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TIME: Almanac 1990
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1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso
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time
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021389
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02138900.071
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1990-09-17
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PEOPLE, Page 71Diana Makes a Splash
How do you take Manhattan? A royal smile, a common touch and
just a hint of blue eyeliner did the trick for the Princess of
Wales last week. On her first official visit to New York City,
Diana, 27, who made the trip without Prince Charles, sailed through
two days and nights of duties like a seasoned royal campaigner.
Long gone was the shop-until-you-drop Sloane Ranger who used
to drift off at stuffy functions. The Princess's biography,
distributed to the media army that followed her, emphasized her
serious interests: "Wales, the disabled, children (their problems
and development), ballet and music." There was no mention of her
weakness for EastEnders, Britain's seamy, steamy version of Dallas.
The Princess left New Yorkers burbling with admiration.
"Di-mania," as local papers called it, slowed traffic everywhere.
Diana dismayed her Secret Service bodyguards by dipping into crowds
of onlookers to shake hands. But her main task was promoting things
British. Wearing a royal blue top and black skirt by English
designer Catherine Walker, she met fashion mavens Oscar de la Renta
and Donna Karan at a reception thrown by a British cashmere
manufacturer. There, the Princess warmly greeted the
wheelchair-bound owner of a chain of fashion shops. When she
discovered that the woman's nurse was English-trained, Diana
remarked, "You're in good hands, then."
The Princess, who stayed in a $1,800-a-day suite at the
British-owned Plaza Athenee Hotel, followed her script well. She
held a photo op in FAO Schwarz, the pricey toy shop, with such
British-made playthings as Paddington Bear and Thomas the Tank
Engine. While there, she checked out the stuffed animals for her
sons William and Henry.
Then it was on to the American premiere of the Welsh National
Opera's production of Verdi's Falstaff at the Brooklyn Academy of
Music, where the Princess was resplendent in a white satin evening
dress with a beaded bolero jacket by British couturier Victor
Edelstein. Among the audience at the $1,000-a-ticket production:
Donald and Ivana Trump, Bianca Jagger and Malcolm Forbes. Before
Diana went backstage to meet the cast, Mayor Ed Koch expressed the
feelings of most of his constituents when he offered the Princess
"a royal New York welcome."
Diana returned the hospitality in kind. She visited a shelter
for the homeless, where the former teacher told a child making a
Valentine card, "That's a lovely Cupid." At one point, she leaned
down and tied a small boy's shoe. She also visited children with
AIDS at Harlem Hospital. To help dispel the myth that the AIDS
virus can be passed by touching, Diana picked up a seven-year-old
sufferer and hugged him. After that, even the most hard-boiled of
New Yorkers had to admit that Diana was a class act.