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Boston Globe
23-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
What can our obsession with Princess Diana tell us about ourselves?
' Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Related : Advertisement Well, sort of. The first chapter, 'Blood Family,' is indeed about the Spencers, reminding us that 'the people's princess' came from the highest echelons of the English aristocracy, and the second is about Diana's complicated relations with 'The Rat Pack,' as she dubbed the journalists on the royal beat. From there, the communities and the coherence get fuzzier. A chapter titled 'Will the Real Diana Please Sit Down' wanders from the 'not overwhelmingly favorable' reactions to her wedding dress through press coverage of her clothing and appearance to a peculiar digression about Diana look-alikes and then to a discussion of painted portraits that don't look like her, all leading to the tenuous conclusion that 'her capacious dress-up box has created confusion about who she really was … it has been difficult to tell where Diana stops and the rest of us begin.' Next, 'Don't Do It Di!' posits an interesting, if debatable point: 'Diana, the everywoman, Diana, the superwoman. These were the poles between which much of her reputation was framed … illuminating of contemporary conversations about gender and the lives of women in a way that is still bitingly relevant.' Instead of pursuing this argument, however, White moves on to comparing the image of Diana as an ideal woman with royal predecessors such as the Queen Mother, and to the 'mythology' that linked her to Marilyn Monroe and Jackie O as someone 'soft, vulnerable, and sad ' — to what end isn't clear. Advertisement White's razor-sharp prose is as pleasurable as ever, nailing 'that unmistakable mixture of lasciviousness and archaic deference that the tabloids favored when writing about Diana,' or describing the photos of her being mobbed in Australia as 'a scene that lands somewhere between Christ among the multitudes and Beatlemania.' In 'Dianaworld,' regrettably, such shrewd comments generally appear in asides. Most of his insights feel old, as when he tells us that Diana's feelings of neglect and rejection, sparked by the loss of her mother in an ugly divorce and deepened by her chilly relations with the royal family, were 'central to the story she told us about herself, and the place she occupies in the collective imagination.' White goes on to link this image of her as someone who could relate to the despised and outcast as a (very privileged) fellow victim with the well-worn topics of her charitable work for people with AIDS and other marginalized groups and with many women's perception of Diana as an emblem of the wronged wife. Only his discussion of the sense of connection with Diana expressed by immigrant women of color, who felt as unwelcome in Britain as she did in the royal family, offers something unexpected. Related : The book's freshest insight is the conflict White discerns between Diana's ferocious ambition, her lifelong sense that she was born for great things, and her publicly professed, quite genuine, commitment to serve others. This, at least, is something that never came up in the contemporary press. If only there were more of it and less background material on various Diana obsessives, from the sculptor who planned a 9-foot-tall, 2-ton bust of her to be placed outside the London headquarters of the National AIDS Trust to the founder of the Diana Circle who insists, 'She was definitely murdered.' Whatever White thinks, these profiles don't enrich our understanding of Diana's significance in the culture. Advertisement White closes abruptly, with a visitor to the Spencer family estate, disappointed by the lack of memorabilia, asking, 'Is there nothing else Diana? Is that it?' There's plenty of Diana in 'Dianaworld,' but unfortunately, readers expecting an original take on one of the most analyzed women in the world may well have the same reaction. DIANAWORLD: An Obsession By Edward White Norton, 384 pages, $31.99 Wendy Smith is the author of ' ' and a two-time finalist for the National Book Critic Circle's reviewing citation.
The Independent
27-02-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Hollywood star throws name in ring to play Frank Sinatra in biopic
James Marsden has expressed his interest in depicting legendary singer Frank Sinatra in any potential biopics. The 50-year-old Jury Duty and Hairspray star did not name any particular project, but said he has a dream of emulating 'old crooners, like Bobby Darin and Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin'. He told The New York Post: 'I always thought there were so many interesting stories of Frank Sinatra's life that could be played. And for whatever reason, you've never really seen a movie about him.' 'To do a biopic like what Jamie Foxx did with Ray Charles would be a lot of fun,' Marsden said. 'I would love to. And you're actually using your singing voice, as well.' There has yet to be a blockbuster biopic made for Sinatra, despite a recent revival of the genre with Elvis (Elvis), Freddie Mercury (Bohemian Rhapsody), Bob Dylan (A Complete Unknown) and Ray Charles (Ray). Sinatra has been depicted on screen before: Ray Liotta played him in 1998's The Rat Pack, James Russo played him in 2003's Stealing Sinatra, Dennis Hopper played him in 2003's The Night We Call It a Da y and Robert Knepper depicted Sinatra in 2012's My Way, about the life of French singer Claude François. He added: 'I just think there's so many stories that could be told about [Sinatra] – some of the really tortured and darker stories, and some uplifting ones as well. What he did, what he accomplished. I've never really done a biopic about somebody.' Fans have approved of Mardsen playing the iconic singer, with many agreeing online that he would be a great fit for the role due to his blue eyes and his impressive past singing performances. 'This could on,' wrote one fan on X/Twitter, as another said: 'I think he'll do a fantastic job of portraying Ol' Blue Eyes.' Another added: 'Considering he's a surprisingly great singer, YES!!' However, a biopic may already be in the works – with Leonardo DiCaprio reportedly tipped to play the 'Somethin' Stupid' singer in a rumoured Martin Scorcese film. It was reported by Variety last year that Scorsese was planning on reviving his dormant Sinatra biopic, with DiCaprio in the lead role and Jennifer Lawrence playing Ava Gardner, Sinatra's wife between 1951 and 1957. Scorsese previously attempted to depict Sinatra's life in a production announced in 2009. He said at the time that he would have involved several actors to play the lead roles at different periods during Sinatra's life, naming Al Pacino as an older Sinatra and Robert De Niro as Sinatra's friend and fellow Rat Packer Dean Martin. 'We can't go through the greatest hits of Sinatra's life,' Scorsese said. 'We tried this already. Just can't do it. So the other way to go is to have three or four different Sinatras. Younger. Older. Middle-aged. Very old. You cut back and forth in time – and you do it through the music.' Scorcese said in 2017 had given up on the idea, telling the Toronto Sun that Sinatra's rights holders 'won't agree to it'. It's unconfirmed whether Scorcese has been granted permission by Sinatra's daughter Tina, who controls the rights to her father's music and image.
