Wallis Simpson's Life Is Heading to the Big Screen

Mage already made a movie about her and nobody liked it.

I want to play the STARRING role!

Pasternak is angling to write the script for the Duvernay version of Edward and Wallis, starring . . .

Guess who in the title role?

Yes r2, Meghan would be perfect as Wallis Simpson, the one role she might play with some authenticity.

Good book - much more sympathetic to Wallis and makes Edward out to be a spoiled brat who just wanted to have what he wanted and dragged Wallis behind him.

Sounds like Harry and Meghan, R5.

Enough movies about this nazi-loving narcissist. There are far more worthy people to make films about.

Another article I read claims Cate Blanchett is going to play it. The early Wallis and Edward has been done many times, either as part of a bigger story or on its own. Late life, less so.

Ditto to R1 and R7.

No one really cares about these creepy Nazis, particularly American audiences, who can't be bothered to learn who Wallis SImpson was, despite her having been an American.

Madge's movie (WE) was laughably bad and incredibly ignorant regarding the politics and ethics of Edward and Wallis. It's right up there with Jodie Foster's passion project about Leni Riefenstahl, which (thank god) remains unmade: colossally misguided.

But not up there with my Gypsy! That’s in a class by itself.

Why is this news? Her life has been done on screen and TV multiple times.

Out of curiousity I attempted to watch Granmadonna's directorial debut. Let's just say I lasted all of three total scenes before lighting up a joint so I could just enjoy it as a satire and still couldn't get through it. She directs much like she acts. Self conscious and ungraceful.

I think that people are trying to tie Megxit to Wallis Simpson, and their respective "struggles," but the two women are not even remotely the same.

They're polar opposites, in fact.

Is it true that Wallis Simpson was really a man?

Now THAT would be an interesting movie.

Simpson at least stuck with it. I don’t know if she thought it was a mistake or not, but she saw it through.

They should really do it as a limited series.

I think TV/movie folks are taken in with historical glamour porn: all surface trappings and wigs and costumes without any real understanding of time/place. Actors love those roles--"I really get to stretch"-- and they're award bait for actors, writers, and directors. These projects are marketed as classy and upscale, so getting sponsors/networks/brand associations to sign on is easy. Win-win. This has been true since movies were invented, but these projects are enjoying a boom again lately.

I'm not convinced they connect with popular audiences most of the time, and few of them are worth the money spent (historical dramas are usually expensive to produce), but that hasn't stopped Hollywood.

(The Brits generally do a much better job at this, and often on a fraction of the budget, BTW. I say this as an American.)

R17 Its kinda like the glamour porn you get when you watch that TV Movie from 1987, Poor little rich girl, the Barbra Hutton story, starring Farrah Fawcett. It's all beautiful gowns, diamonds, pearls, wigs, luxury upscale settings etc.

Not gonna lie, it's part of the reason I enjoy that film. It's visually beautiful. Remember, Americans love decadence and glamour. It's what we aspire to be.

The story of Wallace Simpson, a dragon if there ever was one, and her weak-witted hubby the former Prince of Wales, has been done to death. Nobody gives a shit about it. Why do yet another movie about it? Do the filmmakers think people are going to stampede to see it because of "our American duchess, Meghan?" Now that is truly stupid.

You sound jealous, R19.

Are you by any chance.... KATE MIDDLETON????

Nobody's making a movie about you, any time soon. Bitch.

[quote] The story of Wallace Simpson

Oh, dear.

*rips up R19's gay card*

R1, Downloadable version which I believe is free.

Who's read it already? Opinions?

"All eyes are on Megan Markle right now..."

Teehee

NAZI CUNT

R20 is obviously a moron - there are several flicks depicting Kate, Kate and William respectively.

Who would want to see a movie about two such shallow people?

I'd rather see a movie about Mary of Teck. An intelligent, energetic woman of steely will and fanatical devotion to the crown, who propped up both of Victoria's strange and inbred grandsons, though thankfully she only had to marry and breed with one of them. An excellent Queen and an indifferent mother. Obsessed with jewels and antiques, one biographer called her the greatest museum curator that never was. Snubbed as a young woman for being an impoverished Serene Highness, by the end of her life she was as much an icon of Britain as Big Ben. Would make an excellent 4 or 6-part miniseries.

