1 00:00:02,960 --> 00:00:06,720 The camera couldn't get enough of her, could it? 2 00:00:06,720 --> 00:00:10,240 CAMERA SHUTTERS CLICK 3 00:00:10,240 --> 00:00:11,760 No wonder... 4 00:00:11,760 --> 00:00:14,880 with that impossibly beautiful face. 5 00:00:16,320 --> 00:00:18,400 When she turned those doe eyes on people, 6 00:00:18,400 --> 00:00:20,480 even the hard-boiled cynics 7 00:00:20,480 --> 00:00:23,640 melted into a puddle of infatuated glop. 8 00:00:26,120 --> 00:00:27,440 She touched people... 9 00:00:29,200 --> 00:00:30,920 ..literally. 10 00:00:30,920 --> 00:00:33,640 HIV does not make people dangerous to know, 11 00:00:33,640 --> 00:00:36,320 so you can shake their hands and give them a hug. 12 00:00:37,760 --> 00:00:39,600 So, when Diana died, 13 00:00:39,600 --> 00:00:41,320 we were bound to take it hard. 14 00:00:46,400 --> 00:00:52,880 What happened to the British? Great convulsion of tragic sorrow. 15 00:00:52,880 --> 00:00:55,760 There was a huge sea of cellophane, 16 00:00:55,760 --> 00:00:56,880 all those flowers, 17 00:00:56,880 --> 00:00:58,040 all those teddy bears, 18 00:00:58,040 --> 00:00:59,280 all those candles, 19 00:00:59,280 --> 00:01:01,120 all those crying people 20 00:01:01,120 --> 00:01:03,440 had gone through a national trauma 21 00:01:03,440 --> 00:01:04,960 and the world stood back and said, 22 00:01:04,960 --> 00:01:09,080 "Whoa. Are these really the British? 23 00:01:09,080 --> 00:01:11,520 "The tight-lipped, understated, 24 00:01:11,520 --> 00:01:13,560 "self-controlled, repressed British?" 25 00:01:13,560 --> 00:01:16,240 And it was clear that we'd gone through 26 00:01:16,240 --> 00:01:19,760 some sort of extraordinary national trauma. 27 00:01:23,240 --> 00:01:26,800 Diana was not, at that point, just a famous person, 28 00:01:26,800 --> 00:01:28,760 not even a celebrity. 29 00:01:28,760 --> 00:01:30,560 Whatever we made of her, 30 00:01:30,560 --> 00:01:36,240 she was somebody who seemed to be Britain itself - 31 00:01:36,240 --> 00:01:37,840 Britannia, if you like. 32 00:01:42,360 --> 00:01:46,160 All sorts of things make Britain what it is - 33 00:01:46,160 --> 00:01:47,240 our history... 34 00:01:48,680 --> 00:01:50,640 ..our language... 35 00:01:51,720 --> 00:01:53,160 ..our countryside... 36 00:01:54,440 --> 00:01:57,480 ..but also, our famous faces. 37 00:01:59,000 --> 00:02:03,080 Today, it's easy to confuse fame with celebrity. 38 00:02:04,320 --> 00:02:06,320 Celebrities come and go. 39 00:02:07,440 --> 00:02:08,960 We enjoy them while they last 40 00:02:08,960 --> 00:02:12,320 and want them gone when they're past their sell-by date. 41 00:02:17,400 --> 00:02:19,520 But then there are others, 42 00:02:19,520 --> 00:02:20,720 the famous, 43 00:02:20,720 --> 00:02:22,640 who seem to be summoned by history, 44 00:02:22,640 --> 00:02:26,680 who answer to a popular craving at a particular moment 45 00:02:26,680 --> 00:02:30,720 and who, for a while, shape our national story. 46 00:02:33,200 --> 00:02:36,360 Without them, we'd lose the plot. 47 00:02:57,760 --> 00:03:00,840 It's deep-rooted, our need for heroes. 48 00:03:02,520 --> 00:03:06,600 For humans who do super-human things, 49 00:03:06,600 --> 00:03:09,640 people who have a touch of the god about them. 50 00:03:11,960 --> 00:03:13,640 Odysseus, 51 00:03:13,640 --> 00:03:15,280 Achilles, 52 00:03:15,280 --> 00:03:16,920 Alexander - 53 00:03:16,920 --> 00:03:19,000 titans of the classical world 54 00:03:19,000 --> 00:03:21,680 made immortal across the centuries 55 00:03:21,680 --> 00:03:23,320 by poetry and art. 56 00:03:27,520 --> 00:03:29,560 But our first national hero 57 00:03:29,560 --> 00:03:31,000 was no prince, 58 00:03:31,000 --> 00:03:32,520 but a diamond in the rough. 59 00:03:34,520 --> 00:03:35,960 He was a tough, young thug. 60 00:03:35,960 --> 00:03:38,880 You have to think of him as a, kind of, sort of, 61 00:03:38,880 --> 00:03:41,800 yobbo, apprentice, maritime, 62 00:03:41,800 --> 00:03:44,840 hit-and-run thief, really. 63 00:03:44,840 --> 00:03:46,880 A thief of the ocean was what he was. 64 00:03:50,760 --> 00:03:52,960 His name is still known to us all. 65 00:03:54,360 --> 00:03:55,680 Francis Drake. 66 00:03:57,960 --> 00:04:00,120 The most audacious of sea captains 67 00:04:00,120 --> 00:04:02,840 who lifted gold, silver and slaves 68 00:04:02,840 --> 00:04:05,600 from the Spanish Atlantic empire. 69 00:04:05,600 --> 00:04:08,480 Essentially a state-sanctioned pirate. 70 00:04:09,800 --> 00:04:14,240 But what began as piracy turned into global epic. 71 00:04:18,480 --> 00:04:20,520 From that pillar-to-post raging 72 00:04:20,520 --> 00:04:23,960 comes what turns into an epoch-making 73 00:04:23,960 --> 00:04:25,600 historical moment. 74 00:04:25,600 --> 00:04:28,720 The achievement of the round the world voyage 75 00:04:28,720 --> 00:04:32,080 and Drake returning home with more treasure 76 00:04:32,080 --> 00:04:35,360 than anyone could have possibly imagined, 77 00:04:35,360 --> 00:04:40,760 and this is part of the reason why he is an instantaneous, fantastic hero. 78 00:04:40,760 --> 00:04:45,120 He's not some sort of learned geographer, 79 00:04:45,120 --> 00:04:47,760 he's a man of action that makes him 80 00:04:47,760 --> 00:04:50,560 the first, genuine, heroic, 81 00:04:50,560 --> 00:04:51,920 famous Englishman. 82 00:04:54,840 --> 00:04:57,160 It was strategic robbery, 83 00:04:57,160 --> 00:05:00,720 meant to strike fear and panic into the Spanish empire 84 00:05:00,720 --> 00:05:04,200 and to deprive it of the means to make war on England. 85 00:05:06,080 --> 00:05:08,320 Drake may be making a killing, 86 00:05:08,320 --> 00:05:10,800 but he's doing it for Queen and country... 87 00:05:12,960 --> 00:05:15,480 ..and it makes him an immediate sensation. 88 00:05:17,760 --> 00:05:19,920 A face people want to see. 89 00:05:28,200 --> 00:05:32,280 Before you knew it, there were paintings like this full-on, 90 00:05:32,280 --> 00:05:36,040 fantastic celebration 91 00:05:36,040 --> 00:05:38,000 of the grandeur and fame 92 00:05:38,000 --> 00:05:39,840 that is Francis Drake. 93 00:05:39,840 --> 00:05:41,920 We're told by John Stow, 94 00:05:41,920 --> 00:05:43,120 the chronicler, 95 00:05:43,120 --> 00:05:47,600 that his name and his fame were admirable in all quarters. 96 00:05:47,600 --> 00:05:50,760 Stow says that, in town and country, 97 00:05:50,760 --> 00:05:55,000 people were swarming in the streets daily 98 00:05:55,000 --> 00:05:56,400 to try and get a look at him 99 00:05:56,400 --> 00:05:59,520 and they took vows of hatred against 100 00:05:59,520 --> 00:06:03,600 anybody who dared dislike him. 101 00:06:03,600 --> 00:06:06,840 That sounds like absolute adulation. 102 00:06:12,400 --> 00:06:17,640 Drake's exploits raised him up from his humble beginnings, 103 00:06:17,640 --> 00:06:20,560 but his fame was also carefully cultivated 104 00:06:20,560 --> 00:06:24,360 by those governing the embattled Elizabethan state. 105 00:06:24,360 --> 00:06:27,320 They saw how a popular hero 106 00:06:27,320 --> 00:06:29,360 could inspire the country 107 00:06:29,360 --> 00:06:31,520 in the fight against Spain... 108 00:06:38,120 --> 00:06:40,040 ..but the real cult of the hero 109 00:06:40,040 --> 00:06:41,280 existed in images 110 00:06:41,280 --> 00:06:43,200 much less grand than this one. 111 00:06:45,520 --> 00:06:49,720 Portable portraits were dispatched across the continent 112 00:06:49,720 --> 00:06:52,480 to unsettle the enemy and win allies - 113 00:06:52,480 --> 00:06:54,880 a very English kind of propaganda. 114 00:06:59,920 --> 00:07:03,520 In 1588, the year of the Armada, 115 00:07:03,520 --> 00:07:06,560 an English ambassador in Italy 116 00:07:06,560 --> 00:07:08,840 reported that a small portrait of Drake 117 00:07:08,840 --> 00:07:10,920 had arrived in Ferrara, 118 00:07:10,920 --> 00:07:13,840 slightly battered from its travels 119 00:07:13,840 --> 00:07:16,240 and that, while it was being repaired, 120 00:07:16,240 --> 00:07:19,640 crowds flocked to see the face of the legend. 121 00:07:22,840 --> 00:07:25,520 This extraordinary little image 122 00:07:25,520 --> 00:07:29,000 is the kind of thing that arrives in Ferrara 123 00:07:29,000 --> 00:07:31,200 and everybody queues round the block to see it. 124 00:07:31,200 --> 00:07:32,560 It is not a great work of art, 125 00:07:32,560 --> 00:07:35,000 which is what makes it so fabulous. 126 00:07:35,000 --> 00:07:36,960 It is a piece of folk art, really. 127 00:07:36,960 --> 00:07:38,880 You know, the dashing moustache, 128 00:07:38,880 --> 00:07:41,040 the flashy eyes, the expression 129 00:07:41,040 --> 00:07:44,320 halfway between a smile and, almost, 130 00:07:44,320 --> 00:07:47,000 insulting self-congratulation. 131 00:07:47,000 --> 00:07:48,880 It's sort of perfect. 132 00:07:48,880 --> 00:07:52,800 So, here we have the terror of the Catholic world 133 00:07:52,800 --> 00:07:57,000 and there are lots, lots more painted 134 00:07:57,000 --> 00:08:01,320 even more clumsily, even more down in the market. 