Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed will be seen engaging in a love affair — without any love scenes — as the final series of The Crown attempts to avoid giving more offence than the last one did.
The pair, pictured, started a relationship on the yacht Jonikal in the summer of 1997, just weeks before they died together in a car accident in Paris on August 31.
Their romance will be depicted. However I’m told that there are no nude scenes or ‘anything which could be called intimate’.
Perhaps Netflix are trying not to upset Diana’s son Prince Harry, who has a megabucks deal to produce content for the streamer.
Executives insisted at the Edinburgh TV festival last month that the depiction of Diana’s death had been done with the utmost sensitivity. It will feature in the early episodes of the new series, which was filmed last autumn and is expected to be broadcast in October.
Diana, Princess of Wales, and her companion Dodi Fayed, walk on a pontoon in the French Riviera resort of St. Tropez in August 1997 – just days before their fatal crash in a Paris tunnel
Netflix executives insisted at the Edinburgh TV festival last month that the depiction of Princess Diana’s (pictured) death had been done with the utmost sensitivity
The Crown actors Elizabeth Debicki and Khalid Abdalla Recreate Princess Diana’s Tragic Final Day With Dodi Fayed
But no matter how sensitively it’s been handled, it’s bound to be controversial. Producer Suzanne Mackie said: ‘The show might be big and noisy, but we’re not. We’re thoughtful people and we’re sensitive people. There were very careful, long conversations about how we were going to do it.
‘The audience will judge it, in the end. But I think it’s been delicately, thoughtfully recreated. Elizabeth Debicki is an extraordinary actress and she was so thoughtful and considerate. She loved Diana. There’s a huge amount of respect from us all. I hope that’s evident.’
Producer Andy Harries said that the final episode of the drama — directed by Stephen Daldry — is one of the best shows he has ever done. It will feature all three actresses who have played the Queen. Harries said: ‘It’s a very respectful episode.’
The show has become more controversial as the timeframe has crept closer to the present day.
Last autumn Netflix bowed to pressure and started to preface the show with a disclaimer stating: ‘Inspired by real events, this fictional dramatization tells the story of Queen Elizabeth II and the political and personal events that shaped her reign.’
Prince Charles’s relationship with Camilla Parker Bowles is the dominant storyline of the coming series. It closes with their wedding in April 2005.
The Crown, created and written by Peter Morgan, has been a hit for Netflix since it started in 2016. He is understood to be considering ideas for a prequel series.
Will Winslet Jnr’s big break be a Titanic hit?
Kate Winslet’s daughter, actress Mia Threapleton, stars as Lady Honoria Marabel in AppleTV+’s adaptation of Edith Wharton’s novel The Buccaneers
Her mother made her name at exactly the same age in a period drama about a beautiful, wealthy American girl.
And here is a first look at Kate Winslet’s daughter Mia Threapleton, 22, who is one of the stars of Apple TV+’s adaptation of Edith Wharton’s novel The Buccaneers.
She plays Lady Honoria Marabel alongside British actress Imogen Waterhouse, the sister of model and actress Suki; and rising star Kristine Froseth, who takes the lead role of Nan St George. Mad Men’s Christina Hendricks plays Nan’s mother.
The eight-part series has been led by an all-female creative team and traces the journey of a group of young American girls who launch themselves into the London season in the 1870s, in search of titled husbands.
Mia’s mother was catapulted to stardom aged 22 in 1997, when she played Rose in blockbuster Titanic.
The first three episodes of The Buccaneers stream from Wednesday, November 8.
Schiffer’s husband cuts it fine with the taxman
Film-maker Matthew Vaughn and his wife, German supermodel Claudia Schiffer
British film-maker Matthew Vaughn is facing the possible indignity of having his film company struck off by Companies House after failing to file accounts. Vaughn, 52, is the director of Marv Studios Limited along with his wife, the model Claudia Schiffer, pictured with him.
The company has failed to file accounts, which were due by June 30, and HMRC has started action to strike it off. If nothing is done by the end of October, the company can be shut down. A spokesman for Vaughn did not return requests for comment.
The last accounts filed by Marv Studios indicate it made a loss for the year of £2.3 million, having made £19 million profit in the previous year. However, assets stand at £79 million.
Vaughn has a number of upcoming releases including the spy film Argylle, which features Henry Cavill as a James Bond figure. Pop star Dua Lipa is also in the picture, due to be released in January.
Why Priscilla film doesn’t have any Elvis songs
Arriving in the glittery shadow of Baz Luhrmann’s flashy hit film Elvis, Priscilla has its premiere in Venice on Monday. It’s based on the account of what life was like with Elvis by his widow Priscilla (from the 1985 book Elvis And Me) and has been written and directed by Sofia Coppola.
One thing which sets it apart from Luhrmann’s Oscar-nominated Elvis — made with the full co-operation of the Presley estate — is the music.
Unlike Elvis, Priscilla is having to make do with a soundtrack without a single song from The King.
Actress Cailee Spaeny is said to make a ‘star-making’ performance in Sofia Coppola’s new film ‘Priscilla’, telling the story of Elvis’s famous spouse
Coppola asked Elvis Presley Enterprises for permission to use the star’s music… and was turned down. As a result, the film opens with a Ramones cover of the Ronettes’ Baby, I Love You; and there’s also a cover of the Frankie Avalon song Venus, performed by Phoenix (which just happens to feature Coppola’s husband Thomas Mars).
Coppola said of the decision: ‘They don’t like projects that they haven’t originated — but that made us be more creative.’