R9 At least Riefenstahl was an influential filmmaker. Wallis Simpson was just a useless rich slut in addition to being a Nazi.

A mulatto cast as MOI?!

Both of them were pro-Hitler. That's not opinion. That's fact. So, yes they were Nazis.

It's with reluctance, then, that I point out the following: Simpson had a superb eye in choosing a garment. In every pic I've seen of her, her clothing is without a mistake.

Her wedding gown was PERFECT, not a detail wrong.

I've seen some of her frocks on display in museums, and she was teeny-weeny. Just like David.

They must have subsisted on tobacco, coffee, and air.

The only book about the Duke & Duchess that needs to be made is Dancing with the Devil about Jimmy Donahue, an heir to the Woolworth fortune and cousin of Barbara Hutton. Did he have a four year affair with Wallis? Maybe.

"Gay at a time when the homosexual act was still illegal, Jimmy was notorious within America’s upper class, and loved to shock. Though press agents arranged for him to be seen with female escorts, his pursuits, until he met the Duchess of Windsor, were exclusively homosexual. He was thirty-five when he was befriended by the Duke and Duchess of Windsor in 1950. The Duchess was fifty-four, and despite the difference in age, there was an instant attraction. A burgeoning sexual relationship – a perverse sort of love – was formed between Jimmy and the Duchess. Together with the Duke, they became an inseparable trio, the closest of friends. As Jimmy had planned, the royal couple became obsessed with him."

Edward VIII loved thin, modern, stylish women. That's why he was never attracted to Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, though her family threw her at him until finally settling for the younger brother. Though reasonably attractive as a young woman, Elizabeth was basically the opposite of his type.

I think it's possible to make a good film about Mrs. Simpson, although obviously it hasn't been done yet.

I don't think a linear structure would work, as all the real drama would be in the first half of the film, but I think if they used a somewhat non-linear structure they might have something. Like, they should steal a hell of a lot from "La Vie En Rose", which interspersed scenes of Edith Piaf's impoverished youth and meteoric rise, with scenes of her being broken-down human wreckage by forty. Do something similar, present the affair, abdication, and flirtation with the Nazis in order, but intersperse with scenes from Wallis's youth, early marriage, and wasted later years. Contrast events for ironic or shocking effect, that sort of thing. It could work.

But keep the budget low, it's not like all the Walmarts of the world will empty out when this opens.

Are movie makers banned from telling the truth about Wallis and Edward's Nazi past?

Why hasn't a movie ever been made about that?

R34 Only Wallis didn't have a particularly impoverished life, never worked and was married to 2 fairly wealthy men before The Duke of Windsor.

The reason movies and TV shows about her tend to be awful is that she was a boring upper middle class woman, who only had one big scandal in her life.

Endless documentaries have been made on their Nazi connections, they are also pretty dull and rely more on hearsay than evidence.

I agree there's not a lot of good material in Wallis's youth, just include a couple of scenes showing how socially ambitious she was, and what became of the first two husbands. But there's a lot of good drama to be had in the scandal, abdication, war years, and the hostile relationship with the BRF. But in order to make a movie out of it, they've got to keep the Dramatic Years at the heart of the film, and intersperse scenes from the Wasted Years in, in non-linear fashion.

If anyone ever wants to make a film about the Wasted Years, it should be directed by Sofia Coppola. She's the only director who has a hope in hell of making something even slightly watchable out of such a glamorous and shallow life, she did it once with "Marie Antoinette".

"Nobody's making a movie about you, any time soon. Bitch."

Oh, fuck off asshole. Wallis Simpson is old news. VERY old news. Are you a fan of her? I guess you are. You seem pretty stupid.

There was nothing. absolutely nothing interesting, about the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, except that he used to be a Prince who threw his throne away to be with the woman of his dreams, a mannish, conniving, greedy, controlling, unattractive divorcee. Neither one were interesting people and both were awful human beings. They liked HITLER< for fuck's sake. Nobody is going to want to see a movie about those two creeps.

[quote]Mage already made a movie about her and nobody liked it.

We don't talk about W.E.

Cate Blanchett will play Wallis.