135 00:08:03,440 --> 00:08:07,360 You'll notice that the artist spells Drake, 136 00:08:07,360 --> 00:08:09,600 D-R-A-E-C-K, "Draeck", 137 00:08:09,600 --> 00:08:14,480 which wonderfully also, in Flemish and Dutch, means "dragon" 138 00:08:14,480 --> 00:08:17,960 because he is the fire-breathing 139 00:08:17,960 --> 00:08:21,240 image of terror for the rest of the world. 140 00:08:21,240 --> 00:08:23,200 So, there he is, Sir Francis Dragon. 141 00:08:23,200 --> 00:08:25,720 And you can't actually see... Yes, you can, maybe you can. 142 00:08:25,720 --> 00:08:27,480 There's a little chip out of the end, 143 00:08:27,480 --> 00:08:30,120 so I'd like to think it's been wounded on its travels, 144 00:08:30,120 --> 00:08:31,600 like Old Drake himself. 145 00:08:31,600 --> 00:08:33,720 So, it is a marvellous example 146 00:08:33,720 --> 00:08:36,920 of the way in which popular culture 147 00:08:36,920 --> 00:08:40,280 has soaked up the dramatic, 148 00:08:40,280 --> 00:08:43,240 almost film star-like quality of Drake 149 00:08:43,240 --> 00:08:46,920 and broadcast his fame the length and breadth of Europe. 150 00:08:51,560 --> 00:08:54,640 The Drake cult was perfect for its time. 151 00:08:56,000 --> 00:08:58,600 An upstart hero for a start-up empire. 152 00:09:00,200 --> 00:09:01,800 A century later, 153 00:09:01,800 --> 00:09:05,480 Britain was turning into a formidable maritime power - 154 00:09:05,480 --> 00:09:08,840 with colonies across the oceans - 155 00:09:08,840 --> 00:09:13,280 and we started to get an imperial rush of blood to the head. 156 00:09:20,840 --> 00:09:22,680 The idea that a famous face 157 00:09:22,680 --> 00:09:24,120 like Drake's 158 00:09:24,120 --> 00:09:26,200 could be used to make us feel good 159 00:09:26,200 --> 00:09:28,200 about ourselves, our history 160 00:09:28,200 --> 00:09:29,880 and our place in the world 161 00:09:29,880 --> 00:09:32,800 would be taken up in an extraordinary way 162 00:09:32,800 --> 00:09:34,560 here at Stowe, 163 00:09:34,560 --> 00:09:37,160 a vast country estate in Buckinghamshire. 164 00:09:39,320 --> 00:09:41,240 In the 1730s, 165 00:09:41,240 --> 00:09:43,320 following a century of conflict 166 00:09:43,320 --> 00:09:45,000 with Catholic Europe, 167 00:09:45,000 --> 00:09:48,480 Viscount Cobham would use the spell of the famous 168 00:09:48,480 --> 00:09:51,360 to sell his vision of the destiny 169 00:09:51,360 --> 00:09:52,960 of the protestant Britain. 170 00:09:56,240 --> 00:09:59,560 First, Viscount Cobham is your standard veteran 171 00:09:59,560 --> 00:10:02,600 of the long, long wars against Louis the 14th, 172 00:10:02,600 --> 00:10:08,000 hates the French, absolutely loathes Catholic absolutist despotism, 173 00:10:08,000 --> 00:10:09,480 loves being British, 174 00:10:09,480 --> 00:10:11,520 loves a good bloody victory - 175 00:10:11,520 --> 00:10:13,040 of which, there were plenty. 176 00:10:13,040 --> 00:10:17,320 Comes back home and he wants to do something which will proclaim 177 00:10:17,320 --> 00:10:19,880 the triumph of English liberty. 178 00:10:19,880 --> 00:10:21,480 He's got the cheque book to do it, 179 00:10:21,480 --> 00:10:23,560 he builds all this, 180 00:10:23,560 --> 00:10:27,960 but he doesn't simply want to make it just a grand house. 181 00:10:27,960 --> 00:10:30,840 He wants it to be a living history lesson. 182 00:10:30,840 --> 00:10:34,520 He wants it to be a demonstration of how glorious it is 183 00:10:34,520 --> 00:10:37,600 to bask in the sunlight of English freedom, 184 00:10:37,600 --> 00:10:39,040 and how's he going to do this? 185 00:10:39,040 --> 00:10:41,760 He's going to create this extraordinary park 186 00:10:41,760 --> 00:10:44,200 as a place where tourists can come, 187 00:10:44,200 --> 00:10:46,160 the public can come 188 00:10:46,160 --> 00:10:48,560 and he actually builds a pub, 189 00:10:48,560 --> 00:10:49,880 The New Inn, 190 00:10:49,880 --> 00:10:52,360 in order to accommodate the tourists 191 00:10:52,360 --> 00:10:56,560 who he thinks are coming in, the 18th century equivalent of busloads. 192 00:11:03,720 --> 00:11:06,360 Stowe was one of the first country houses 193 00:11:06,360 --> 00:11:08,520 to open its doors to the public... 194 00:11:11,360 --> 00:11:14,600 ..and Viscount Cobham thought of everything to make a day 195 00:11:14,600 --> 00:11:17,880 at his patriotic theme park unforgettable. 196 00:11:22,520 --> 00:11:24,120 Affordable guide books 197 00:11:24,120 --> 00:11:27,440 steered visitors along a carefully planned route 198 00:11:27,440 --> 00:11:29,320 past buildings and statues 199 00:11:29,320 --> 00:11:31,600 evoking ancient Greece and Rome. 200 00:11:35,800 --> 00:11:39,400 These would rise before you out of the woods and fields, 201 00:11:39,400 --> 00:11:43,440 little temples dedicated to classical philosophers, 202 00:11:43,440 --> 00:11:46,320 whose ideas underpinned British liberty. 203 00:11:52,840 --> 00:11:55,400 I feel more virtuous already 204 00:11:55,400 --> 00:11:57,720 in the presence of these figures. 205 00:12:00,920 --> 00:12:05,440 The first part of this history lesson in the park was the classics. 206 00:12:05,440 --> 00:12:08,000 "Oh, no, Dad. Not more Latin." 207 00:12:10,640 --> 00:12:12,440 Then, you looked down the hill 208 00:12:12,440 --> 00:12:14,520 and saw something more surprising... 209 00:12:16,360 --> 00:12:17,760 ..another kind of temple. 210 00:12:19,680 --> 00:12:22,360 Oh, look, this is so beautiful! 211 00:12:22,360 --> 00:12:23,760 This is just fantastic. 212 00:12:25,360 --> 00:12:28,440 This one filled with British faces, 213 00:12:28,440 --> 00:12:33,120 Cobham's mini amphitheatre of our very own greats. 214 00:12:36,040 --> 00:12:40,480 If you want to know what British strength and power 215 00:12:40,480 --> 00:12:42,160 and prosperity are going to be, 216 00:12:42,160 --> 00:12:45,320 you come and look at this array 217 00:12:45,320 --> 00:12:47,640 of YOUR own national heroes. 218 00:12:47,640 --> 00:12:49,520 You have Francis Drake 219 00:12:49,520 --> 00:12:51,200 and Walter Raleigh, 220 00:12:51,200 --> 00:12:53,680 and then you have the doers, 221 00:12:53,680 --> 00:12:56,840 the princes, and kings and queens of England, 222 00:12:56,840 --> 00:12:58,400 who stood for action, 223 00:12:58,400 --> 00:13:02,680 who had the kind of, you know, rich, red blood 224 00:13:02,680 --> 00:13:04,560 of what it meant to be British - 225 00:13:04,560 --> 00:13:06,360 free, powerful and successful - 226 00:13:06,360 --> 00:13:08,040 running through their veins. 227 00:13:08,040 --> 00:13:11,040 Queen Elizabeth, King William the Third, 228 00:13:11,040 --> 00:13:14,640 the head of the glorious revolution, King Alfred, the Great. 229 00:13:21,160 --> 00:13:23,600 And alongside these sword bearers, 230 00:13:23,600 --> 00:13:25,600 there are cultural heroes, 231 00:13:25,600 --> 00:13:28,960 like the scientist Isaac Newton... 232 00:13:30,000 --> 00:13:33,600 ..the political thinker John Locke... 233 00:13:33,600 --> 00:13:35,960 the architect Inigo Jones. 234 00:13:37,960 --> 00:13:40,120 16 faces in total, 235 00:13:40,120 --> 00:13:43,080 each carefully selected by Cobham 236 00:13:43,080 --> 00:13:45,640 for their significance in shaping Britain. 237 00:13:48,400 --> 00:13:50,080 So, you come here 238 00:13:50,080 --> 00:13:53,320 and commune with the famous heroes 239 00:13:53,320 --> 00:13:54,840 of the British past. 240 00:13:56,040 --> 00:13:58,320 When you're actually at eye level - 241 00:13:58,320 --> 00:14:00,360 notice you're at eye level - 242 00:14:00,360 --> 00:14:03,320 you're in the presence of William Shakespeare 243 00:14:03,320 --> 00:14:05,200 and John Milton and John Locke. 244 00:14:05,200 --> 00:14:08,080 You are in their company 245 00:14:08,080 --> 00:14:11,320 and through their three dimensional portraits, 246 00:14:11,320 --> 00:14:14,160 you really feel the living pulse 247 00:14:14,160 --> 00:14:16,440 of what it means to be British - 248 00:14:16,440 --> 00:14:20,680 a direct connection with the famous Britons of the past. 249 00:14:20,680 --> 00:14:22,960 So, you leave this wonderful place 250 00:14:22,960 --> 00:14:25,400 and someone said, "What did you do today?" 251 00:14:25,400 --> 00:14:28,160 You say, "Well, I had a word with John Locke 252 00:14:28,160 --> 00:14:30,080 "and he had a word with me." 253 00:14:30,080 --> 00:14:34,520 And THAT is worth a thousand books. 254 00:14:34,520 --> 00:14:36,600 That's the genius of Cobham - 255 00:14:36,600 --> 00:14:39,200 he knows that portraits 256 00:14:39,200 --> 00:14:41,640 bring you into their own company. 257 00:14:48,880 --> 00:14:51,800 Thousands of people visited Stowe 258 00:14:51,800 --> 00:14:54,560 and, inspired by the faces they saw, 259 00:14:54,560 --> 00:14:58,040 they left breathing the heady oxygen of British freedom. 260 00:15:08,080 --> 00:15:11,600 But one face would take on more significance 261 00:15:11,600 --> 00:15:13,960 than any other in the understanding 262 00:15:13,960 --> 00:15:16,440 of what it meant to be British 263 00:15:16,440 --> 00:15:18,920 and that was William Shakespeare. 