The estate didn’t seem to have much trouble when asked to fall in with Luhrmann’s vision, but that skated over his personal life — in particular his romance with Priscilla, which began when she was 14 and he was 24.
Her book also includes a story of Elvis blacking her eye after a pillow fight. And it discusses his drug abuse with a frankness which the Luhrmann film did not.
There has already been plenty of drama featuring the Presley estate — notably the legal wrangle which followed the tragic sudden death of Elvis’s daughter Lisa Marie in January this year.
Priscilla took legal action to question the ‘validity’ of Lisa Marie’s will, disputing a 2016 amendment that removed her and the family’s former business manager, Barry Siegel, as trustees and replaced them with Lisa Marie’s two oldest children: Riley and Benjamin Keough.
That’s now been resolved, with Riley left in charge.
Priscilla Presley herself is expected on the red carpet of the Lido, along with the film’s stars Jacob Elordi, of Euphoria fame, who plays Elvis, and Cailee Spaeny, pictured, who plays the title role. Spaeny’s performance is said to be ‘star-making’.
The A24 film was made in a 30-day shoot in Toronto on a $20 million budget (compared with Luhrmann’s $85 million).
Dearth in Venice, as strikes subdue the glamour
Venice film festival — surely the most elegant event in the movie calendar — is down (but not out) this year as a result of the actors’ and writers’ strikes.
Last year this was where Cate Blanchett, Colin Firth and Brendan Fraser started their journeys to the Oscars. This year, there’s precious little star wattage to brighten up the various premieres and galas.
Directors Laura Poitras and Martin McDonagh at the Venice Film Festival
The biggest name in town, George Clooney, is at the Cipriani with wife Amal — but won’t be making the short walk to the red carpet outside the Palazzo del Cinema, as he’s been a vocal supporter of the industrial action.
Zendaya would have been the biggest star of opening night, but her film Challengers has been yanked from Venice and will open next spring. (A pity, as festival director Alberto Barbera reckons it will win an Oscar.)
No one wants to look as if they aren’t supporting the strikers, to the extent that a ‘Writers Guild On Strike!’ T-shirt has become this year’s must-have fashion item.
Directors Damien Chazelle (La La Land) and Martin McDonagh (Banshees Of Inisherin) wore them for their jury Press conference on Wednesday.
McDonagh, pictured, has shown up without partner Phoebe Waller-Bridge. Last year they were the power couple at Vogue’s splashy party.
Speaking of parties, few want to be caught splashing the cash or conspicuously consuming as the strikes go on, causing genuine hardship to many. Some fixtures, such as the Netflix opening night bash, have just disappeared. Only a handful of stars whose projects are exempt will show up — and then only briefly.
Among them will be Adam Driver, the star of Ferrari, and Jessica Chastain, lead actress in Memory.
Also present will be Woody Allen, whose French language film Coup De Chance will be premiered.
Word here is that it will be Allen’s last. It’s his 50th and he’s told friends he wanted to reach a ‘significant’ number before retiring. He is 87.
Charity Amfar will assemble some models and pop stars for their annual event in the Arsenale, including British singers Rita Ora and Leona Lewis.
With friends like these…
TV writer Patty Lin has drawn back the curtain on the creative process behind the writing of the iconic sitcom Friends — and it’s not a pretty picture.
In a forthcoming memoir, Lin says that the writing staff were a cliquey and entitled bunch — but they had nothing on the prima donna actors (Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry and David Schwimmer).
Lin, who joined in the seventh series, says in End Credits, How I Broke Up With Hollywood: ‘The actors seemed unhappy to be chained to a tired old show when they could be branching out and I felt like they were constantly wondering how every given script would specifically serve them.
‘They all knew how to get a laugh, but if they didn’t like a joke, they seemed to deliberately tank it, knowing we’d rewrite it.
‘Dozens of good jokes would get thrown out just because one of them had mumbled the line through a mouthful of bacon.’
She added of the cast: ‘They rarely had anything positive to say.’
Idris: The Godfather…
Idris Elba has caused some confusion by talking about his ‘three’ children — he has a daughter, Isan, with ex-wife Kim Norgaard and a son, Winston, with Naiyana Garth.
He told a podcast: ‘I have a nine-year-old, a 21-year-old and a 30-year-old.
‘My 21-year-old [Isan] is at NYU studying film — and my nine-year-old [Winston] wants to be a gamer.’
Riaze Foster, 30, is forging an acting career with the support of his godfather Idris Elba, 50
The third ‘child’ is his godson Riaze Foster, who is forging an acting career with the support of Elba, 50.
Riaze, pictured with his godfather, appeared in Elba’s directorial debut Yardie in 2018 and was also in Top Boy in 2019 and Death In Paradise in 2022.
He’s also got a successful sideline as a barber, travelling the world as Elba’s stylist on productions including Beast, Extraction II and Luther: The Fallen Son.
Believe it or not, Dame Maureen Lipman could have been a New Yorker.
Speaking on an episode of Gyles Brandreth’s Rosebud podcast series, which starts today, she said: ‘I had a great-grandfather who was a cobbler in Kazimierz Dolny (in Poland). He left to avoid conscription into the Russian army. He walked to Bremen and he got on a ferry, and he thought he was going to New York.
‘But he ended up in Hull. Poor soul.’
ITV is hoping for a hit with My Mum, Your Dad — which host Davina McCall says she ‘manifested’ after longing for a Love Island for the middle-aged. It’s a nice story . . . but the format — in which single parents looking for a second chance at love are advised by their offspring — was actually created for HBO by Greg Daniels, one of the executives behind Parks And Recreation.