They should toy with Wallis breaking the fourth wall.. talking directly to the audience... she was apparently dry and witty... her expressing her POV on events could be a different take. I was gonna say have her narrate it but it could be interesting to hear her observations... even self serving and deluded would show a lot about her.

Why anyone wants to romanticize this ugly, racist cunt’s life is a mystery to me. She was useless...and ugly, bitter barren frau who thought that she was better than others and better than she actually was. She pussy whipped an inbred, drunken anti Semitic royal with the personality of a stop sign. Why waste the film on her?

Madonna already did this.

She was a Nazi lover. She was having an affair with a high up Nazi at the same time she was dating Edward. When Churchill

they made them leave England after he abdicated, they visited Hitler, wrote letters to Hitler, and they gave him British military secrets. Churchill didn't know what to do with them so he sent them to the Bahamas. Where they laundered money for Hitler. Hitler promised them that when the war was over - and Hitler the victor - he would re-institute then as King and Queen of England. So they spied for him.

This was no love affair. He needed to be dominated. She complied. But she didn't even want to marry him. She wrote a letter to somebody saying she felt trapped.

What would have happened if he didn’t abdicate? He was the king after all. Honest question, what could the government do?

R45 she was no looker, did she really feel like she had a better option than a British Prince in the 1930s? She could have several seats. A smart bitch would have let him continue on as king, marry him after the war. Win win situation. But no, they just had to rush and ended up losing the crown.

Jimmy Donahue was the gay man the Duke and Duchess of Windsor had a close "friendship" with. NOT Scotty Bowers. Poor Scotty's affair with "Eddie and Wally" was a figment of his fertile imagination.

Meghan and Harry should co-star in it.

A filmed work about the British royal family? How original, and how necessary.

Please don’t hijack the thread with Harry and MM hate.

The actor who played the Duke of Windsor in 'The Crown' was magnificent. Of course, he played the Duke as witty and perceptive and charismatic and intelligent, none of which qualities the Duke was known to have in abundance.

That's Alex Jennings, and he's fantastic. Why they didn't age him up a bit and use him for the Duke's final episode in season 3 I'll never know. David Jacobi was all wrong for the part.

If Edward and Wallace were Nazis, then what about his brother, the King?

Surely, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

Oh, I think a talented director *could* make a great movie out of Wallis's story, just as long as there was absolutely no attempt to glorify her. Or especially, to glorify her weak, worthless, spoiled, Nazi-fanboy husband, life with him had to be sufficient punishment for her sins.

IMHO it's sort of an Icarus story, in metaphorical terms she reached too high, was burned by the sun, and fell to Earth (to live a life of boredom, irrelevancy, and mooching). She wasn't admirable but she did some stuff so interesting we're still talking about it nearly a century later, and although it'd be difficult to make a story about someone who spent forty years being bored out of her skull, it could be done.

Wallis's story would have to concentrate on the period from 1934-1940, the time period of her romance with the King, his subsequent abdication, and their eventual banishment to the Bahamas after several years of pro-German troublemaking. That would fit neatly into a 2-hour time frame, and it's really the most interesting part of hers OR Edward's life. After that, it's just endless sponging and dinner parties.

"The actor who played the Duke of Windsor in 'The Crown' was magnificent. Of course, he played the Duke as witty and perceptive and charismatic and intelligent, none of which qualities the Duke was known to have in abundance."

Indeed. The "golden haired Prince Charming" was a pinch-faced, puny dunce. A charmless dunce. Someone who knew him said that "for some hereditary or physiological reason his normal mental development stopped dead when he reached adolescence. He was a clod. His lady love Wallis was a harridan. Someone said that her personality was such that "if she was hungry, she might take a bite out of you." They truly deserved each other. They were two miserable human beings.

Was Wallis technically a princess? I know she didn't use the title but was she a princess by virtue of her marriage to Edward? And I know she wasn't an HRH.

Edward VIII was fantastically inbred, abused mentally, physically, and perhaps sexually by an unstable nanny during his early years, neglected by his parents, and given an indifferent education. It's not surprising that he and his equally traumatized brother George VI both ended up neurotic messes completely dominated by their wives.

