ArtsCultureNewsTop StoryWorld

The Queen, from punk Rock to mystery Novels

The Queen, from punk Rock to mystery Novels
Newslooks- (AP)

In the spring of 2012, portrait artist Ralph Heimans stood on the Cosmati pavement of Westminster Abbey and awaited the subject of his latest commission, Queen Elizabeth II. When she approached, he says, it was an extraordinary moment.

“She was wearing her Robe of State, with four footmen holding it, and as she came down the long corridor it was a very theatrical kind of entrance,” Heimans said soon after he had learned that the queen had died Thursday at age 96.

A portrait by artist Ralph Heimans on display in the Westminster Abbey museum in London showing Queen Elizabeth II wearing her State dress and robe and standing on the Cosmati Pavement, where she was crowned in Westminster Abbey on 2 June 1953. It was the only official portrait commissioned to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee in 2012. (Dean and Chapter of Westminster via AP)

After spending an hour the queen, “discussing niceties,” he came away with “a sense of how thoughtful she was, almost a sense of shyness, an introspective quality.” In his oil painting, which hangs in Westminster, he drew her as a solitary, even brooding figure, her eyes cast down, with the vastness of Westminster behind her like so much weight from the past — and present.

“I wanted to show her in this private moment, with a certain gravity about her,” he says.

Over the past 70 years, authors, filmmakers, playwrights, songwriters and painters have responded to the queen as both symbol and human being, whether commenting on the heights of her position or attempting to tease out the inner life of a woman who spoke infrequently in public and avoided personal revelations. The dual qualities, majesty and mystery, found her imagined in settings ranging from the sobriety of royal art to the rage of punk music to the varied characterizations of film and television.

FILE – Helen Mirren appears on stage as Queen Elizabeth II at the Broadway opening night curtain call of “The Audience” on March 8, 2015, in New York. (Greg Allen/Invision/AP, File)

“I think because she was a constant presence who didn’t say very much, it allowed people to project on her in different ways,” says Elizabeth Holmes, whose “HRH: So Many Thoughts on Royal Style” was published in 2020. “Also, you can very easily make people look like the Queen. You can take that as a starting point and run.”

FILE – Richard McCabe, from left, Sadie Sink, Helen Mirren, Elizabeth Teeter, and Dakin Matthews appear on stage at the Broadway opening night curtain call of “The Audience” in New York on March 8, 2015. (Photo by Greg Allen/Invision/AP, File)

On film, the queen has been fictionalized in everything from Helen Mirren’s Oscar-winning portrayal in “The Queen” to the farcical “Naked Gun” movies and the grim “Spencer,” with Kristen Stewart as Princess Diana and Stella Gonet as Elizabeth. But she has been dramatized most fully in the Emmy-winning Netflix series “The Crown,” which follows her life from the beginning of her reign to recent times — and whose production was suspended Friday after her death.

This image released by Netflix shows Claire Foy, center, and Matt Smith, right, in a scene from “The Crown.” (Robert Viglasky/Netflix via AP)

When played by Claire Foy as a young and glamorous monarch, she is seen as finding her way in her new life, trying to maintain a happy relationship with her husband, Prince Philip. while approaching her royal duties with the sobriety of someone years older. Olivia Colman takes over as Elizabeth ages and becomes more mature and prickly, and flawed, failing initially to travel to the scene of a devastating mining tragedy in Wales and comfort the townspeople, and proving unsympathetic to Diana’s troubles with her son Prince Charles.

“I emote. The queen is not meant to,” Colman told Vanity Fair in 2018. “She’s got to be a rock for everyone, and has been trained not to (emote).”

This image released by Netflix shows Imelda Staunton as Queen Elizabeth in “The Crown.” (Alex Bailey/Netflix via AP)

The queen herself didn’t comment on works about her or always seem aware of cultural trends: Greeting Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page at a 2005 palace reception, she seemed unsure of who he was and what instrument he played. But she sensed her place in world and had enough savvy to appear with Daniel Craig, in character as James Bond, for a 2012 Olympics video, and enough good humor to allow herself to be pictured as parachuting from a helicopter with him (the former was really her, the latter a stunt double).