264 00:15:33,600 --> 00:15:36,440 The theatre was Britain's glory, 265 00:15:36,440 --> 00:15:39,280 the treasure of the people as well as the elite. 266 00:15:40,920 --> 00:15:43,360 Shakespeare had long been hailed 267 00:15:43,360 --> 00:15:45,640 as an incomparable genius 268 00:15:45,640 --> 00:15:48,120 and, in this newly patriotic age, 269 00:15:48,120 --> 00:15:50,520 what he had done with the English language 270 00:15:50,520 --> 00:15:53,760 made him the founding father of the new Britain... 271 00:15:56,480 --> 00:15:59,400 ..but performances had become stilted 272 00:15:59,400 --> 00:16:03,200 and the bard himself an object of dutiful reverence. 273 00:16:07,880 --> 00:16:13,160 For most people, Shakespeare was a, kind of, stone statue. 274 00:16:13,160 --> 00:16:15,840 They heard his plays performed by actors 275 00:16:15,840 --> 00:16:20,000 who specialised in a kind of grandiloquent declamation, 276 00:16:20,000 --> 00:16:23,040 often in very strange quasi-Roman costumes, 277 00:16:23,040 --> 00:16:28,280 and then there came along a small man with an enormous voice, 278 00:16:28,280 --> 00:16:29,520 David Garrick, 279 00:16:29,520 --> 00:16:32,920 and he transformed not just the way people heard Shakespeare 280 00:16:32,920 --> 00:16:35,440 but what he was to the national culture. 281 00:16:39,800 --> 00:16:42,920 On the 19th of October 1741, 282 00:16:42,920 --> 00:16:44,960 the actor David Garrick 283 00:16:44,960 --> 00:16:47,240 made his debut on the London stage 284 00:16:47,240 --> 00:16:48,760 as Richard the Third. 285 00:16:52,040 --> 00:16:55,880 Instantly, the audience knew they were witnessing a phenomenon. 286 00:16:58,680 --> 00:17:00,360 With his natural body language 287 00:17:00,360 --> 00:17:01,760 and speech rhythms, 288 00:17:01,760 --> 00:17:04,080 Garrick revolutionised acting. 289 00:17:06,000 --> 00:17:10,640 People trembled, and even fainted, at the force of it. 290 00:17:10,640 --> 00:17:14,800 Shakespeare had been given the kiss of life 291 00:17:14,800 --> 00:17:18,080 and Garrick became the most famous name in the country... 292 00:17:24,080 --> 00:17:25,800 ..but the excited public 293 00:17:25,800 --> 00:17:27,600 wanted more than reviews, 294 00:17:27,600 --> 00:17:29,960 they wanted to see his face, 295 00:17:29,960 --> 00:17:33,960 and the artist William Hogarth gave it to them. 296 00:17:36,480 --> 00:17:39,520 It is an absolutely huge Hogarth, 297 00:17:39,520 --> 00:17:43,920 this magnificent, startling, explosive painting. 298 00:17:47,000 --> 00:17:48,840 On the eve of the battle of Bosworth, 299 00:17:48,840 --> 00:17:50,120 Richard the Third 300 00:17:50,120 --> 00:17:53,240 is visited by the ghosts of all those he has knocked off, 301 00:17:53,240 --> 00:17:56,200 who all say, "Despair and die." 302 00:17:56,200 --> 00:17:58,440 And it's the one moment where Richard the Third, 303 00:17:58,440 --> 00:18:01,080 kind of, monster of confidence, cracks. 304 00:18:03,400 --> 00:18:05,680 Richard wakes in the middle of the night 305 00:18:05,680 --> 00:18:08,800 in a cold trembling sweat 306 00:18:08,800 --> 00:18:10,200 and cries out, 307 00:18:10,200 --> 00:18:15,080 "Give me a horse, bind up my wounds. Jesu, have mercy." 308 00:18:17,800 --> 00:18:19,160 Think of Hogarth 309 00:18:19,160 --> 00:18:21,600 and you think of rakes and harlots, 310 00:18:21,600 --> 00:18:23,920 but here his genius was to see 311 00:18:23,920 --> 00:18:26,360 how the theatrical experience 312 00:18:26,360 --> 00:18:28,240 could be exploited 313 00:18:28,240 --> 00:18:31,040 to create a portrait so full of drama 314 00:18:31,040 --> 00:18:33,840 you felt as if you had a front row seat. 315 00:18:36,120 --> 00:18:37,800 Right at the heart of the painting 316 00:18:37,800 --> 00:18:40,240 is this enormous hand with the ring. 317 00:18:40,240 --> 00:18:43,520 In his trembling, shivery, sweaty, fright, 318 00:18:43,520 --> 00:18:45,960 it has slipped down his finger 319 00:18:45,960 --> 00:18:49,240 and the hand is pressing into our space. 320 00:18:49,240 --> 00:18:53,400 The sense of Garrick projecting his presence into the audience 321 00:18:53,400 --> 00:18:55,280 is phenomenal here 322 00:18:55,280 --> 00:18:59,880 and this is, really, the birth of a star of the stage. 323 00:19:01,040 --> 00:19:03,840 Theatre culture is born from this 324 00:19:03,840 --> 00:19:05,960 in a way we think about it - 325 00:19:05,960 --> 00:19:09,320 gigantic personalities who could match 326 00:19:09,320 --> 00:19:11,920 a gigantic Shakespearean tragedy. 327 00:19:15,640 --> 00:19:17,640 For Hogarth and Garrick, 328 00:19:17,640 --> 00:19:21,360 this was more than just an artistic collaboration. 329 00:19:21,360 --> 00:19:24,160 Garrick's fame meant there was money to be made 330 00:19:24,160 --> 00:19:26,960 from turning paintings into prints. 331 00:19:30,960 --> 00:19:34,440 Depicting the sensation of his latest performance, 332 00:19:34,440 --> 00:19:36,680 the prints were an irresistible 333 00:19:36,680 --> 00:19:38,920 keepsake for besotted fans. 334 00:19:40,800 --> 00:19:42,400 THUNDERCLAP 335 00:19:42,400 --> 00:19:44,360 Buying one was like taking home 336 00:19:44,360 --> 00:19:46,240 a piece of the actor himself. 337 00:19:47,360 --> 00:19:49,640 They were like publicity stills 338 00:19:49,640 --> 00:19:53,280 and Garrick became a master of media saturation. 339 00:19:56,160 --> 00:19:59,880 He also spotted the value in hitching his star to Shakespeare's. 340 00:20:01,240 --> 00:20:03,160 He made sure that their faces 341 00:20:03,160 --> 00:20:05,360 were repeatedly shown side by side. 342 00:20:07,240 --> 00:20:09,800 Bard's head inclined towards his 343 00:20:09,800 --> 00:20:11,960 like an inseparable power. 344 00:20:15,760 --> 00:20:20,120 The prints launched not just a cult of Garrick's celebrity, 345 00:20:20,120 --> 00:20:22,480 but a kind of national fever, 346 00:20:22,480 --> 00:20:24,480 a Garrick-mania. 347 00:20:24,480 --> 00:20:27,640 But it was something more than simply 348 00:20:27,640 --> 00:20:30,280 what we think of as the fizz of fame, 349 00:20:30,280 --> 00:20:33,400 the temporary and fugitive, evanescent kind of 350 00:20:33,400 --> 00:20:37,960 sense of celebrity, something more profound was going on. 351 00:20:37,960 --> 00:20:39,920 Garrick really transformed 352 00:20:39,920 --> 00:20:41,760 what it meant to be an actor. 353 00:20:41,760 --> 00:20:44,840 You were no longer simply an amusing entertainer, 354 00:20:44,840 --> 00:20:48,960 you were really a pillar of British culture now, 355 00:20:48,960 --> 00:20:51,080 and that's what I think the great actors 356 00:20:51,080 --> 00:20:54,160 and actresses who came after Garrick really felt. 357 00:20:59,320 --> 00:21:01,080 The endless reproduction 358 00:21:01,080 --> 00:21:02,560 of Garrick in prints 359 00:21:02,560 --> 00:21:04,960 meant his face was seen everywhere. 360 00:21:07,200 --> 00:21:09,280 He was our first star. 361 00:21:10,440 --> 00:21:13,800 The word was first used in 18th century London, 362 00:21:13,800 --> 00:21:18,800 where the hot-wiring between theatre print shops and audiences 363 00:21:18,800 --> 00:21:21,120 created the first celebrity culture. 364 00:21:23,680 --> 00:21:26,560 But if you longed to be as famous as Garrick 365 00:21:26,560 --> 00:21:28,440 but didn't have his talent, 366 00:21:28,440 --> 00:21:30,360 or indeed any talent at all, 367 00:21:30,360 --> 00:21:32,080 how could you achieve this 368 00:21:32,080 --> 00:21:34,440 new-minted glittering celebrity? 369 00:21:37,200 --> 00:21:40,840 The answer, shameless self-promotion. 370 00:21:42,440 --> 00:21:46,720 Step one - go where you're guaranteed an audience. 371 00:21:51,480 --> 00:21:54,240 For Londoners, there was another kind of stage 372 00:21:54,240 --> 00:21:56,400 and it was very much outdoors. 373 00:21:56,400 --> 00:21:58,240 Not the theatre, but the park. 374 00:21:59,280 --> 00:22:02,240 And the cast of that particular performance 375 00:22:02,240 --> 00:22:05,360 were not interested in how well they recited Shakespeare, 376 00:22:05,360 --> 00:22:09,120 they were walk-on parts, but the walking was incredibly important. 377 00:22:10,240 --> 00:22:13,080 Now, there was nothing like 18th century London 378 00:22:13,080 --> 00:22:14,720 for people-watching, 379 00:22:14,720 --> 00:22:18,480 but a particular kind of people came to ogle, to gawp, 380 00:22:18,480 --> 00:22:21,000 and to gaze and to stare. 381 00:22:21,000 --> 00:22:23,640 The bon tonne, the upper crust of society, 382 00:22:23,640 --> 00:22:27,200 along with a lot of London's flaky pastry too, 383 00:22:27,200 --> 00:22:29,840 and what they were looking at were the gorgeous. 384 00:22:29,840 --> 00:22:33,440 The gorgeous could be the latest, young, dashing blade, 385 00:22:33,440 --> 00:22:34,960 the most beautiful soldier 386 00:22:34,960 --> 00:22:37,400 in his frockery and frocking, 387 00:22:37,400 --> 00:22:38,800 and lace, and hats - 388 00:22:38,800 --> 00:22:41,920 but, above all, there were the gorgeous girls, 389 00:22:41,920 --> 00:22:43,400 young girls, 390 00:22:43,400 --> 00:22:45,080 not so young girls, 391 00:22:45,080 --> 00:22:47,560 the up-and-coming courtesans. 