The younger sons of George V and Mary of Teck didn't do much better: The Duke of Kent was a drug addict and the Duke of Gloucester was borderline mentally challenged. The youngest, Prince John, was an autistic epileptic who died at age 13. The only daughter Mary, the Princess Royal, fared somewhat better, but she was more warmly treated by her parents and inherited some of her mother's intellect.

It's a bad idea when cousins marry, kids. Particularly when it happens repeatedly.

The Brit press colluded to avoid mention of the Duke/Duchess of Windsor's financial and moral support of Hitler and National Socialism. To highlight it would again raise up the very uncomfortable fact of Royal family's German origins, a fact they had been attempting to distance themselves since WW1. The last thing neither the Royal family nor the Brit media wanted the masses to see were images like this.

Faye Dunaway did it first.

I recently read a book about Hitler's staff and his butler recounted how Hitler frequently talked about Edward and Wallis with great affection.

Yikes, R60!

Is that a very young Queen Elizabeth II, doing the Nazi salute??

They weren’t Nazi sympathizers. It was I’ll-advised to go to Germany but there hasn’t been any writings of theirs that express admiration for Hitler or Nazism. He was a monarchist and that doesn’t go hand in hand with nazism. The British Establishment wanted him gone and she was the convenient means. It was unlawful to deny her the HRH and petty. Their church was created so there could be a Royal Divorce. Four divorces in the the Queen Morher’s next 2 generations. What would Queen Mary say?

R63 The late Queen Mum, a young Queen Elizabeth giving the Fascist or Nazi salute in 1933 with Uncle David (Duke of Windsor) and sister Margaret Rose in the background. Not something either the Royal family, the Brit media or the Government of the day wanted publicised.

[quote]They weren’t Nazi sympathizers. It was I’ll-advised to go to Germany but there hasn’t been any writings of theirs that express admiration for Hitler or Nazism.

R64 Rubbish! Both the Duke and Duchess were financial contributors to Hitler's Strength Thru Joy (Kraft durch Freude) fund. Another uncomfortable fact about them that was never publicised. The Duke spent most of his life harranguing his guests that if it wasn't for "the Jews", England could have had "a negotiated peace" with Hitler.

I like the actress in the recent A Scandal in Bohemia with Benedict Cumberbatch. What’s her name? She played the dominatrix very well, which is what Mrs. Simpson was.

The best part of the Wallis Simpson story is the end. I think it was creepily fascinating how she was kept as a virtual prisoner by that lawyer, Suzanne Blum.

If it weren't for Wallis, Queen Elizabeth II most likely would not have become queen. I'm not saying we should thank Wallis posthumously, I'm just stating the facts.

She was quite pretty in her youth. Another great contribution to the world was Wallis’ imaginative and wonderful jewels. They were auctioned and the proceeds were given to the Pasteur Institute and not long after there was a breakthrough in the AIDS Crisis. Thanks HRH Wallis, Duchess of Windsor. She deserves every honor and observance because she stayed with him, made him happy and never wrote a tell-all.

R69 even in a reduced state, Edward was still a millionaire by today’s standards, he had staff on call till the day they died, he lived in opulence (grifted/rented/purchased), he had a title lineage and a title that opened doors. I’m not going to give her credit for staying with a man she intended to marry. She wanted to marry him so the expectation would be a lifelong contract. You’re giving this racist and xenophobic woman too much credit.

R68 Wallis’ ex-husband best the shit out of her which may be the reason for her infertility. Or Edward’s inbred genes weren’t capable of making good swimmers. Whatever the reason God was like nope, to the idea of those two producing a child.

Stop romanticizing this un-romantic story of a nazi sympathizer couple

There has never been the slightest evidence that the Bowes-Lyon family "threw" their daughter at the Prince of Wales. Even Penelope Mortimer's book, which was the only bio of the Queen Mother that plainly wanted to giver the old lady a few black eyes, didn't mention it. It was another of those "factoids" - like the cook and the turkey baster alleged to be Elizabeth's real parentage, whilst everyone ignored the fact that her mother had already given birth to seven children, would have another one after Elizabeth and scarcely needed help getting pregnant again - that surfaced and then got repeated over and over, without a single memoir (except perhaps Wallis's) as if it were true.

As one memoirist who visited the Bowes-Lyon family up at Glamis said, "The Bowes-Lyons were so grand they didn't seem grand at all."