Fiction writers enjoyed setting the queen off on unusual adventures. In Emma Tennant’s “The Autobiography of the Queen,” the monarch flees to St. Lucia in the Caribbean. S.J. Bennett worked from the premise “What if the queen solved crimes?” in writing the mystery novels “The Windsor Knot” and “A Three Dog Problem.”

FILE – Oscar-nominated actress Jane Alexander, right, who plays Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II, in the TV movie “William & Kate: A Royal Love Story”, speaks to British actress Alice St. Clair, who plays Kate Middleton, on the set in Bucharest, Romania, on May 20, 2011. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda, File)

“She had such a unique perspective on the world. She was always looking out when everyone else was looking at her, so she must see a lot of things the rest of us don’t see,” Bennett, the daughter of a military veteran who had met the Queen, told The Associated Press.

“It was her character that fascinated me, not her position as a symbol,” she added. “She was intelligent, frequently underestimated because she wasn’t traditionally educated, and endlessly curious about people. In the books I have her eagerly looking out of the windows of Buckingham Palace while being painted for a portrait, to see what was going on outside, because that’s what she really did. She had a very wry sense of humor and a huge instinct for fun, but equally an almost supernatural instinct for diplomacy, and a world-class sense of duty.”

A tourist takes a photo on a display commemorating Queen Elizabeth II. at Piccadilly Circus in London, Sunday, Sept. 11, 2022. Queen Elizabeth II’s coffin is leaving her beloved Scottish estate Balmoral Castle as the late monarch begins her last journey back to London for a state funeral. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

Musicians have paid tribute, condemned her and invoked her name for a quick laugh.

For punk and New Wave artists, she was a monument to be torn down. The Smiths’ “The Queen Is Dead” mocks the royal family and the succession to power: “I say, Charles, don’t you ever crave/To appear on the front of the Daily Mail/Dressed in your Mother’s bridal veil?” The Sex Pistols helped define the punk movement in 1976 with ”God Save the Queen,” in which Johnny Rotten (now Lydon) declares “No future” as he snarls out some of the most scathing, nihilistic lyrics ever to top the British charts:

God save the queen

The fascist regime

They made you a moron

A potential H bomb

God save the queen

She’s not a human being …

People walk past a flag with a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II in central London, Monday, Sept. 12, 2022. Queen Elizabeth II, Britain’s longest-reigning monarch and a rock of stability across much of a turbulent century, died Thursday Sept. 8, 2022, after 70 years on the throne. She was 96. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

Songwriters otherwise responded with affection. Duke Ellington met her in the late 1950s and found her “so inspiring” he soon collaborated with Billy Strayhorn on the pensive “The Queen’s Suite,” for which he arranged a single gold pressing just for her. In the late 1960s, Paul McCartney dashed off the acoustic, 23-second “Her Majesty,” with its cheeky refrain, “Her Majesty’s a pretty nice girl/But she doesn’t have a lot to say,” and the Beatles tacked it onto the end of “Abbey Road.”

People look at a black and white tribute to the Queen at Piccadilly Circus in London, Friday, Sept. 9, 2022. Queen Elizabeth II, Britain’s longest-reigning monarch and a rock of stability across much of a turbulent century, died Thursday Sept. 8, 2022, after 70 years on the throne. She was 96. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali)

As he explained in “Paul McCartney: The Lyrics,” published in 2021, he wrote the song in part because the queen really didn’t offer many public statements, beyond her annual Christmas address and the opening of Parliament. McCartney would meet the queen numerous times, as a Beatle and a solo performer, and even played the song for her. But, he reaffirmed in his book: “She didn’t have a lot to say.”

For more world news

Previous Article
Alcaraz, Ruud 1-2 in ATP; Swiatek, Jabeur in WTA
Next Article
Tommy Hilfiger closes Bold show with Travis Barker

How useful was this article?

Click on a star to rate it!

Average rating 0 / 5. Vote count: 0

No votes so far! Be the first to rate this article.

Latest News

Menu