392 00:22:47,560 --> 00:22:50,360 Essentially this, Hyde Park, 393 00:22:50,360 --> 00:22:53,560 was one fabulous flesh market 394 00:22:53,560 --> 00:22:55,920 and people were there to watch. 395 00:23:00,960 --> 00:23:03,160 With so much already on show, 396 00:23:03,160 --> 00:23:05,440 how could YOU stand out from the crowd? 397 00:23:07,160 --> 00:23:11,520 Step two - give them something sensational, 398 00:23:11,520 --> 00:23:13,280 something scandalous. 399 00:23:15,680 --> 00:23:18,000 Enter one Kitty Fisher, 400 00:23:18,000 --> 00:23:20,000 a budding young courtesan 401 00:23:20,000 --> 00:23:22,560 who knew exactly what was needed 402 00:23:22,560 --> 00:23:24,840 to make people stop and stare. 403 00:23:29,320 --> 00:23:32,240 Kitty waited where a large crowd had gathered 404 00:23:32,240 --> 00:23:36,000 and then, when a troop of soldiers trotted past, 405 00:23:36,000 --> 00:23:38,000 she carefully staged 406 00:23:38,000 --> 00:23:39,880 a fall from her horse 407 00:23:39,880 --> 00:23:42,400 exposing an eyeful. 408 00:23:46,560 --> 00:23:51,560 Finally - make sure you get maximum publicity. 409 00:23:52,840 --> 00:23:56,360 Instantly, very down-market printmakers 410 00:23:56,360 --> 00:23:58,280 are recording the event 411 00:23:58,280 --> 00:24:01,400 to make her the celebrity of the moment. 412 00:24:01,400 --> 00:24:03,400 So, you come into a tavern like this 413 00:24:03,400 --> 00:24:06,720 and you're after a flagon of the good stuff 414 00:24:06,720 --> 00:24:08,600 and maybe a slice of mutton pie, 415 00:24:08,600 --> 00:24:11,400 and this sort of thing is lying around the table - 416 00:24:11,400 --> 00:24:13,400 and you've got all the cast of characters her. 417 00:24:13,400 --> 00:24:15,800 In the middle, you've got Kitty herself - 418 00:24:15,800 --> 00:24:18,080 showing her legs, showing her garters. 419 00:24:18,080 --> 00:24:21,360 And then there are various other kinds of people - 420 00:24:21,360 --> 00:24:23,960 young gallants and there's another old geezer 421 00:24:23,960 --> 00:24:27,400 whose eyesight is really in trouble. 422 00:24:27,400 --> 00:24:30,240 Then there's an appalling figure, 423 00:24:30,240 --> 00:24:33,800 who's kneeling with a spyglass 424 00:24:33,800 --> 00:24:37,320 and has this ghastly, leering expression 425 00:24:37,320 --> 00:24:40,040 and he's looking straight up her dress. 426 00:24:40,040 --> 00:24:41,560 What a surprise. 427 00:24:44,880 --> 00:24:48,160 Kitty became the queen of Grub Street. 428 00:24:48,160 --> 00:24:52,480 A sensation - funny, saucy, irresistible. 429 00:24:55,320 --> 00:24:59,640 So, she is a mistress of her own PR. 430 00:24:59,640 --> 00:25:01,440 She's her own publicist. 431 00:25:01,440 --> 00:25:04,080 She knows how to be a self-promoter 432 00:25:04,080 --> 00:25:06,840 and turn Kitty Fisher, who comes from nowhere, 433 00:25:06,840 --> 00:25:09,040 into the latest London celeb. 434 00:25:11,880 --> 00:25:13,680 Kitty may have started low, 435 00:25:13,680 --> 00:25:15,000 but she aimed high. 436 00:25:19,800 --> 00:25:21,880 In order to bask in the golden light 437 00:25:21,880 --> 00:25:24,160 of a much fancier kind of fame, 438 00:25:24,160 --> 00:25:26,360 her image needed laundering... 439 00:25:30,640 --> 00:25:35,080 ..and, astonishingly, the man to do it was Joshua Reynolds, 440 00:25:35,080 --> 00:25:37,440 who usually painted imperial heroes, 441 00:25:37,440 --> 00:25:40,080 lords and ladies, even royalty. 442 00:25:41,600 --> 00:25:43,640 He made women alluring... 443 00:25:45,200 --> 00:25:46,880 ..and men noble. 444 00:25:50,480 --> 00:25:55,000 Reynolds was the great 18th-century designer of fame 445 00:25:55,000 --> 00:25:59,520 and the first artist to really become a celebrity in his own right. 446 00:26:00,680 --> 00:26:03,000 With his smooth social skills, 447 00:26:03,000 --> 00:26:07,560 he knew how to woo the cream of British society into his studio... 448 00:26:09,400 --> 00:26:13,920 ..but he also understood that a client as sensational as Kitty 449 00:26:13,920 --> 00:26:17,800 would mean all the eyes of London looking at the result. 450 00:26:22,120 --> 00:26:26,840 You have to say about Joshua Reynolds, "Boy, is he good." 451 00:26:26,840 --> 00:26:29,520 This is really a pin-up, isn't it? It's a pin-up. 452 00:26:29,520 --> 00:26:31,320 It's a glamour picture 453 00:26:31,320 --> 00:26:34,120 that Hollywood glamour photographers 454 00:26:34,120 --> 00:26:37,880 take in the 1920s and '30s. 455 00:26:37,880 --> 00:26:41,880 She's made unbelievably alluring and sexy. 456 00:26:41,880 --> 00:26:45,040 It's exactly what Kitty wants. 457 00:26:45,040 --> 00:26:47,720 It turns her into a, kind of, immortal. 458 00:26:47,720 --> 00:26:50,160 You look at it and it looks just like, 459 00:26:50,160 --> 00:26:53,600 "Oh, a beautiful society hostess." 460 00:26:53,600 --> 00:26:56,720 This lovely blue gown over her shoulders, 461 00:26:56,720 --> 00:26:58,680 the lustrous eyelashes, 462 00:26:58,680 --> 00:27:02,360 the great, thick, ropey mane of chestnut hair, 463 00:27:02,360 --> 00:27:05,280 the very loose enticing shift 464 00:27:05,280 --> 00:27:07,040 around her shoulders. 465 00:27:07,040 --> 00:27:09,160 He's done this little tiny highlight 466 00:27:09,160 --> 00:27:11,560 on the edge of her nose, 467 00:27:11,560 --> 00:27:13,640 so she's a real living, you know, 468 00:27:13,640 --> 00:27:15,280 breathing, human being. 469 00:27:15,280 --> 00:27:21,000 She's not this, kind of, pasty-faced queen of meditative melancholy. 470 00:27:24,320 --> 00:27:27,600 Tongues wagged over the numerous sittings. 471 00:27:27,600 --> 00:27:31,720 Reynolds apparently needed to paint this small portrait... 472 00:27:33,280 --> 00:27:36,400 ..and he's posed her as Cleopatra, 473 00:27:36,400 --> 00:27:39,640 who famously seduced the Roman general Mark Antony 474 00:27:39,640 --> 00:27:43,360 by dissolving a pearl in a glass of wine 475 00:27:43,360 --> 00:27:44,840 and drinking it. 476 00:27:46,000 --> 00:27:48,200 As we get into the details, 477 00:27:48,200 --> 00:27:51,680 it becomes a lot more saucy 478 00:27:51,680 --> 00:27:53,160 and sensational. 479 00:27:53,160 --> 00:27:56,360 Look how she's holding that pearl... 480 00:27:57,720 --> 00:28:00,400 ..she's doing it like that, 481 00:28:00,400 --> 00:28:04,080 and, yes, the "O" that's in the middle... 482 00:28:04,080 --> 00:28:05,960 No prizes for guessing here. 483 00:28:05,960 --> 00:28:08,000 ..is an allusion to the sexual act... 484 00:28:12,080 --> 00:28:16,040 ..and Joshua Reynolds poses her in deep thoughtfulness. 485 00:28:16,040 --> 00:28:17,800 Now, Kitty Fisher, bless her, 486 00:28:17,800 --> 00:28:20,920 she's not actually making a living out of deep thought. 487 00:28:20,920 --> 00:28:23,880 She is making a living out of deep something else. 488 00:28:26,440 --> 00:28:31,760 But as a, kind of, great performance of grand glamour, 489 00:28:31,760 --> 00:28:34,840 it's absolutely unbeatable, isn't it? 490 00:28:37,600 --> 00:28:39,720 However glamorous the pictures, 491 00:28:39,720 --> 00:28:41,600 this new world of celebrity 492 00:28:41,600 --> 00:28:43,240 was a cut throat business... 493 00:28:45,040 --> 00:28:48,680 ..not just between the objects of the publicity, 494 00:28:48,680 --> 00:28:51,400 but also between the artists who created it... 495 00:28:54,720 --> 00:28:59,120 ..and Reynolds wasn't the only fame-maker in town. 496 00:29:03,760 --> 00:29:07,160 George Romney is notoriously - 497 00:29:07,160 --> 00:29:08,680 and rather wonderfully, I think - 498 00:29:08,680 --> 00:29:11,400 the opposite of urban, gregarious, 499 00:29:11,400 --> 00:29:14,240 talkative, sociable Joshua Reynolds. 500 00:29:14,240 --> 00:29:16,840 George Romney is inarticulate, 501 00:29:16,840 --> 00:29:18,920 secretive, melancholy, 502 00:29:18,920 --> 00:29:20,560 possibly manic-depressive. 503 00:29:24,560 --> 00:29:28,840 Is this the unhappiest self-portrait ever? 504 00:29:32,960 --> 00:29:37,560 This, kind of, cloud of brown darkness weighing in on him 505 00:29:37,560 --> 00:29:41,160 only makes that face all the more intense. 506 00:29:44,320 --> 00:29:47,400 Plus, the extraordinary, kind of, 507 00:29:47,400 --> 00:29:50,840 tensed up body language of the arms... 508 00:29:50,840 --> 00:29:53,320 He's deliberately made his hands invisible. 509 00:29:53,320 --> 00:29:56,760 If you look at my hands, it's very hard to do that. 510 00:29:56,760 --> 00:29:59,280 You have to do it like this and... 511 00:29:59,280 --> 00:30:04,120 So, what does that capacious jacket resemble, if not a straitjacket? 512 00:30:07,720 --> 00:30:11,360 Despite appearing withdrawn and defensive, 513 00:30:11,360 --> 00:30:14,160 Romney was, in fact, hugely successful 514 00:30:14,160 --> 00:30:17,200 with a constant stream of eager clients... 