If she was aiming for another man besides Prince Albert, it wasn't his older brother, but his equerry, braw James Stuart, who was twice the man Bertie was - and Queen Mary got Stuart sent out of the country and out of the way of Bertie's pursuit of Elizabeth - and it worked.

I thought the turkey Bastet story was about Elizabeth and Margaret and not their mother.

It’s still the love story of the 20th century. Even Liz and Dick couldn’t eclipse it.

It seems to me that he wanted to marry her more than she wanted to marry him. They say she was content being his mistress. If you want to talk racist and xenophobic you must mean her sister-in-law Cooky. When the royal family was on tour in South Africa a black man in the crowd ran along with the car trying to give Princess Elizabeth a present and Cooky used her parasol to swat him a way like a pest. She misunderstood his intentions. Lol

Turkey baster.

Wallis and Edward were both racist and xenophobic too, r73. The whole family is reprehensible...has been for centuries.

Is this James Stuart the Equerry?

If so, he was hot!

No, the cook and the turkey baster story was about the Queen Mother's parentage, not Margaret's. And since Margaret looks more like her mother than her older sister did (HM is Windsor through and through: she looks just like her Aunt Mary, Princess Anne's predecessor as Princess Royal). It's ridiculous story, either way.

The Queen Mother had nothing on the Duke and Duchess of Windsor re racism and stupidity. Post WWII the Duke was heard to say plaintively at a dinner party, "I don't know, I never thought Hitler such a bad chap."

And there is, of course, the notorious photo of the Duchess smiling up at Hitler as he kissed her hand. Anyone who thinks that the two Windsors, at the backs of their minds, weren't thinking about what would happen if Hitler won and got rid of the upstart Yorks on the throne is living on the Planet Denial. Wallis never made any secret of the fact that she felt a massive injustice had been done in Elizabeth becoming Queen and Empress of India (the last one, as it happens) rather than her.

All that bullshit about Wallis feeling "trapped" into marrying Edward is just that: bullshit. It's historical "rewrite", the way Diana "rewrote" her own history of being an innocent led to the slaughter by Charles and Camilla, when she spent her late teens insisting that she would marry Charles or nobody and telling friends, "There cannot be anything more desirable than Princess of Wales".

R79 - No, that is Fergus Bowes-Lyon, Elizabeth's older brother.

R79 - If you google James Stuart, 1st Viscount Stuart of Findhorn, you'll find him, as well as some images, and he was extremely attractive. He ended up married to Lady Rachel Cavendish, daughter of the 9th Duke of Devonshire, in 1923 - the same year that Elizabeth and Bertie married. He was also the youngest son of the Earl of Moray. His sister was married to Harold MacMillan, later PM.

His distinguished Scottish family that mirrored Elizabeth's own, and military service, would have made him eminently suitable for Elizabeth, but he wasn't, at the time she was interested in him, prepared to commit. Many people thought Elizabeth finally accepted Bertie's third proposal (so much for her obsession with marrying into the royal family) in January 1923 only because she realised Jamie was engaged to Rachel Cavendish. I can't remember whether I read if his engagement was announced first, prompting Elizabeth to throw in the towel and accept Bertie. But even if hadn't been announced, she probably would have gotten word through the social grapevine of her set that Stuart was gone for good.

Harry and Megan stepped DOWN, not back, OP.

Fergus Bowes-Lyon, btw, was killed whilst serving in WWI. He left behind a wife and baby daughter who was only two months old when he was killed. Eliabeth's mother, the Countess of Strathmore, allegedly had something of a breakdown when news of Fegus's death reached the family.

Another brother was wounded and disappeared into a hospital in France for a very long time, and the family supposed he was dead, as well, until they got word that he had been wounded but was still alive.

R66, that is Lara Pulver, who is married to Raza Jeffrey.

I watched a program that mentions the fertility of the Yorks. That there may have been help other than natural with the conception of the princesses. It also mention that both David and Bertie had mumps as children and may have played a hand in the conceptions. A massive injustice was done to Edward. It was a plot hatched by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Edward was out maneuvered. The Archbishop saw in Elizabeth and Bertie the best choice for the throne. After Edward abdicated the Archbishop made an address which.rebuked Edward but it backfired and he was criticized for rubbing salt in the wound.

