Can Royal Couple Win America Over?

Many in Britain are wondering whether America will embrace the visiting Prince Charles and his new wife, Camilla.

CBS News Correspondent Mark Phillips spoke with their friends and admirers back home. He says they're waiting, watching and worrying.

It's a little late for a honeymoon, Phillips notes, and, "Frankly, the United States would not seem a restful first choice" for Charles and Camilla, now the Duchess of Cornwall.

Both have gone through a successful public relations rehab program in Britain, particularly since their April wedding, Phillips reports.

"Charles seems to have been transformed from the grumpy, muttering-under-his-breath, semi-recluse who talked only to his plants," Phillips says.

"He's happy. We're all nicer when we're happy, aren't we?" royal family friend, and novelist Jilly Cooper asked rhetorically.

And Camilla, Phillips says, has gone from being the shadowy "other woman" to being the charming, stylish-in-her-own way, reason that he's happy.

"She is a shy woman," says Vanity Fair columnist Victoria Mather. "She doesn't want to be center-stage, and I think that has all gone extremely well, and everyone who has met her has been enchanted."

But the U.S., Phillips stresses, is historically Diana country so, in any number of ways, Camilla has a tough act to follow.

Can Camilla avoid inevitable comparison?

"I think (Camilla) is rather glamorous (too)," says Mather. "I mean, flip it around the other way. Look at Camilla, and there she is, wearing fabulous clothes; she's now got the clothes thing right; fabulous, enormous hats; I mean, she is known as the Duchess of Cartwheel in the big hats; looking glowing. There's hope for 58-year-old women! You, too, can go out when you are an old bag and marry a prince. It's terrific!"The wedding was even seen as good news by the young princes, William and Harry who, Phillips says, have seemed genuinely pleased with their new, no longer wicked, stepmother.

And the couple's friends, such as the hugely popular Cooper, have been lining up to support them.

"You can obviously see they are in love," Cooper says. "She looks after him, she makes him laugh like mad, and they have fun together, and they work very hard, and the boys love them. The boys love the prince, they adore their father, they loved their mother, but they also adore Camilla."

Still, suggests Phillips, if you're going to test-run the new royal model, you could find easier roads to travel than to America. That may be why they're coming.

"I think it's brave, going to America, but why not?" says Mather. "'Let's go. Let's crack it.' If you can hang in there, you can hang in anywhere. It's life. It's New York, New York."

Yet, for supporters of the royal cause, and particularly for Camilla's friends, it will be an anxious time.

"You tell them to be kind to her; she's lovely," Cooper urged Phillips.

Then, she took the opportunity Phillips offered her to urge them herself: "Please, please, in America: Be kind to my friend Camilla. She is lovely."

And perhaps, concludes Phillips, a little nervous.