Princess Diana: The Real Story : An Unauthorized Biography

by Richard Buskin

Originally published in 1992, this biography has been fully revised with an addition of 32 pages of text covering the beloved Princess's untimely death and her internationally televised memorial service. Includes 75 photos.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

A New York Times bestselling author, Richard Buskin is also a full-time freelance journalist, specializing in pop culture, music, film, television, and sociopolitical affairs. Since the early-Eighties, he has conducted interviews and written regular feature articles for a wide variety of publications in the US, the UK, France, Germany, Japan and Australia, dealing with all aspects of the entertainment business: the artistic, the technical and the entrepreneurial.

A native of London, England, who relocated to America in 1995, Richard has had his work published in newspapers ranging from the New York Post and the Sydney Morning Herald to Britain's Observer, Independent and Daily Mail, as well as magazines such as Playboy (US, Brazilian, Czech, French, Japanese and Polish editions), Stern (Germany) and Paris Match (France). He has also written for numerous music publications around the world, including Billboard, Spin, Musician, Mix, Musik Express, Melody Maker, Sound On Sound and Performance (for which he was a senior editor and UK bureau chief), and movie journals such as Film Review and Films & Filming, in addition to authoring/co-authoring more than 20 non-fiction books.

Among these are Inside Tracks: A First-Hand History of Popular Music from the World's Greatest Record Producers and Engineers (Avon Books, 1999); Blonde Heat: The Sizzling Screen Career of Marilyn Monroe (Billboard Books, 2001); Sheryl Crow: No Fool to This Game (Billboard Books, 2002); Phyllis Diller´s autobiography, Like a Lampshade in a Whorehouse: My Life in Comedy (Penguin/Tarcher, 2005); Effortless Style with celebrity fashion stylist June Ambrose (Simon & Schuster, 2006); Dream in Color: How the Sánchez Sisters are Making History in Congress with Congresswomen Linda and Loretta Sánchez (Grand Central, 2008); Die Trying: One Man's Quest to Conquer the Seven Summits with mountaineer Bo Parfet (Amacom, 2009); One from the Hart with actress Stefanie Powers (uncredited, Simon & Schuster, 2010); It's Not Really About the Hair with Tabatha Coffey, star of Bravo's hit TV reality show Tabatha's Salon Takeover (HarperCollins, 2011); Whitney Houston: The Voice, The Music, The Inspiration with musician/producer Narada Michael Walden (Insight Editions, 2012); and Classic Tracks: The Real Stories Behind 68 Seminal Recordings (Sample Magic, 2012). A co-author and consulting editor on the Billboard Illustrated Encyclopedia of Music (2003) and the Definitive Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock (Flame Tree, 2006), Richard is presently involved in the planning and writing of several new books.

Richard Buskin has provided sleeve notes for records and videos; penned narrative material for DVD; written press releases and publicity bios for the likes of Aerosmith and Michael Jackson; served as a researcher and on-screen entertainment expert for television networks in the US and the UK; lectured journalism students at Chicago’s Northwestern University, as well as PACE program students at National-Louis University; and been interviewed on numerous TV and radio shows, including CBS's Entertainment Tonight, A&E's Biography, E! Entertainment's True Hollywood Story, AMC's Backstory and the BBC Television News. He lives in Chicago.

Reviews

[Annette · Rating 3 out of 5]

What a beautiful woman, inside as well as outside. Her life was complicated to say the least. The charity work she did as a hands-on caring person was amazing. She didn't care if she got dirty or soiled with the germs of those who were ill. Yet the royal family treated her horribly, thinking that the work she did made any attempt at Charles' good will look shabby. The royal family hated the fact that she had opinions of her own and she would not back down from them.

Diana's tragic death was a terrible end to the struggle she lived on a daily basis fighting the Windsors and the paparazzi.

[Tera · Rating 4 out of 5]

Princess Diana's life as a young girl and thrusted into the public eye of British Royalty. Interesting read with little facts here and there that I've never heard of before. She will always be "The People's Princess" and Charles as the cheater.

[Maddie Vogel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved the topic but not written super well

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Princess Diana passed away at the premature age of 36, and she is destined to become an icon, forever young and forever surrounded by controversy" ( 7).

This biography goes through Diana's life in chunks rather than chronologically. One chapter may focus on her charity work while another one will focus on her private life or motherhood. I know this is not the definitive biography on Diana or her impactful autobiography (I consider Morton's book to be as close to an autobiography as we will get), but I still enjoyed this account of her life and would recommend it to others. It also includes many pictures in each chapter and while they are in black and white, I still saw several photos I had not seen before, and they help showcase her influence on fashion as well.

I have been a fan of British history ever since childhood when I first realized that Diana was gone, and I wondered how someone so beautiful and kind could already be dead. (So no, I am not just reading this because I binge-watched The Crown. While I do like The Crown, I bought this book before that show was even an idea, and as we all should know, The Crown took liberties especially with the last season and Diana's life.) I have been interested in studying how the Royal Family treated her and why sometimes the monarchy relies too much on tradition. I have watched several documentaries about Diana and the Royal Family, but I still learned new information such as how her father's death affected her and Andrew Morton's experience on writing her autobiography and a look at her average everyday schedule.

One of the saddest things I read was something I already knew but never heard put so bluntly. "Charles confessed that he had never loved Diana but that he had been pressured into marrying her by Prince Phillip. This was not good public relations" (205). It's easy to say now, in hindsight, that Charles should have just married Camilla, but then the monarchy would never have been modernized by Diana. And now with her gone, I feel her best traits continue to live on through her children, and there is a brighter future for the monarchy through the next generation which still honors tradition but is not hindered by it.

All in all, if you are a fan of Diana or British history I think you would enjoy this book and it would make you ponder some of these questions. If only there weren't three in the marriage? If only the paparazzi would not have been so relentless? I think that's why everyone is still intrigued by Diana and the monarchy; there are so many questions that will never be answered and it draws us back in similar to the Titanic, so go ahead and treat yourself to a different perspective of her life with this short but comprehensive biography.

[Danielle]

TBR book challenge: read 50 books off my physical bookshelf before buying new books.

**Book 4 of 307**

DNF @ 50%. The author literally said “we’ll have to improvise on the next part of the story.” How about not???? It seems the whole book is just “trust me bro.”

The author seriously doesn’t like Diana and input passive aggressive opinions while telling “her story.” I’ll find a different book of Diana’s life, this one was 0 stars.