She was extremely ugly.

No one wants this. No one will see it. When will Hollywood figure out that these two people are not sympathetic in the least?

It has to be remembered that Edward VIII was a WWI veteran who desperately wanted to avoid another war between England and Germany. He was very much aware of his German roots, was close to some of his German cousins, and even spoke German--it was the only foreign language he did speak with any fluency, and he actually called it his 'muttersprache,' or 'mother tongue.' He was also quite anti-Semitic, as many uppercrust British people were. What's more, after the abdication, Hitler kissed up to the Windsors and invited them for a state visit to Germany, where they were treated like a king and queen. Hitler actually told his advisors that Wallis would have made an excellent queen, and if Edward had been on the throne, they could have come to an understanding with England and avoided war.

So, yeah. Edward and Wallis liked Hitler personally. They wanted peace with Germany. They weren't crazy about Jews. They were Nazi-sympathizers, plain and simple.

I realize Kitty Kelley has to be taken with a grain of salt, but she also mentions in her bio of the Windsors that the Duke of York suffered from either erectile dysfunction or premature ejaculation, and that both Elizabeth and Margaret were conceived via an early form of artificial insemination. That's why the Yorks, who at the time weren't expected to be anything more than what they were, didn't bother with having more children. Having a son wasn't that important with David still in place and likely to marry and have heirs. By the time they did ascend the throne, the Queen Mum was pushing 40 and it was too late to try for a son. Though people held on to the hope for years that they would, which is why Elizabeth was termed the Heir Presumptive, as it was thought she might be displaced by a brother.

The rumor is that after George VI died, the QM had to undergo a medical examination to make absolutely sure she wasn't pregnant with a potential male heir before the coronation plans for Elizabeth could go forward. This, even though she was 51 when her husband died. Who knows if it's true? But these are the people who checked Diana Spencer for virginity in 1981!

But.... her couture gowns and jewelry collection.

Are there any attractive people in the Windsor clan?

R66, the lady from "A Scandal in Belgravia" is Lara Pulver, and she does have the right look for the role. Angular features, slim build, posh air, sexual charisma.

But she's not a "name" actor, she won't get the lead in a Hollywood film with even a moderate budget.

Lara Pulver hasn't worked in two years. A shame, because she's a very good actress.

She gets to snuggle up to Jack Davenport every night. Lucky bitch.

Never mind--had her mixed up with Michelle Gomez.

The Queen Mother had just gone into menopause when her husband died. For the fertility bits, it's just another of those completely unproven rumours that float about and get accepted as true despite their flimsiness. Children had been getting mumps and the rest of it for millenia, the males didn't all end up infertile. Bertie's two younger brothers didn't have any issues breeding with their wives. The rumours about Edward arose because he had a very small cock. The rumours about George arose because he became King eventually. The higher up you go, the merrier the rumours get.

Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon was the spitting image of Cecilia Bowes-Lyon. She was not the cook's daughter.

More rumor has it that Wallis was infertile from a botched abortion. That's plausible enough and would explain why she never had children with any of her husbands.

There were also rumors that Wallis was intersex. She did have manly features and a even manlier body.

Wallis didn't have a manly body, R97. She had the body of a woman who was determined to starve herself into looking fashionably long and lean, even though nature had intended her to be short and chunky.

[quote] She had the body of a woman who was determined to starve herself into looking fashionably long and lean, even though nature had intended her to be short and chunky.

Just like Kate Middleton.

R99 You want to be the next Diana so badly and yet Kate is getting all the Diana comparisons and she's not even trying to be her. That must keep you up at night. Doesn't it, Rachel? When's the last time you held Archie when it wasn't for a photo OP?

Well not like you, Megs.

As much as I didn't want to admit it, Madonna's movie about her was very watchable. She capably directs it. The film looks beautiful. It had some questionable artistic choices and could have used better dialogue but I enjoyed it.

I thought W.E. was pretty terrible, but the costumes and jewelry were good.

Andrea Riseborough as Wallis was the best thing in it, IMHO. She made the Duchess understandable without begging for our sympathy or identification. She didn't "prettify" her.

