Sunday, August 31, 1997
PARIS - Britian's Princess Diana died early today after a car crash in the heart of Paris that also killed her boyfriend, Dodi Fayed.
The 36 year old princess died at 4 a.m. Paris time after going into cardiac arrest at the Hospital de la Pitie Salpetriere, doctors said.
The crash was during a high-speed chase by paparazzi - the commerical photographers who constantly shadowed Diana - who were pursuing the princess's car, Paris police said.
Five photographers were in custody, police said, and a criminal investigation was under way. France Info radio said at least some of the photographers took pictures of the crash before help arrived - and that one of the photographers was beaten at the scene by horrified witnesses.
"The death of the Princess of Wales fills us all with shock and deep grief," said British ambassador Michael Jay, who was at the hospital. A chauffeur also died and a bodyguard was injured in the car's crash. Diana and Fayed, 41, who had been carrying on a high-profile romance in recent weeks, had been vacationing on the Mediterranean, and Diana had been scheduled to return to London later today.
Thursday, September 4, 1997
NEW YORK - Singer-songwriter Elton John has said in a television interview that he will do all he can not to cry
when he performs at the funeral of his friend Diana, Princess of Wales. "She kept . . . her cool for me . . . at Gianni's funeral
and she held her composure. I've got to do the same for her," he said according to a transcript of the ABC News 20/20
program to be broadcast Friday night. In July, Diana comforted John at the memorial service in
Milan for famed designer Gianni Versace, who was murdered on the steps of his Miami Beach mansion.
"What's the toughest . . . I'm a sentimentalist. I cry very easily," John said in the interview recorded Thursday after
Buckingham Palace announced he would sing a rewritten version of Candle in the Wind, his 1970s tribute to actress Marilyn
Monroe and a life snuffed out in its prime. The song written by Elton John and Bernie Taupin will be
changed to reflect Diana's death. John said in the ABC interview that he had asked Taupin to write a new lyric, about Diana, for
the funeral at London's Westminster Abbey. Instead of 'Goodbye Norma Jean' he will sing 'Goodbye
England's rose, may you ever grow in our hearts. You were the grace that placed itself where lives were
torn apart. You called out to our country and you whispered to those in pain. Now you belong to heaven and the stars spell out
your name.' The 36-year-old princess was killed with her millionaire companion Dodi Al Fayed early Sunday when their Mercedes
limousine crashed in Paris. John said Diana's sister Lady Sarah McCorquodale had asked
him if he could sing at Saturday's funeral, "and I said I'll do anything you want." John said he considered it "an incredible
honor". Asked whether he believed the paparazzi who were chasing Diana before the accident were in part to blame for Diana's
death, John told interviewer Barbara Walters: "Of course they are. Of course they are."
He added that the actual responsbility lay with editors and newspaper owners.
Thursday, September 4, 1997
By Hagar Scher, NEW YORK - The memory of Princess Diana took center stage Thursday at the MTV Music Television annual video awards,
with many celebrities on the show recalling her spirit and strength. Elton John, who will sing at Diana's funeral Saturday,
announced at the glitzy show that MTV would donate $100,000 to charities supported by the late princess, such as AIDS
organizations. Before the show, John smiled and waved at fans outside who yelled: “Sing for Diana.” He will perform a rewritten version
of Candle in the Wind at the elaborate London funeral service. Fans on the streets cried and cheered as music stars arrived
for the 14th annual awards ceremony at the landmark Radio City Music Hall. Drawing the loudest cheers were rap acts Wu Tang Clan and
Missy Elliot as well as mega-stars Janet Jackson, Madonna and Will Smith. The memory of the princess, who died Sunday in an automoble
crash in Paris, wove its way through the awards show. “Princess Diana made everybody feel good. You could tell
her spirit and her vibe were so right. She's all right now,” said R&B artist Sean Combs, who performs as Puff Daddy.
“She's in heaven with Biggie and everybody else,” he said. Rapper Notorious B.I.G., known as Biggie Smalls, was gunned
down in March after a party in Los Angeles. A somber Madonna admonished the audience, saying: “It is
time for us to take responsibility for our insatiable need to run after gossip, scandal and lies and rumors.” “And it is time that we realize that everything that we say
and do is connected and has an effect on the world around us,” she said. “We are all one and and until we change our negative
behavior, tragedies like this will continue.” Britain's Spice Girls won best dance video for “Wannabe”
and dedicated its award to Diana. "It's a great loss for our country,” said band member
Melanie Chisholm. “She had real girl-power,” added Spice Girl Geri Halliwell.
British acid-jazz group Jamiroquai won four awards, including best video of the year for Virtual Insanity.
Afterward, lead singer Jay Kay talked to reporters about Diana, saying “The best way to honor someone like that is to
stop the production of landmines. If we're really sorry about the loss, that's what she would have wanted us to do.”
Diana had campaigned to ban the use of landmines and had traveled widely to visit land mine victims.
A ROYAL LIFE TIMELINE
July 1, 1961 - Lady Diana Frances Spencer is born, the daughter of the 8th Earl Spencer.