515 00:30:19,240 --> 00:30:23,240 ..but you feel he's waiting for that one model, 516 00:30:23,240 --> 00:30:24,600 that one face, 517 00:30:24,600 --> 00:30:26,240 that one body, 518 00:30:26,240 --> 00:30:29,040 that'll really set him alight. 519 00:30:29,040 --> 00:30:32,520 Just occasionally, there is this extraordinary electric 520 00:30:32,520 --> 00:30:36,440 hot-wiring between painter and model 521 00:30:36,440 --> 00:30:38,120 and so there will be. 522 00:30:38,120 --> 00:30:42,640 And the model will also be someone who, in a metaphorical, I think, 523 00:30:42,640 --> 00:30:44,960 rather than literally sense, 524 00:30:44,960 --> 00:30:47,320 unties his corsets just a bit. 525 00:30:50,600 --> 00:30:52,880 In March 1782, 526 00:30:52,880 --> 00:30:54,720 the young mistress of a friend 527 00:30:54,720 --> 00:30:56,840 arrived in Romney's studio. 528 00:31:00,400 --> 00:31:02,160 Her name was Emma. 529 00:31:04,280 --> 00:31:07,360 She came in and he was hit by lightning. 530 00:31:10,360 --> 00:31:12,560 She had a smile that lit up London. 531 00:31:17,360 --> 00:31:19,920 Romney was never the same again. 532 00:31:22,560 --> 00:31:25,040 It's a commission that's got completely out of control 533 00:31:25,040 --> 00:31:27,000 and he cannot stop painting her. 534 00:31:27,000 --> 00:31:28,520 He's supposed to be painting, 535 00:31:28,520 --> 00:31:30,360 you know, politicians and generals - 536 00:31:30,360 --> 00:31:32,160 doesn't really care about that. 537 00:31:32,160 --> 00:31:34,680 Everything goes completely by the board - 538 00:31:34,680 --> 00:31:37,640 Emma after Emma, after Emma, after Emma, after Emma. 539 00:31:37,640 --> 00:31:39,720 He's tormented. 540 00:31:39,720 --> 00:31:42,040 He can't take his eyes off her. 541 00:31:44,720 --> 00:31:48,320 Emma unleashed Romney's creativity. 542 00:31:48,320 --> 00:31:53,120 In his portraits of her, his style became more spontaneous, 543 00:31:53,120 --> 00:31:55,560 expressive, adventurous. 544 00:31:58,120 --> 00:32:01,000 His obsession became the subject of gossip. 545 00:32:01,000 --> 00:32:02,920 People flocked to Romney's studio 546 00:32:02,920 --> 00:32:04,640 just to catch a glimpse 547 00:32:04,640 --> 00:32:06,840 of Emma on canvas 548 00:32:06,840 --> 00:32:12,160 and, when they saw her, they all wanted to take a piece of her home. 549 00:32:14,160 --> 00:32:16,680 Copies and prints were made. 550 00:32:16,680 --> 00:32:20,200 Even sketches and unfinished versions were snapped up. 551 00:32:30,160 --> 00:32:33,680 Romney called her "the divine lady" 552 00:32:33,680 --> 00:32:36,400 and it was through his countless portraits, 553 00:32:36,400 --> 00:32:41,200 that Emma became the hottest celebrity of regency London... 554 00:32:45,280 --> 00:32:47,040 ..and the irony, 555 00:32:47,040 --> 00:32:48,920 the sad, pathetic, tragic irony, 556 00:32:48,920 --> 00:32:53,080 is that he's doing this in order to keep Emma, 557 00:32:53,080 --> 00:32:55,200 the pure of heart Emma, 558 00:32:55,200 --> 00:32:59,960 of his own, almost, manic obsessions with him forever... 559 00:32:59,960 --> 00:33:01,880 but by making her famous, 560 00:33:01,880 --> 00:33:04,800 putting her into the mill of fame 561 00:33:04,800 --> 00:33:06,320 in regency England, 562 00:33:06,320 --> 00:33:08,160 he's guaranteeing that 563 00:33:08,160 --> 00:33:10,520 that's NOT going to be the case. 564 00:33:10,520 --> 00:33:13,880 Someday, someone is going to come along 565 00:33:13,880 --> 00:33:17,360 and take her right away from him and, 566 00:33:17,360 --> 00:33:20,160 in some sense, it's mission accomplished. 567 00:33:21,480 --> 00:33:26,040 Together, they make her so irresistible, 568 00:33:26,040 --> 00:33:29,040 that the most famous and most important man in all of England 569 00:33:29,040 --> 00:33:31,160 at the time, Horatio Nelson, 570 00:33:31,160 --> 00:33:34,600 cannot possibly live without her. 571 00:33:39,480 --> 00:33:44,480 For a public still new to the guilty pleasures of celebrity culture, 572 00:33:44,480 --> 00:33:47,320 the romance between these two famous people 573 00:33:47,320 --> 00:33:49,480 was almost too good to be true. 574 00:33:58,280 --> 00:34:01,080 Both were already married 575 00:34:01,080 --> 00:34:03,480 and the whole country was enthralled 576 00:34:03,480 --> 00:34:05,520 by the scandalous relationship. 577 00:34:07,720 --> 00:34:10,400 What's really striking is that 578 00:34:10,400 --> 00:34:12,720 the two kinds of fame 579 00:34:12,720 --> 00:34:14,960 come together in this love affair. 580 00:34:14,960 --> 00:34:17,920 Emma is really about celebrity. 581 00:34:17,920 --> 00:34:21,320 She's managed to market her beauty 582 00:34:21,320 --> 00:34:24,680 and then she meets the most famous sailor, 583 00:34:24,680 --> 00:34:26,960 the most famous person, in Britain, 584 00:34:26,960 --> 00:34:28,760 and he is a different kind of fame. 585 00:34:28,760 --> 00:34:32,160 He is the kind of fame the Romans and Greeks would recognise, 586 00:34:32,160 --> 00:34:34,800 someone who's famous for doing something, 587 00:34:34,800 --> 00:34:36,920 and doing something extraordinary... 588 00:34:38,960 --> 00:34:41,280 But these two types of fame, 589 00:34:41,280 --> 00:34:43,840 tangled together in their story, 590 00:34:43,840 --> 00:34:46,000 would eventually unravel. 591 00:34:54,160 --> 00:34:57,960 When Nelson was killed at the Battle of Trafalgar, 592 00:34:57,960 --> 00:35:01,000 the outpouring of grief was so intense 593 00:35:01,000 --> 00:35:05,600 that it was as if part of Britain itself had died with him. 594 00:35:07,160 --> 00:35:11,400 The nation came together to mourn at St Paul's Cathedral 595 00:35:11,400 --> 00:35:14,400 in one of the most lavish funerals in history. 596 00:35:18,760 --> 00:35:21,440 Orchestrated on an epic scale, 597 00:35:21,440 --> 00:35:23,280 it was the biggest state funeral 598 00:35:23,280 --> 00:35:25,280 the country had ever seen. 599 00:35:28,680 --> 00:35:33,040 Hysterical crowds thronged the streets of London 600 00:35:33,040 --> 00:35:34,720 and emotions ran so high 601 00:35:34,720 --> 00:35:36,440 that authorities feared 602 00:35:36,440 --> 00:35:38,160 they would lose control 603 00:35:38,160 --> 00:35:40,280 of the immense swarm of people. 604 00:35:47,400 --> 00:35:49,240 Imagine what it would have been like 605 00:35:49,240 --> 00:35:51,880 if Churchill had dropped dead of a heart attack 606 00:35:51,880 --> 00:35:53,480 on VE day, or D-Day, 607 00:35:53,480 --> 00:35:55,560 or something like that. 608 00:35:55,560 --> 00:35:58,720 Everyone knew that it was a moment 609 00:35:58,720 --> 00:36:00,720 when the country had been saved, 610 00:36:00,720 --> 00:36:02,920 but the price of it being saved 611 00:36:02,920 --> 00:36:05,000 was that they had lost the man 612 00:36:05,000 --> 00:36:06,880 who'd achieved that salvation - 613 00:36:06,880 --> 00:36:08,960 they had lost their hero. 614 00:36:08,960 --> 00:36:11,920 Ecstasy was mixed with horror 615 00:36:11,920 --> 00:36:15,280 and grief, and sadness. 616 00:36:15,280 --> 00:36:18,720 Inside the cathedral, 7,000 people 617 00:36:18,720 --> 00:36:20,720 witnessed the last rites - 618 00:36:20,720 --> 00:36:23,640 a fitting tribute to a fame of this magnitude. 619 00:36:26,040 --> 00:36:29,800 Everything is organised so everyone can get a look 620 00:36:29,800 --> 00:36:31,680 and they can cry, and they can sob, 621 00:36:31,680 --> 00:36:34,320 and they can sing, and they can cheer. 622 00:36:34,320 --> 00:36:36,120 So, you have all of Britain - 623 00:36:36,120 --> 00:36:38,280 the toffs, the officers, 624 00:36:38,280 --> 00:36:39,800 common sailors - 625 00:36:39,800 --> 00:36:42,720 inside this great space of St Paul's. 626 00:36:48,800 --> 00:36:51,600 Nelson's body is laid on a platform, 627 00:36:51,600 --> 00:36:53,480 right where I'm standing, 628 00:36:53,480 --> 00:36:55,960 right at the centre of the dome, 629 00:36:55,960 --> 00:36:59,080 the beating heart of the country 630 00:36:59,080 --> 00:37:01,400 and, in the end, it will be lowered down, 631 00:37:01,400 --> 00:37:03,360 through this hole here, 632 00:37:03,360 --> 00:37:05,600 into the resting place 633 00:37:05,600 --> 00:37:08,760 of the sarcophagus down there - 634 00:37:08,760 --> 00:37:11,400 and there, Nelson lies in state... 635 00:37:19,440 --> 00:37:21,440 ..but there was one notable 636 00:37:21,440 --> 00:37:22,760 and shocking absence 637 00:37:22,760 --> 00:37:24,400 from this great occasion. 638 00:37:27,680 --> 00:37:31,080 Emma Hamilton was banned by state authorities 639 00:37:31,080 --> 00:37:32,760 from attending the funeral. 640 00:37:36,240 --> 00:37:38,440 Emma's brand of celebrity 641 00:37:38,440 --> 00:37:40,640 was now an embarrassment. 642 00:37:42,600 --> 00:37:45,760 She had fallen victim to changing tastes, 643 00:37:45,760 --> 00:37:49,400 foreshadowing high-minded Victorian morality 644 00:37:49,400 --> 00:37:53,320 and anxiety about just who was deserving of fame. 645 00:37:55,400 --> 00:37:58,560 Emma would die in Calais ten years later, 646 00:37:58,560 --> 00:38:01,360 drunk and destitute. 