My father was a passenger on a transatlantic ship in the early 1960s, the SS United States, and he saw the Duke and Duchess on deck. He said they were both tiny and looked like dolls.

That was also true of the Snowdens, apparently. The BRF had to breed height in via Philip and Diana to finally get heirs who weren't below average height.

And Andrea Riseborough is a fine actress. I'm surprised her career hasn't gone farther. She must not put out for parts.

Wallis was shapeless and had a sour and bitter face.

I think we should bring back our Faye to play the Duchess in old age as she goes balmy.

Or they could just put her in costume and roll.

[quote] Wallis was shapeless and had a sour and bitter face.

Just like Kate.

R98 Lord, she had no hips at all. I'm a man and I have more womanly hips than she did.

I totally buy that she starved herself.

Faye could portray Wallis in the final throes of dementia.

Wallis had a head too large for her body, long before "lollipop heads" became fashionable. She can't have been in the habit of eating food.

And how tall was her tiny little husband? I mean she's a tiny little short woman, wearing moderate heels, and she looks taller than he does.

Always impeccably dressed.

On of Wallis’ favorite snacks was a huge bowl of chocolate sauce. She always ordered it when she traveled on the SS UNITED STATES.

I also think the Edward/Wallis story has been done to death. But its persistence does tell us something about the mystique that still clings to royalty.

One lesson from the impeccably dressed Nazi duo: half of style is finding and altering clothes to fit perfectly. The Duke may have been tiny but you'd never know it from most photos. His suits are flawlessly tailored and give him stature and presence. The same is true for her.

There's nothing more pointless than expensive clothing that doesn't fit the body of the person wearing it.

They say that’s why Kate Middleton carries off department or chain store fashion when she wears it - everything’s altered to fit her like its couture.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

"There's nothing more pointless than expensive clothing that doesn't fit the body of the person wearing it."

I tried telling Meghan that once, but would she listen?

That's the irony of Kate Middleton's off-the-rack clothing. By the time her seamstresses make it over, it may as well be couture. There might be a difference in fabrics, but even that can be greatly helped with the proper restructuring and re-lining. That inexpensive dress is NOT going to look the same on any ordinary woman who buys and wears it as-is.

R121 - Kate has her couture stuff altered, too. Meghan could have done the same thing - for reasons unknown, she chose not to.

That said, there probably are a good many casual outfits Kate gets off the rack that she doesn't need to have altered. She is, after all, tall, slim, and athletic. Her only real problem is a long torso, but you don't necessarily need to alter everything to take account of that if the clothes are selected well. She's got a decent up-top, a cute arse, nice legs, and a small waist. She's also 5'9". Kate could get away with stuff Meghan couldn't at about 5'4", no waist, a low bosom, a barrel-shaped middle, and skinny, shapeless legs.

Kate sensibly ensures that whether the clothes are or aren't altered, and some aren't especially the really casual stuff, that they emphasise her height, legs, and waist, and fit. I don't like everything she wears, but mostly she seems to nail the "look" she wants to define her: nicely turned out, clean lines, feminine, and once in awhile with the very short skirts, nicely flirty.

Meghan never nailed down a look - she was all over the place. I'm quite sure she could have, but I suspect she doesn't take advice well, and went her own way, with utterly disastrous results like the de la Renta dress she wore to the Spencer wedding. Even the hugely glammed up stuff didn't really work if you looked closely, like the bras outlined under the grey Mouret dress she wore in Ireland, and that Alexis Carrington green number she wore on her very last outing with the BRF at the Abbey.

Few women are perfectly proportioned - Diana had a flat, boring midsection and no waist to speak of. But she worked with people at VOGUE who persuaded her to shift the emphasis to those incredible legs. She wasn't a perfect beauty, either, with the large nose and nondescript mouth. She had four terrific attributes: her beautiful eyes, beautiful skin, her height, and her legs. They added up to more than the sum of their parts.

Meghan just never figured out the formula to do the same, and get the attributes to work together to be greater than the sum of the parts.

Kate is no raving beauty either. She’s built like a teenage boy.

Nice post, R122. What I don't understand is that the Suits costumers worked out a good look for Meghan: clean, tailored, modern. There is no reason she couldn't have used that same look as a Royal: It's perfectly modest and appropriate for most occasions, and surely there are British designers who make clothes like that.

