Princess Margaret became a little manic at receiving such approval of her musical abilities, and she started wriggling around in her crinoline and tiara as she tried to mimic the sexual movements of the professional entertainer. Her dress with its petticoats bolstered by the wooden hoops that ballooned her skirts was unsuitable for the slinky act but all the rapturous applause seemed to make her forget this. Just when she had embarked on a rendering of “Let’s Do It,” a very menacing and unexpected sound came from the back of the crowded ballroom. It grew louder and louder until it eclipsed Princess Margaret’s singing. It was the sound of jeering and hissing, of prolonged and thunderous booing. – Caroline Blackwood
‘Her Royal Highness Princess Margaret, the Countess of Snowdon, the younger sister of Queen Elizabeth II of England’... That was on her business card, so to speak…
Her sister is just over there, over in the shadows… so what else to do but
crank it up and what better time in the history of the planet than the 1960s? Swim through the hemp fog, scotch in hand, to set
the table on a roar. There was the drinking, the parties, the men, the cutting
remarks, the petty squabbles. Given her position to do good things, why turn so
sour?
Why indeed. Her friends disappeared or lingered only for tidbits. The men left her. If they stayed, it seemed for something they could later trade. She was…tolerated. So there she is, nightclubbing with Liza and Mick and McCartney and whoever was called to the table.
Cloistered during the formative years, she was ill-equipped for
the world of grownups. Too often rude, too self-involved, too selfish… perhaps
too smart, too many ribbons to cut, too many hands to shake.
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