Diana: The Untold Story

Tina Brown's "Diana Chronicles" Reveals Unknowns About "Terribly Sad Life" Of Princess

(CBS)  Ten years after Princess Diana's death, people are still fascinated with the woman who came to be known as "The People's Princess."

And if you think you're up on everything about her, Tina Brown says there's still plenty that's gone unreported — until now.

The former editor of Vanity Fair and The New Yorker followed Diana from the very beginning of her time in the spotlight, and Brown's new biography, "The Diana Chronicles," traces Diana's life from childhood through her tragic end in a car crash in a French tunnel. It includes many details previously unknown to the public.

All in all, Brown told The Early Show co-anchor Hannah Storm on Wednesday, Diana lived "a terribly sad life."

"I think there's been a huge amount of coverage on Diana, but not a huge amount of understanding of who she was," Brown says. "The context of her life has been obscured by the craziness of her death. What about the woman before that? How did she become the woman we saw dying in the car crash? I wanted to show people the evolution of how this girl from a torn family with a sad background became an international icon."

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Photos: The Death Of Diana

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"I set out," she explained to Storm, "to go back over the whole of Diana's life. I talked to 250 new people, really, who had never talked before, some of them, and some who just wanted to say more 10 years after her death. …That's the anniversary coming up, and so people have loosened up, some of them who wouldn't have talked before. What I got, really, was a much fuller picture of the forces that shaped Diana and the forces that she pitted herself against.

"Her early life was so much more bleak and lonely than people have realized. They tend to think she grew up in a grand, stately home but, actually, Diana's early life was a really miserable affair. Not just that her mother left at the age of six, but that her grandmother testified against her mother in a custody battle that really was a terrible betrayal of her grandmother by her mother and just drove her family apart, so that her early life was all about feud and conflict and pain."

Brown writes that Diana was always searching for love and warmth in her life. And she did receive that from her father, who raised her.

Diana, Brown said, came to view the camera as a source of love.

"People have always wondered," Brown remarked to Storm, "why was Diana such a brilliant media natural? And it's really because her father, Earl Spencer, who was not an articulate man, like a lot of Englishmen, he didn't really know how to express warmth, and he did it by taking obsessive photographs of his family, particularly Diana, who became his favorite model. He was always taking pictures of Diana posing, and that was the way she gained her father's affection. And it meant that she associated the camera then with love.

"And, ever afterwards, (Diana) always knew how to pose. I mean, one photographer I spoke to said she was like Garbo: She always knew how the light was striking her. She even knew when the camera was on when her when she had her back to it. She just had this innate sense.

"And she loved tabloid newspapers! I mean, this is a girl who imbibed and sort of inhaled the tabloid papers in England. I call her 'the tabloid princess in a tiara.' It's like she understood what the tabloid journalist wanted. She understood about dreams and rags to riches and the princess in the tower. It's like she had this innate sense of how she could be perceived."

Brown asserts that Diana changed the way the media covered the royals, and even used the press to help her get Charles to propose.

"Diana, when she began dating Charles, realized she had three constituencies to win to get the prince," Brown told Storm. "And she really did want to get the prince, from the age of 14. She obviously had to win Charles, and she did get his attention by being such a charming and sweet and adorable young woman. But she also knew she had to win the royal family, of course. She wasn't going to get Charles without the queen and Prince Philip.

"But, more important, she realized, she had this other, huge power base, which was the press. She had to win the press, because the press had always destroyed Charles' girlfriends, and she set out to woo them.

"And she did. And, one by one, the press fell in love with her and gradually, Charles fell in love with her through the press. They pushed her towards Charles. One of them said to me, 'You know, we really pushed her to Charles and called her "the one," ' and Charles gradually fell in love with her through the media."

Of course, the world fell in love with Diana from the telecast of her wedding, Storm observed.

But, Brown pointed out: "This was the great irony, of course, almost the cancer in the marriage. There were two cancers in the marriage, one was Camilla, of course, who ate at Diana all the time.

"But what ate at Charles was the fact that she just totally outshone him, Diana. He realized … There's a great moment when Charles is watching the videos of the marriage, that great wedding, on the royal yacht during the honeymoon, with the staff of the royal household. And they're sitting there watching. And, gradually, one of the staff notices that Charles is getting more and more quiet and more and more glum and realizes that what Charles is looking at, is thinking, 'This girl totally — I mean, she's gonna outshine me forever. Beside her, I just look like a stiff. I look like a fogey. She's got this natural thing. Help!'

"And that's what happened throughout the marriage was that, when they showed up together, nobody had any eyes for him. He would go out and make his long, boring speeches about architecture or the environment, quite honestly, and nobody wanted to cover it. They just wanted to cover Diana's new haircut, and it drove him wild."

Could that marriage have been saved?

"I do think that if Camilla had backed off, they could have had a marriage that was a truce," Brown responded. "I don't think it would have ever been a great marriage. Their sex life never worked. The chemistry between them just didn't happen after marriage. And so, it was never going to be a great marriage. But it could have been a truce. It could have been a good, sort of polite English marriage. Unfortunately, though, Camilla just wouldn't back off, and always had Charles in her thrall. And Diana had no ability to fight Camilla, for some reason. Charming and as beautiful as she was, she didn't have Camilla's wiles. I mean, whatever it was that Camilla could do for Charles, Diana just didn't have it. And it just corroded the whole situation."