Her tiara might never have been as big as Kate's, but just as Princess Margaret did in the 60s, Meghan could have created a style that successfully contrasted with her sister-in-law's while still hitting all the right Royal benchmarks. I'll never understand why she didn't make that happen.

Beg to differ, R123. She's not the curviest creature who ever lived, but she's no teenage boy, either.

Not Kate. This woman has hips.

[quote] But not too long ago, tabloids were filled with headlines about another American Duchess: Wallis Simpson

More than 80 years ago

R122, Diana also had fabulous hair.

Alice Heine of New Orleans, Princess of Monaco, would be a more interesting biopic.

R125 - There are women everywhere who would kill to look like Kate in that photo - I doubt you'd find many willing to kill for Meghan's short, waistless, barrel-shaped, toothpick legged figure.

That is Kate, R126. Here's a photo from the same day at a different angle. the bathing suit, hair, and sunglasses are the same.

She had more of a figure when she was younger and not quite so skinny.

R126 - Oh, it's Kate, all right. Read 'em and weep.

R126 - The photos are from a vacation in Ibiza, where you'll also see plenty of photos of her interacting with William and other guests. Just google Kate Middleton Bathing Suite Images and you'll find plenty, as well as the charming photos of her on Mustique, just past her ghastly first trimester with George, a small baby bump, and all that luscious hair all wavy and blown out from the humidity.

I know it hurts all the Megastans, but Kate looked fantastic in a bikini. What's more, even after three kids in six years, she still does. She just doesn't come out in one any longer. Flat front, ass still holding up, muscle tone in the thighs still great as her shorter skirts show, and a nice trim waist.

And contrary to the fraus on CB and the other Megastans, all that hair is really Kate's.

Kate and Wills on their honeymoon. They both look pretty great.

But how did a thread about Wallis Simpson become about Kate and Meghan?

[quote] Flat front, ass still holding up, muscle tone in the thighs still great as her shorter skirts show, and a nice trim waist.

Too bad about the face, though.

How did Wallis afford her couture wardrobe? Okay, they were "loaned" mansions by wealthier friends and she would walk into jewelry stores, try on their best pieces, and walk out without paying. But how does someone who can't afford their lifestyle and who doesnt' pay their bills get people to spend hundreds of woman-hours sewing them custom clothing? Did the designers give her freebies for the publicity value?

And Meg and Harry should have been forcibly sat down and given lessons on the Windsor's finances. Those two don't seem to be aware that you can't live a billionaire's lifestyle on a few million.

They probably did get a lot of freebies: They were international figures and could lend a brand a certain cachet, at least in the earlier days of their marriage. Edward also had a lot more money than he ever admitted to. He was notoriously stingy with picking up checks and hotel bills, but he was sitting on plenty of cash.

Wallis got lots of freebies.

R137 - The taller, older, wealthier, higher status bro didn't think so.

When the Windsors came to NYC or Los Angeles, they never paid for anything. Famously. Restaurants, hotels, shopping expeditions, jewels: all taken care of by their American hosts.

The famous quote (can't remember which NYC socialite, though): "They give good value." As an investment, that is, in one's social standing.

Th Windsors weren't poor, they received a fairly hefty allowance after the abdication and Wallis was estimated to be worth £3 million after The Dukes' death, about £20,000,000 ($27 million) in today.

[quote] When the Windsors came to NYC or Los Angeles, they never paid for anything. Famously. Restaurants, hotels, shopping expeditions, jewels: all taken care of by their American hosts.

And yet these grumpy cunts raise hell when Harry and Meghan accept a freebie.

R144 - The Windsors were already OUT for real, with no pretensions toward Doing Good Works and retaining a foot in the BRF, and Wallis had been formally deprived of her HRH.

And as social media and a far more pervasive media did not exist then, most people didn't even know about those freebies.

Harry and Meghan are still parading themselves as bona fide members of the BRF, Meghan is still reminding the world that her husband and son have royal blood, they still plan to use the FrogCott as their UK base "so that our son can understand the royal tradition into which he was born" and they left after taking the UK taxpayer for a $50 million ride.

Well said, r145