647 00:38:08,000 --> 00:38:10,800 Now, Nelson and Emma are back together 648 00:38:10,800 --> 00:38:12,880 at the National Portrait Gallery, 649 00:38:12,880 --> 00:38:17,000 the hero and his floozy within kissing distance on the wall. 650 00:38:17,000 --> 00:38:19,720 Today, we have no trouble with celebrity 651 00:38:19,720 --> 00:38:21,600 and renown side by side... 652 00:38:26,400 --> 00:38:30,240 But when the Victorians founded the gallery in 1856, 653 00:38:30,240 --> 00:38:32,240 THIS would have been unthinkable... 654 00:38:33,600 --> 00:38:37,200 ..for the institution began as a worthy act of moral, 655 00:38:37,200 --> 00:38:39,120 patriotic education 656 00:38:39,120 --> 00:38:42,000 and a response to a moment of crisis. 657 00:38:46,920 --> 00:38:48,880 Britain, in the 19th century, 658 00:38:48,880 --> 00:38:50,600 had become an immense 659 00:38:50,600 --> 00:38:51,800 industrial empire. 660 00:38:53,080 --> 00:38:55,040 For some, this brought fears 661 00:38:55,040 --> 00:38:58,800 that society was drowning in crass materialism. 662 00:39:01,600 --> 00:39:03,000 From his home in Chelsea, 663 00:39:03,000 --> 00:39:06,920 one of the greatest historians of the age, Thomas Carlyle, 664 00:39:06,920 --> 00:39:09,680 worried that the nation would forget what, 665 00:39:09,680 --> 00:39:11,520 and more importantly WHO, 666 00:39:11,520 --> 00:39:13,560 had put the "Great" in Britain. 667 00:39:16,800 --> 00:39:18,080 Any society, 668 00:39:18,080 --> 00:39:20,680 however imperially strong it was going to be, 669 00:39:20,680 --> 00:39:22,920 that was only preoccupied with money 670 00:39:22,920 --> 00:39:26,560 and what Carlyle called, "The soulless age of the machine" 671 00:39:26,560 --> 00:39:32,200 was going to be, as Carlyle also said, "Mean and dwarfish." 672 00:39:32,200 --> 00:39:36,200 If the Victorian world was going to be worthy of itself, 673 00:39:36,200 --> 00:39:37,840 it had to rediscover 674 00:39:37,840 --> 00:39:39,840 the nature of humanity. 675 00:39:43,720 --> 00:39:45,440 Carlyle wrote about his heroes, 676 00:39:45,440 --> 00:39:46,880 like Shakespeare, 677 00:39:46,880 --> 00:39:48,520 as if they were the lifeblood 678 00:39:48,520 --> 00:39:50,040 of what made a nation... 679 00:39:51,680 --> 00:39:54,120 ..but he did more than write about them. 680 00:39:54,120 --> 00:39:57,760 As he worked, he surrounded himself with their portraits. 681 00:40:01,200 --> 00:40:03,440 Carlyle - who wrote wonderfully 682 00:40:03,440 --> 00:40:05,400 about noses, chins, brows - 683 00:40:05,400 --> 00:40:09,560 believed that a portrait was worth half a dozen biographies. 684 00:40:14,000 --> 00:40:16,040 So, when Carlyle thinks, actually, 685 00:40:16,040 --> 00:40:18,240 how he can improve Britain 686 00:40:18,240 --> 00:40:20,320 to make sure that it's not just 687 00:40:20,320 --> 00:40:23,640 in the prism of the humdrum and the routine, 688 00:40:23,640 --> 00:40:26,120 and the counting house... 689 00:40:26,120 --> 00:40:28,520 How could he take this passion, 690 00:40:28,520 --> 00:40:30,320 that he has himself, 691 00:40:30,320 --> 00:40:33,720 for being inspired by living in the company of great men? 692 00:40:33,720 --> 00:40:37,680 And the answer is, if you could only have a sort of gallery, 693 00:40:37,680 --> 00:40:41,640 then parents could bring their children 694 00:40:41,640 --> 00:40:44,120 and everybody from every class of the country 695 00:40:44,120 --> 00:40:45,640 could spend time and, 696 00:40:45,640 --> 00:40:48,560 by a process of osmosis of inspiration, 697 00:40:48,560 --> 00:40:50,440 you could become, yourself, 698 00:40:50,440 --> 00:40:52,800 great Britons - 699 00:40:52,800 --> 00:40:54,680 not just rich Britons 700 00:40:54,680 --> 00:40:56,880 or effective Britons, 701 00:40:56,880 --> 00:40:58,520 or industrially modern Britons, 702 00:40:58,520 --> 00:41:00,880 or arrogantly imperial Britons. 703 00:41:05,040 --> 00:41:06,400 Carlyle's great vision 704 00:41:06,400 --> 00:41:08,560 eventually got off the ground 705 00:41:08,560 --> 00:41:10,400 and the National Portrait Gallery 706 00:41:10,400 --> 00:41:11,560 came into being. 707 00:41:12,920 --> 00:41:14,280 It would achieve his aim 708 00:41:14,280 --> 00:41:17,720 of allowing people to spend time in the company of the greats. 709 00:41:21,080 --> 00:41:22,760 The first portraits were selected, 710 00:41:22,760 --> 00:41:25,040 not for their artistic merit, 711 00:41:25,040 --> 00:41:29,040 but for their potential to mould national character, 712 00:41:29,040 --> 00:41:33,320 to encourage and feed the appetite for hero-worship. 713 00:41:33,320 --> 00:41:36,160 No flaky celebs on these walls... 714 00:41:38,080 --> 00:41:41,840 ..and, for me, there's one that really stands out - 715 00:41:41,840 --> 00:41:45,240 the man who brought the British slave trade to an end. 716 00:41:47,920 --> 00:41:50,360 This one, in every way, 717 00:41:50,360 --> 00:41:52,680 is the most beautiful, the most moving, 718 00:41:52,680 --> 00:41:54,120 the most important 719 00:41:54,120 --> 00:41:57,800 and spoke to what the founders of the National Portrait Gallery 720 00:41:57,800 --> 00:42:02,120 wanted paintings to do for the country. 721 00:42:02,120 --> 00:42:05,240 If you asked yourself, "What is Britain made of?" 722 00:42:05,240 --> 00:42:09,840 Not just iron and steel, and cotton, and banks, and money, 723 00:42:09,840 --> 00:42:11,880 but the moral conscience - 724 00:42:11,880 --> 00:42:14,440 William Wilberforce is the answer. 725 00:42:17,000 --> 00:42:19,160 Now, the point about Wilberforce 726 00:42:19,160 --> 00:42:21,480 is that he's going through an ordeal. 727 00:42:21,480 --> 00:42:23,920 Notice this funny pose, 728 00:42:23,920 --> 00:42:25,360 with the head to one side, 729 00:42:25,360 --> 00:42:29,080 it just looks, in Laurence's lovely unfinished version, 730 00:42:29,080 --> 00:42:31,360 as though he's sort of relaxing... 731 00:42:31,360 --> 00:42:32,960 It's an informal pose. 732 00:42:34,280 --> 00:42:39,320 ..but he'd been suffering from this crippling spinal deformity, 733 00:42:39,320 --> 00:42:41,600 which is why his head 734 00:42:41,600 --> 00:42:43,560 is at an odd angle... 735 00:42:43,560 --> 00:42:45,120 and the older he got, 736 00:42:45,120 --> 00:42:46,840 the more deformed he becomes. 737 00:42:49,120 --> 00:42:52,320 So, the point about being British, is that - 738 00:42:52,320 --> 00:42:55,440 in pain and difficulty, and darkness - 739 00:42:55,440 --> 00:42:56,760 you tough it out. 740 00:42:57,960 --> 00:43:01,200 The shining light of your own conscience 741 00:43:01,200 --> 00:43:03,600 makes you do good in the world. 742 00:43:03,600 --> 00:43:05,600 So, if you have to say, 743 00:43:05,600 --> 00:43:10,360 "What is William Wilberforce's face saying to us?" 744 00:43:10,360 --> 00:43:14,480 "We can do good, you can do good, like me." 745 00:43:14,480 --> 00:43:17,360 "In the midst of our imperial power 746 00:43:17,360 --> 00:43:18,960 "and prosperity, 747 00:43:18,960 --> 00:43:21,480 "think what it meant to act 748 00:43:21,480 --> 00:43:25,760 "AGAINST our material interest. 749 00:43:25,760 --> 00:43:29,080 "We are not just a country of moneybags, 750 00:43:29,080 --> 00:43:31,920 "we are the country that abolished the slave trade, 751 00:43:31,920 --> 00:43:36,160 "that abolished slavery, when we could have made money out of it. 752 00:43:36,160 --> 00:43:38,920 "Sweetness and light is ours 753 00:43:38,920 --> 00:43:40,200 "to give to the world." 754 00:43:41,200 --> 00:43:43,040 "Come to the gallery, 755 00:43:43,040 --> 00:43:45,520 "and just look at me, 756 00:43:45,520 --> 00:43:48,360 "and think on that as British destiny." 757 00:43:57,200 --> 00:44:00,000 But our craving for fame and celebrity 758 00:44:00,000 --> 00:44:02,280 was too great to be confined 759 00:44:02,280 --> 00:44:04,000 to such noble ideas. 760 00:44:07,520 --> 00:44:09,560 The very forces of mass production 761 00:44:09,560 --> 00:44:11,480 that Carlyle so hated 762 00:44:11,480 --> 00:44:14,040 would now hijack our weakness 763 00:44:14,040 --> 00:44:16,000 for famous faces. 764 00:44:17,960 --> 00:44:19,960 At the turn of the century, 765 00:44:19,960 --> 00:44:22,960 over 50% of the population smoked 766 00:44:22,960 --> 00:44:25,440 and tobacco companies saw an opportunity 767 00:44:25,440 --> 00:44:28,160 to up this even further - 768 00:44:28,160 --> 00:44:31,720 through the little cards used to stiffen soft packets. 769 00:44:35,720 --> 00:44:37,040 Someone thought, 770 00:44:37,040 --> 00:44:39,280 "This is a fantastic wheeze, 771 00:44:39,280 --> 00:44:43,080 why don't we put pictures of the famous on them? 772 00:44:43,080 --> 00:44:45,560 "And, if we have fantastic pictures 773 00:44:45,560 --> 00:44:49,040 "and a particular kind of famous people, 774 00:44:49,040 --> 00:44:51,800 "they're going to buy OUR cigarettes 775 00:44:51,800 --> 00:44:55,000 "rather than Bloggins' Virginia Gold 776 00:44:55,000 --> 00:44:57,120 "who only managed to have, I don't know, 777 00:44:57,120 --> 00:44:58,800 "dogs or horses or something - 778 00:44:58,800 --> 00:45:02,120 "but WE will have portraits of the mighty." 