To read an excerpt of "The Diana Chronicles," click here.

[jane5190]

hcorriere is right. P Harry replicates the traits of the Windsors through and through. And his natural facial expressions are pure P Charles. One only has to look through picture books of the royals over time to see how much he resembles his paternal ancestors. Questioning Harry's DNA is psuedo drama that should be laid to rest immediately.

[hcorriere]

Any update of Harry's DNA? ***. You don't have to do it! Harry and P Charles look rather like a Volkswagen with both doors wide open. And his close-set eyes are a Windsor trait (George VI, QEII, Anne, Charles and Harry). And teenager Diana was a 'ginger' blond (like her siblings, Lady Sarah Spencer McCorquodale is ginger).
From another poster:
And there is another 'claim' against Prince of Wales (Mr. Peat denied emphatically).

Do you believe in all these claims?
They can say nothing about Diana work, because she did it superbly and with enthusiasm. She changed the world. She IS one of the most admirable person of all times (and one of the 100 greatest Britons of all time - BBC). Lady Diana was a great force for good, her crusade against landmines resulted in mine ban treaty drawn up.
"My own and only explanation is that genuine goodness is threatening to those at the opposite end of the moral spectrum." (Charles Spencer)

[hcorriere]

Any update of Harry's DNA? ***. You don't have to do it! Harry and P Charles look rather like a Volkswagen with both doors wide open. And his close-set eyes are a Windsor trait (George VI, QEII, Anne, Charles and Harry). And teenager Diana was a 'ginger' blond (like her siblings, Lady Sarah Spencer McCorquodale is ginger).
From another poster:
And there is another 'claim' against Prince of Wales (Mr. Peat denied emphatically).
Do you believe in all these claims?
They can say nothing about Diana work, because she did it superbly and with enthusiasm. She changed the world. She IS one of the most admirable person of all times (and one of the 100 greatest Britons of all time - BBC). Lady Diana was a great force for good, her crusade against landmines resulted in mine ban treaty drawn up.
"My own and only explanation is that genuine goodness is threatening to those at the opposite end of the moral spectrum." (Charles Spencer)

[barbaraf4]

"Any update of Harry's DNA? He apparently has questions as to his parentage (father). Should Charles not be the father, would not that be a perfect reason to blow out her candle and save the monarchy some major embarassment?"
Posted by cfongemie

Why? Because she slept with another man? Charles was sleeping with Camilla throughout the marriage. Besides, this is pretty much the way the royals do it. I saw that on TV the other night. It said the royals have to let some new blood in occasionally, or they would all be crazy from the in-breeding.

[nonameabc]

Die in politic... that's why many untolds. Like Mary.

[afinefolly]

' ... i tell ya what we're gonna do, i know how much you love your wars, so: we'll give 100% of global resources to the 1% of global folk who like to dance get sick soon tax the world first strike on the trail songs, and we'll give nothing to the 99% of global folk who like to dance get well soon you are here feed the world first aid on the trail songs ... and that's my final offer ... '

[barbaraf4]

I think this article, and consequently the book, is and will be total trash. Who cares after all this time? Sad, lonely childhood? I had one too, but I was not born into wealth and married to a prince. Once you reach adulthood, you have to "put on your big girl panties and get over it."

[bobgee_1999]

Ah, yes, the "terribly sad life" of the rich and famous. Born rich, married a prince, died while partying. My heart bleeds.

Leave the Princess diana alone. she is dead for almost ten year now and they are still writting trash about her. How would the author feel if someone would write trash about her. How would she like it.The late Princess is not around to defend herself.I will definitely read the book.

I've been an UBER fan of Princess Diana since the very begining, however the following quote sorta ticked me off:

"I do think that if Camilla had backed off..."

How could Camilla have backed-off? This is Prince Charles and he was pursuing her. What was she supposed to do? Refuse him?

Unfortunately for Diana, Charles and Camilla were made for each other and if Charles had woken up at the very beginning of his relationship with Camilla, things would have been very different. He couldn't decide whether he wanted to be married so Camilla married someone else. It's only then that Charles realized his error.

[cfongemie]

Any update of Harry's DNA? He apparently has questions as to his parentage (father). Should Charles not be the father, would not that be a perfect reason to blow out her candle and save the monarchy some major embarassment?

[cherryfries]

Anna Nicole with a crown? Where do you get that idea? In no way were the actions of Princess Diana like those of Anna Nicole. Princess Diana never did the things that Anna Nicole did and she never would have either. To suggest that of the Princess is completely wrong and shows only of your ignorance.

[bloggerlady]

I doubt there is really a lot more that we do not know about Diana. We knew of her ability to manipulate the media, which seems to be the point of this book. Still, Diana is such an icon of our times, she will always be interesting to me. Im sorry she was never able to make peace with her situation, something that often only comes when one is older with more distance from the turmoil and more time for introspection. And that her boys were denied a loving mom at such a young age. That is the tragedy of Diana's life. A young death and much unfinished living.

[godseyesore-2009]

And YOU are an idiot, like George Bush, for making such a nonsensical statement.

[extremophil]

She was Anna Nicole with a crown. Nothing more.