A Brother's Tribute
This is the address by Diana's brother, Charles, the 9th Earl Spencer, given at her funeral.
I stand before you today the representative of a family in grief, in a country in mourning before a world in shock. We are all united not only in our desire to pay our respects to Diana but rather in our need to do so. For such was her extraordinary appeal that the tens of millions of people taking part in this service all over the world via television and radio who never actually met her feel that they, too, lost someone close to them in the early hours of Sunday morning. It is a more remarkable tribute to Diana than I can ever hope to offer her today. Diana was the very essence of compassion, of duty, of style, of beauty. All over the world she was a symbol of selfless humanity, a standard bearer for the rights of the truly downtrodden, a truly British girl who transcended nationality, someone with a natural nobility who was classless, who proved in the last year that she needed no royal title to continue to generate her particular brand of magic. Today is our chance to say "thank you" for the way you brightened our lives, even though God granted you but half a life. We will all feel cheated that you were taken from us so young, and yet we must learn to be grateful that you came along at all. Only now that you are gone do we truly appreciate what we are now without, and we want you to know that life without you is very, very difficult. We have all despaired at our loss over the past week, and only the strength of the message you gave us through your years of giving has afforded us the strength to move forward. there is a temptation to rush to canonize your memory. There is no need to do so. You stand tall enough as a human being of unique qualities not to need to be seen as a saint. Indeed, to sanctify your memory would be to miss out on the very core of your being, your wonderfully mischievous sense of humor with the laugh that bent you double, your joy for life transmitted wherever you took your smile and the sparkle in those unforgettable eyes, your boundless energy, which you could barely contain. But your greatest gift was you intuition, and it was a gift you used wisely. this is what underpinned all your wonderful attributes. And if we look to analyze what it was about you that had such a wide appeal, we find it in your instinctive feel for what was really important in all our lives. Without your God given sensitivity, we would be immersed in greater ignorance at the anguish of AIDS and HIV sufferers, the plight of the homeless, the isolation of lepers, the random destruction of land mines. Diana explained to me once that it was her innermost feelings of suffering that made it possible for her to connect with her constituency of the rejected. And here we come to another truth about her. For all the status, the glamour, the applause, Diana remained throughout a very insecure person at heart, almost childlike in her desire to do good for others so she could release herself from deep feelings of unworthiness, of which her eating disorders were merely a symptom. The world sensed this part of her character and cherished her for her vulnerability whilst admiring her for her honesty. The last time I saw Diana was on July the first, her birthday, in London, when, typically, she was not taking time to celebrate her special day with friends but was guest of honor at a charity fundraising evening. She sparkled, of course, but I would rather cherish the days I spent with her in March when she came to visit me and my children in our home in South Africa. I am proud of the fact that, apart from when she was on public display meeting President Mandela, we managed to contrive to stop the ever present paparazzi from getting a single picture of her. That meant a lot to her. These are the days I will always treasure. It was as if we'd been transported back to our childhood, when we spent such an enormous amount of time together, the two youngest in the family. Fundamentally, she hadn't changed at all from the big sister who mothered me as a baby, fought with me at school and endured those long train journeys between our parents' homes with me at weekends. It is a tribute to her level headedness and strength that despite the most bizarre life imaginable after her childhood, she remained intact, true to herself. there is no doubt that she was looking for a new direction in her life at this time. She talked endlessly of getting away from England, mainly because of the treatment she received at the hands of the newspapers. I don't think she ever understood why her genuinely good intentions were sneered at by the media, why there appeared to be a permanent quest on their behalf to bring her down. It is baffling. My own, and only explanation is that genuine goodness is threatening to those at the opposite end of the moral spectrum. It is a point to remember that of all the ironies about Diana, perhaps the greatest is this: that a girl given the name of the ancient goddess of hunting was, in the end, the most hunted person of the modern age. She would want us today to pledge ourselves to protecting her beloved boys, William and Harry, from a similar fate. And I do this here, Diana, on your behalf. We will not allow them to suffer the anguish that used regularly to drive you to tearful despair. Beyond that, on behalf of your mother and sisters, I pledge that we, your blood family, will do all we can to continue the imaginative and loving way in which you were steering these two exceptional young men, so that their souls are not simply immersed by duty and tradition but can sing openly as you planned. We fully respect the heritage into which they have both been born and will always respect and encourage them in their royal role. But we, like you, recognize the need for them to experience as many different aspects of life as possible, to arm them spiritually and emotionally for the years ahead. I know you would have expected nothing less from us. William and Harry, we all care desperately for you today. We are all chewed up with sadness at the loss of a woman who wasn't even our mother. How great your suffering is we cannot even imagine. I would like to end by thanking God for the small mercies he has shown us at this dreadful time -- for taking Diana at her most beautiful and radiant and when she had so much joy in her private life. Above all, we give thanks for the life of a woman I am so proud to be able to call my sister: the unique, the complex, the extraordinary and irreplaceable Diana, whose beauty, both internal and external, will never be extinguished from our minds.
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