779 00:45:02,120 --> 00:45:04,560 And these are politicians and 780 00:45:04,560 --> 00:45:07,640 they are heroes of the British Empire 781 00:45:07,640 --> 00:45:09,360 and of British history. 782 00:45:09,360 --> 00:45:11,040 The Duke of Wellington is here, 783 00:45:11,040 --> 00:45:12,640 Disraeli is here... 784 00:45:12,640 --> 00:45:14,840 But along with the mighty, 785 00:45:14,840 --> 00:45:16,880 we've got cricketers, 786 00:45:16,880 --> 00:45:18,040 actresses 787 00:45:18,040 --> 00:45:20,320 and music hall girls. 788 00:45:24,080 --> 00:45:28,240 The masses now had a new generation of stars in their eyes 789 00:45:28,240 --> 00:45:30,480 and in the palms of their hands. 790 00:45:31,880 --> 00:45:35,920 The cards proved a masterstroke of marketing... 791 00:45:35,920 --> 00:45:38,760 Did you know that there was a cigarette card exchange in London? 792 00:45:38,760 --> 00:45:41,800 A place where thousands of cards come every day to be sorted, 793 00:45:41,800 --> 00:45:43,880 labelled, parcelled... 794 00:45:43,880 --> 00:45:46,200 Their following was so fanatical 795 00:45:46,200 --> 00:45:47,880 that cigarette companies 796 00:45:47,880 --> 00:45:49,760 even had their own studios 797 00:45:49,760 --> 00:45:51,560 and their own artists. 798 00:45:52,680 --> 00:45:56,200 One of the most talented was Alick Ritchie, 799 00:45:56,200 --> 00:46:01,120 who created a whole gallery of mini masterpieces for Player's Cigarettes. 800 00:46:05,720 --> 00:46:09,560 He did portraits which are really little things of genius 801 00:46:09,560 --> 00:46:12,680 in an almost, kind of, Art Deco style. 802 00:46:12,680 --> 00:46:16,040 Here we have Augustus John, the painter, 803 00:46:16,040 --> 00:46:19,160 Lloyd George is a huge favourite, 804 00:46:19,160 --> 00:46:21,880 and here is Jack Hobbs, the cricketer, 805 00:46:21,880 --> 00:46:25,560 or you could go in for the, kind of, grand movie stars 806 00:46:25,560 --> 00:46:27,680 like Douglas Fairbanks 807 00:46:27,680 --> 00:46:29,760 and Charlie Chaplin. 808 00:46:29,760 --> 00:46:33,360 So, this is really a kind of democratic pantheon. 809 00:46:33,360 --> 00:46:38,920 This is the working person's own individual portrait gallery 810 00:46:38,920 --> 00:46:43,080 and it's filled up with movie stars, cricketers 811 00:46:43,080 --> 00:46:44,360 and footballers 812 00:46:44,360 --> 00:46:46,800 with the new kind of famous. 813 00:46:49,640 --> 00:46:52,080 You could have a smoke, finish the packet, 814 00:46:52,080 --> 00:46:56,480 and look down at your very own portrait gallery. 815 00:46:56,480 --> 00:46:58,440 Cigarette companies had made the public 816 00:46:58,440 --> 00:47:00,000 as addicted to fame 817 00:47:00,000 --> 00:47:01,680 as they were to nicotine. 818 00:47:05,640 --> 00:47:08,640 The faces could inform, amuse 819 00:47:08,640 --> 00:47:11,480 and bring a little colour to people's lives - 820 00:47:11,480 --> 00:47:13,640 a working man's encyclopaedia... 821 00:47:15,880 --> 00:47:17,360 ..but above all, 822 00:47:17,360 --> 00:47:21,000 the craze for collecting famous faces was fun... 823 00:47:21,000 --> 00:47:22,960 and in the drab interwar years, 824 00:47:22,960 --> 00:47:27,320 they offered what people wanted most - escapism. 825 00:47:27,320 --> 00:47:30,560 GRAND, FILMIC MUSIC 826 00:47:32,360 --> 00:47:34,160 In the 1920s, 827 00:47:34,160 --> 00:47:36,360 show-business, magic and glamour 828 00:47:36,360 --> 00:47:39,240 came together in the ultimate escape. 829 00:47:39,240 --> 00:47:40,800 In the dark of the cinema, 830 00:47:40,800 --> 00:47:42,560 people lost themselves 831 00:47:42,560 --> 00:47:45,040 in the make-believe world of Hollywood... 832 00:47:49,520 --> 00:47:53,280 ..and one imaginative and inventive photographer 833 00:47:53,280 --> 00:47:58,400 would bring fairy-tale sparkle to his portraits. 834 00:47:58,400 --> 00:48:03,000 Underneath this very high, slightly camp, manner 835 00:48:03,000 --> 00:48:06,120 is a devastatingly gifted photographer - 836 00:48:06,120 --> 00:48:09,160 someone who really is thinking about technique in a new way 837 00:48:09,160 --> 00:48:11,720 much influenced by the movies. 838 00:48:13,120 --> 00:48:16,680 Cecil Beaton dropped out of Cambridge in 1925, 839 00:48:16,680 --> 00:48:19,160 desperate to become a photographer. 840 00:48:19,160 --> 00:48:20,920 Right from the start, 841 00:48:20,920 --> 00:48:24,040 he was a master of flamboyant style - 842 00:48:24,040 --> 00:48:27,160 even when the only models available were his sisters. 843 00:48:29,000 --> 00:48:31,240 Here's one of the two sisters, Baba, 844 00:48:31,240 --> 00:48:33,440 and she is literally a picture 845 00:48:33,440 --> 00:48:35,440 in crushed silver velvet. 846 00:48:35,440 --> 00:48:37,640 I LOVE this photo 847 00:48:37,640 --> 00:48:39,800 because it absolutely milks 848 00:48:39,800 --> 00:48:41,200 everything it can 849 00:48:41,200 --> 00:48:42,520 about movie queendom, 850 00:48:42,520 --> 00:48:46,120 but it adds something really, almost, spooky. 851 00:48:46,120 --> 00:48:48,400 Draped over the crushed velvet 852 00:48:48,400 --> 00:48:51,000 are just ropes and coils, 853 00:48:51,000 --> 00:48:52,760 and cascades of pearls. 854 00:48:52,760 --> 00:48:54,400 Not real pearls but... 855 00:48:54,400 --> 00:48:55,960 They are fake pearls, 856 00:48:55,960 --> 00:48:58,200 but there are thousands of them. 857 00:48:58,200 --> 00:49:00,800 You can't overdo pearls in this image 858 00:49:00,800 --> 00:49:05,240 so, the whole thing has this kind of lunar shimmer to it. 859 00:49:07,760 --> 00:49:13,240 Beaton seemed to become intoxicated by his own glistening creations. 860 00:49:13,240 --> 00:49:14,720 Hungry for fame, 861 00:49:14,720 --> 00:49:17,040 he now turned to a gang of posh friends 862 00:49:17,040 --> 00:49:18,960 from his brief time at Cambridge. 863 00:49:22,080 --> 00:49:25,120 UPBEAT SWING MUSIC 864 00:49:29,000 --> 00:49:31,040 In the Wiltshire countryside, 865 00:49:31,040 --> 00:49:33,240 this group of pampered young people 866 00:49:33,240 --> 00:49:35,120 were attracting attention 867 00:49:35,120 --> 00:49:37,480 by throwing outrageous parties. 868 00:49:42,640 --> 00:49:43,840 Fancy dress balls... 869 00:49:45,800 --> 00:49:47,120 ..play acting... 870 00:49:48,400 --> 00:49:51,040 ..and champagne-soaked weekends. 871 00:49:56,320 --> 00:49:58,720 They were known as the Bright Young Things 872 00:49:58,720 --> 00:50:00,840 and Beaton saw them as a way 873 00:50:00,840 --> 00:50:03,560 to insert himself into high society, 874 00:50:03,560 --> 00:50:05,600 to experiment with his art 875 00:50:05,600 --> 00:50:08,280 and get his work published in the magazines. 876 00:50:11,720 --> 00:50:13,080 Darlings, 877 00:50:13,080 --> 00:50:16,000 here we have a pyramid of poseurs, 878 00:50:16,000 --> 00:50:18,440 circa 1927... 879 00:50:18,440 --> 00:50:22,480 and it's the Bright Young Persons - 880 00:50:22,480 --> 00:50:24,840 play acting and posing 881 00:50:24,840 --> 00:50:27,160 in exactly the kind of guise 882 00:50:27,160 --> 00:50:30,680 which they know is going to get them into the gossip magazines 883 00:50:30,680 --> 00:50:33,080 and maybe even into the newspapers - 884 00:50:33,080 --> 00:50:36,320 and at the centre of it all is Cecil Beaton - 885 00:50:36,320 --> 00:50:38,680 heavily wearing mascara, 886 00:50:38,680 --> 00:50:40,120 as is everybody. 887 00:50:40,120 --> 00:50:44,920 But Cecil Beaton had this profound sense of the collective need 888 00:50:44,920 --> 00:50:46,680 for self-promotion, 889 00:50:46,680 --> 00:50:48,840 but also the need out there 890 00:50:48,840 --> 00:50:51,640 in post-World War One society 891 00:50:51,640 --> 00:50:55,240 for images of the young and glamorous. 892 00:50:59,640 --> 00:51:02,880 Beaton's photographs made the antics of the Bright Young Things 893 00:51:02,880 --> 00:51:04,600 famous and infamous... 894 00:51:06,960 --> 00:51:09,160 Their celebrity would not last. 895 00:51:10,520 --> 00:51:13,920 Things change in the '30s with the slump 896 00:51:13,920 --> 00:51:15,720 and a gradual creep forward 897 00:51:15,720 --> 00:51:17,360 of the dark cloud of fascism, 898 00:51:17,360 --> 00:51:22,600 and public appetite for the Bright Young Things 899 00:51:22,600 --> 00:51:25,280 becomes dimmer and thinner 900 00:51:25,280 --> 00:51:29,360 but Beaton, of course, has other fish to fry. 901 00:51:29,360 --> 00:51:34,480 He's completely ruthless about having used this moment 902 00:51:34,480 --> 00:51:37,480 and these faces and these kind of poses 903 00:51:37,480 --> 00:51:40,000 to advance his own career and 904 00:51:40,000 --> 00:51:42,800 to move his own fame game forward 905 00:51:42,800 --> 00:51:45,640 and now there is somewhere else 906 00:51:45,640 --> 00:51:48,400 where he can do something extraordinary 907 00:51:48,400 --> 00:51:50,240 with what he knows best - 908 00:51:50,240 --> 00:51:51,520 and that is glamour. 909 00:51:55,880 --> 00:51:59,960 And the place to be, if you wanted to ride the tide of stardom, 910 00:51:59,960 --> 00:52:02,440 was, of course, Hollywood. 