Had it shown the tapes, it risked being condemned for bad taste.

The tapes have been broadcast only once – four years ago on American television network NBC.

Its decision to purchase them was universally condemned.

Critics said the programme was a ‘ghoulish striptease’ and that those involved were no better than ‘grave robbers’.

The tapes were compiled by Mr Settelen, an American actor now based in Britain, over several sessions with the Princess in 1992 and 1993.

Diana, shy by nature, employed him to help her practise public speaking as she became increasingly independent of Prince Charles.

At the time, her marriage was in deep crisis and the conversations with Mr Settelen – which were never intended to be made public – inevitably dwelled on her private concerns.

She talked frankly about her relationship with the Prince, his affair with Camilla Parker Bowles and her love for her bodyguard, Barry Mannakee, and her suspicions that he had been murdered after he died in a traffic accident.

Such was the controversy caused by their screening in America that the tapes were not sold to other broadcasters and have never been seen in Britain.

Yet last year the BBC spent more than £30,000 buying an option to broadcast three minutes of the tapes in Diana, In Her Own Words. 

It has had to pay the money even though the programme has now been scrapped. Additional filming and production work took the cost up to £100,000.

The BBC had wanted to show the programme in August 2007 on the tenth anniversary of the Princess’s death.

The authentic voice of Diana was to be the key selling point to differentiate it from other films being made by UK broadcasters to mark the occasion.

The BBC commissioned freelance producer and director Kevin Sim to oversee the film.

'Grave robber': Peter Settelen, right, and Diana on his tapes on NBC

Although he was known in the Eighties as a light-entertainment specialist – he devised Through The Keyhole, the hit ITV show for which he still owns the format, along with Loyd Grossman and Sir David Frost – he went on to make highly regarded documentaries.

He won a Bafta for a Dispatches programme on the Beslan school massacre, while his examination of Iran, titled Once Upon A Time In Iran, and his film on the Tsunami, Seven Hours On Boxing Day, were both highly praised.

A member of the production team for Diana, In Her Own Words said last week: ‘Our documentary kept getting delayed, which meant that events began to overtake us.

'Once the inquest began, we thought it might never be broadcast.’

A source who has seen a rough cut of the programme said: ‘It was well made and well thought-out. Kevin is a brilliant film-maker and, because he’d never done a Royal programme before, he brought a really fresh eye to the project. It’s a great pity that it’s not going to be shown.’

Mr Sim finished filming before the anniversary last August. But the editing was never completed.

Last night, the BBC said it had not broadcast the new programme because, in the light of the inquest, it did not ‘add to the story’.

A spokesman said: ‘In the course of the project, we gathered a wide range of material for consideration, including an option to broadcast a few minutes from some tapes made by a voice coach.

‘Following the inquest, we decided that the programme did not sufficiently add to the story and brought the project to a close. This in no way reflects on the ability of the programme-making team, who we continue to work with.’

Mr Settelen recorded 16 tapes during his coaching sessions at Kensington Palace. Seven of the so-called ‘dynamite diaries’ were discovered in 2001 when detectives raided the house of Diana’s former butler, Paul Burrell.

Mr Settelen fought a long legal battle with her estate for control of the tapes, which he then sold to NBC for an undisclosed sum.

The whereabouts of the remaining nine tapes are unknown.

Last night, a spokesman for Mr Settelen refused to comment.

If you have yet to add the book A Dress For Diana to your Diana Library you may want to check you local  Barnes and Noble. They had a stack of them at my store in the bargain section priced at $9.99.I have been able to browse through it and so far the book is just full of the neatest information. It really is a must have for your book collection. 

Collectibles today revealed the name of the final Figurine in the series as "Stately  Class". Could this possibly mean that we will get Diana in her Wedding gown ? Since her wedding was a State occasion, I sure hope so. So far there is no description as the figurine is not completed yet. So keep your fingers crossed  that the wedding dress of the century makes it in to this series.

They were both trapped in loveless marriages, adored by the public and yet couldn't find love.

So filmmakers found the comparison between Princess Diana and her ancestor the Duchess of Devonshire irresistible.

Film company Pathé has littered its trailers for The Duchess with footage of the princess in order to inspire audiences, particularly those in the States, to watch it.

The film follows the story of the Duchess of Devonshire, played by Keira Knightley, 'a vulnerable woman stranded in a loveless marriage'.

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Screen queen: Keira Knightley plays Georgiana, The Duchess of Devonshire - a distant relative of Diana, Princess of Wales, in the upcoming movie

Within seconds of the opening sequence the trailer footage cuts to black and white outlines of Princess Diana's face.

It explicitly refers to Princess Diana's reputation as the people's princess comparing the tragic life of her ancestor with her own.

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• Diana's raunchy ancestor: A new film reveals the tragic life of Lady Georgiana Spencer

The strapline reads: 'She won the hearts of the people...But could not follow her own.'

The plot follows the life of Georgiana Cavendish, nee Spencer, who in the latter half of the eighteenth century married the Duke of Devonshire.

As her marriage unravelled she became the talk of society after becoming involved in a public ménage à trois when her husband's mistress moved into their home.

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Story of heartbreak: The Duchess will hit cinemas next month

The trailer even includes the infamous statement, 'There were three of them in their marriage', taken directly from a Panorama interview with the Princess in 1995.

Prince Charles' ex-wife publicly blamed the break-up of her marriage on his affair with Camilla Parker Bowles.

She told Panorama's Martin Bashir: 'Well there were three people in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded.'

The trailer also uses the recognisable italic D associated with the princess.

Miss Knightley tried to distance herself from the idea that her character was being presented as an early Princess Diana and blamed marketing for the association.

She told Channel 4 News: 'Marketing is nothing to do with me - you are going to have to ask whoever it was at the film company that thought that that was a good idea about that one.

'I don't know, it's nothing to do with me. I am just about playing the role that I was given which was not Diana, which was Georgiana.'

Meanwhile, director Saul Dibb claimed that the link was made by moneymen seeking to reach the widest audience.

He said: 'I didn't decide to put any image of Diana in the trailer. What you have got to understand is that there is a marketing department and there is a film and they are not related.

'What the marketing department did is just make it explicit a link that everyone kind of implicitly knew because they wanted this film to reach as wide a possible audience. We didn't try and do that in the film.

'The film-makers don't decide the marketing campaign, the financiers do.'

The movie's promotional website immediately links the two women.

The synopsis' first sentence says: 'Like Princess Diana, her direct descendent Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, was beautiful, glamorous and adored by the public. But while her beauty and charisma made her a household name one thing always seemed to escape her, love.'

A spokesman for Pathe said: 'The trailer simply reflects historical fact.  Diana was a direct descendent of Georgiana. The uncanny parallels between the lives of the two women received extensive coverage in the media at the time that Amanda Foreman's biography of Georgiana was published ten years ago.

'All that has changed is that the trailer has brought these well-documented similarities vividly to life.'

The Duchess is released in the UK on 5 September