911 00:52:07,200 --> 00:52:12,840 Here, Beaton fell under the spell of screen goddesses. 912 00:52:14,000 --> 00:52:16,360 Greta Garbo. 913 00:52:18,720 --> 00:52:20,160 Marilyn Monroe. 914 00:52:22,280 --> 00:52:24,080 He captured the essence 915 00:52:24,080 --> 00:52:28,160 of what made these women both irresistibly alluring and, 916 00:52:28,160 --> 00:52:31,520 at the same time, impossibly unattainable. 917 00:52:39,080 --> 00:52:41,680 He became a real designer for fame 918 00:52:41,680 --> 00:52:44,080 because he understood pop culture. 919 00:52:44,080 --> 00:52:46,520 He understood its chemistry 920 00:52:46,520 --> 00:52:51,120 so that when he made extraordinary images of goddess-like figures, 921 00:52:51,120 --> 00:52:55,840 he knew exactly how they would be consumed on the street, 922 00:52:55,840 --> 00:52:58,120 in the magazines, and in the pubs. 923 00:52:58,120 --> 00:53:03,880 It was a real, sort of, down-market genius that he had. 924 00:53:03,880 --> 00:53:08,320 He, above all, was a kind of impresario of public craving... 925 00:53:11,840 --> 00:53:15,560 ..and we're still living with the kind of celebrity images 926 00:53:15,560 --> 00:53:17,120 Beaton pioneered. 927 00:53:19,320 --> 00:53:21,040 This is Keira Knightley... 928 00:53:21,040 --> 00:53:22,280 Oh, yeah! 929 00:53:22,280 --> 00:53:23,560 Again, I just thought, 930 00:53:23,560 --> 00:53:26,720 "Wouldn't it be great to photograph her in a worker's caff? 931 00:53:26,720 --> 00:53:30,640 The sort of juxtaposition between the two makes me laugh. 932 00:53:30,640 --> 00:53:32,760 HE LAUGHS 933 00:53:32,760 --> 00:53:34,480 Photographer Jason Bell 934 00:53:34,480 --> 00:53:36,800 is famous for his artful portraits 935 00:53:36,800 --> 00:53:39,720 of A-list celebrities. 936 00:53:39,720 --> 00:53:42,360 It works both ways, fame explodes and dwindles 937 00:53:42,360 --> 00:53:45,440 and then there's other people where you're photographing at the point 938 00:53:45,440 --> 00:53:47,520 at which they're just so hot and everyone's like 939 00:53:47,520 --> 00:53:49,920 "Oh, my God," you know, "You're shooting that person." 940 00:53:49,920 --> 00:53:52,160 And then, a couple of years go by and it's like, 941 00:53:52,160 --> 00:53:54,680 "What happened to so and so?" 942 00:53:54,680 --> 00:53:56,640 Stars may rise and fall, 943 00:53:56,640 --> 00:53:58,800 but the relationship between the famous 944 00:53:58,800 --> 00:54:00,240 and the fame-makers 945 00:54:00,240 --> 00:54:01,760 is as close as ever. 946 00:54:01,760 --> 00:54:03,160 I have to say, if I'm honest, 947 00:54:03,160 --> 00:54:04,320 as a photographer, 948 00:54:04,320 --> 00:54:05,960 you want your work to be seen. 949 00:54:05,960 --> 00:54:10,000 What happens is, I do a picture of a rat exterminator 950 00:54:10,000 --> 00:54:11,840 and they run it half-page at the back 951 00:54:11,840 --> 00:54:14,120 and I do a picture of a household name actor 952 00:54:14,120 --> 00:54:16,080 and they run it as a cover and eight pages. 953 00:54:16,080 --> 00:54:18,560 Now there's... Partly, you know, that's nice for me 954 00:54:18,560 --> 00:54:21,200 to have my work used in a bigger, kind of, splashier way, 955 00:54:21,200 --> 00:54:22,560 but also, creatively, 956 00:54:22,560 --> 00:54:25,480 it's more fun to create a set of eight pictures. 957 00:54:25,480 --> 00:54:27,480 You know, you get to play and there's themes 958 00:54:27,480 --> 00:54:29,120 and you're given more space, 959 00:54:29,120 --> 00:54:32,480 and I don't really set that agenda, 960 00:54:32,480 --> 00:54:35,600 but the magazine responds to the public's, you know, desire to see 961 00:54:35,600 --> 00:54:38,000 more pictures of Mr Famous Actor 962 00:54:38,000 --> 00:54:40,000 than Mr Rat Exterminator. 963 00:54:42,960 --> 00:54:46,880 Contemporary fame depends on familiarity 964 00:54:46,880 --> 00:54:48,960 and the celeb-drunk public 965 00:54:48,960 --> 00:54:51,960 feeds on seeing a face over and over again. 966 00:54:55,920 --> 00:54:58,600 Former paparazzi photographer Alan Chapman 967 00:54:58,600 --> 00:55:03,000 is at the launch party for his book of celebrity photographs. 968 00:55:03,000 --> 00:55:04,800 He's no longer a pap, 969 00:55:04,800 --> 00:55:06,760 but remembers only too well 970 00:55:06,760 --> 00:55:11,040 what the public want from candid shots of the famous. 971 00:55:11,040 --> 00:55:13,600 If so and so has got 972 00:55:13,600 --> 00:55:15,520 international acclaim, 973 00:55:15,520 --> 00:55:16,720 stardom, 974 00:55:16,720 --> 00:55:17,960 loads of money... 975 00:55:18,960 --> 00:55:20,680 "Where do they live? How do they live? 976 00:55:20,680 --> 00:55:23,120 "What do they wear? What do they drive? Where do they eat? 977 00:55:23,120 --> 00:55:25,160 "What do they do in their spare time?" 978 00:55:25,160 --> 00:55:27,560 We, as ordinary people, like to... 979 00:55:27,560 --> 00:55:29,560 voyeur into that world, I suppose. 980 00:55:34,560 --> 00:55:36,840 I suppose, you know, myself and everyone else 981 00:55:36,840 --> 00:55:38,960 working as a photographer for the press, 982 00:55:38,960 --> 00:55:40,320 is the go-between. 983 00:55:40,320 --> 00:55:43,240 We're enabling everybody else 984 00:55:43,240 --> 00:55:44,960 to see all these celebrities. 985 00:55:47,200 --> 00:55:49,720 It's a mutual addiction, 986 00:55:49,720 --> 00:55:51,200 this fame game. 987 00:55:51,200 --> 00:55:54,520 We need them and they need us. 988 00:55:54,520 --> 00:55:56,880 We want to see the famous as up close 989 00:55:56,880 --> 00:55:58,600 and as often as possible... 990 00:56:00,520 --> 00:56:03,280 ..and they, knowing how fickle fame can be, 991 00:56:03,280 --> 00:56:06,760 need these images to keep up public interest... 992 00:56:09,400 --> 00:56:12,960 ..but all that exposure can be dangerous. 993 00:56:12,960 --> 00:56:15,560 Images bring the famous closer to us 994 00:56:15,560 --> 00:56:18,360 and the more we see, the more we want... 995 00:56:20,560 --> 00:56:23,920 ..and that's when fame can turn dark. 996 00:56:23,920 --> 00:56:26,960 There's another name for this relentless following 997 00:56:26,960 --> 00:56:28,960 and that's a "hunt." 998 00:56:33,800 --> 00:56:35,840 This is where fame ends up, 999 00:56:35,840 --> 00:56:37,200 in a shrine. 1000 00:56:37,200 --> 00:56:40,680 Not the kind of shrine you find in a church or in a palace... 1001 00:56:40,680 --> 00:56:43,280 In the palace over the road, her palace. 1002 00:56:43,280 --> 00:56:44,640 ..but a people's palace. 1003 00:56:44,640 --> 00:56:46,320 A caff, Cafe Diana, 1004 00:56:46,320 --> 00:56:48,520 and it's perfect really. 1005 00:56:48,520 --> 00:56:50,640 I don't think many of the people who come here 1006 00:56:50,640 --> 00:56:54,200 are coming in, necessarily, as pilgrims to the cult of Diana, 1007 00:56:54,200 --> 00:56:57,160 they're coming here for the fantastic full English - 1008 00:56:57,160 --> 00:57:00,160 but then she was full English, wasn't she? 1009 00:57:04,720 --> 00:57:09,280 The thing about Diana was that she did both fame and celebrity. 1010 00:57:11,000 --> 00:57:12,520 Glamorous star... 1011 00:57:13,760 --> 00:57:15,800 ..tabloid sensation... 1012 00:57:17,880 --> 00:57:20,320 ..doer of good deeds. 1013 00:57:22,280 --> 00:57:25,280 It was all about the pictures. 1014 00:57:25,280 --> 00:57:26,880 The camera ate her up 1015 00:57:26,880 --> 00:57:29,640 even before the multitudes did. 1016 00:57:29,640 --> 00:57:33,640 From the very beginning, when these little nervous eyes were appearing 1017 00:57:33,640 --> 00:57:36,320 from under that lengthy fringe, 1018 00:57:36,320 --> 00:57:39,240 not quite able to look directly at the camera, 1019 00:57:39,240 --> 00:57:40,880 to the moment where, you know, 1020 00:57:40,880 --> 00:57:43,120 the doe-eyed beauty took over, 1021 00:57:43,120 --> 00:57:47,000 the whole extraordinary appearance of Diana became 1022 00:57:47,000 --> 00:57:49,480 a gorgeous national institution, 1023 00:57:49,480 --> 00:57:52,240 and she knew, let's not delude ourselves, 1024 00:57:52,240 --> 00:57:53,720 how to work the press 1025 00:57:53,720 --> 00:57:56,280 just as much as they could work her. 1026 00:57:57,520 --> 00:57:59,280 It was a two-way street, wasn't it, 1027 00:57:59,280 --> 00:58:01,680 that ended as a dead end. 1028 00:58:04,120 --> 00:58:07,280 ..but she did, in some peculiar way, 1029 00:58:07,280 --> 00:58:09,760 go right to our hearts 1030 00:58:09,760 --> 00:58:12,280 and when we look into the mirror 1031 00:58:12,280 --> 00:58:14,640 through all these pictures, what do we see? 1032 00:58:14,640 --> 00:58:16,400 We don't see HER so much, 1033 00:58:16,400 --> 00:58:18,600 we see us... 1034 00:58:18,600 --> 00:58:21,080 and our appetite for the famous 1035 00:58:21,080 --> 00:58:22,840 and their disasters. 1036 00:58:22,840 --> 00:58:24,360 We see ourselves - 1037 00:58:24,360 --> 00:58:27,880 avid, greedy, insatiable - 1038 00:58:27,880 --> 00:58:31,160 and THAT is not always a pretty picture.