Inside Terence Stamp’s unlikely friendship with Princess Diana – Celebrity News – Entertainment

Terence Stamp gained recognition for his acting prowess and romantic escapades, but what remains largely unknown is his close friendship with Princess Diana.

In a candid 2017 Daily Express interview, the then 79-year-old Stamp reflected: “The fact is I am past my best.

“I’ve still got wonderful relationships with women but I’m not looking to get —— four times a week. My feeling about sex is that I’ve finally been tossed from the saddle of a horse that I’ve been clinging on to for the past 60 years. So it’s kind of a relief really.

“I guess that the only thing that changes with age is that you have a shift in understanding. Because of your own values you understand what young women are. You let go of things.”

Throughout a six-decade career – beginning with his debut in Peter Ustinov’s 1962 classic Billy Budd, which secured him an Academy Award nomination – Stamp has undoubtedly mastered the art of “understanding” women.

His high-profile affairs included Julie Christie, whom he met during the filming of 1967’s Far From The Madding Crowd, and supermodel Jean Shrimpton.

During their relationship, the pair earned the title of “the most photographed couple in London”.

In later years, he married Elizabeth O’Rourke for six years, meeting her while she worked at an Australian drugstore. The couple tied the knot in 2002 when she was 29 and he was 64.

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Yet, his bond with the late Princess Diana remains relatively unknown to the public. “The relationship came about because my friend Oliver Hoare, the art dealer, knew her,” shared Stamp, who passed away at 87.

“I said, ‘I’d love to have a proper chat with her, why don’t you ask her if she’s up for it?’ He asked and she said yes. We got on amazingly well.”

Despite his reputation, Stamp insists that his friendship with Diana was purely platonic. “It wasn’t like that. I thought that was the last thing she needed really. She just wanted somebody to talk to that was a guy, who would give her objective opinions. And because of that we just kind of opened up to each other.

“I saw the sadness in her because…she was a believer in the marriage and all that. And it didn’t turn out the way she expected it to.”

Their friendship was so deep that Stamp would even cook dinner for the Princess – he remembers making mushroom risotto for her first visit, garnishing the dish with the letters HRH in truffle paste.

“It wasn’t a formal thing, we’d just meet up for a cup of tea, or sometimes we’d have a long chat for an hour, sometimes it would be very quick,” he said. “The time I spent with her was a good time.”

However, private dinners with royalty and truffle paste were far removed from Stamp’s humble beginnings.

Born as the eldest of five siblings in Bow, in London’s East End, he hailed from a solidly working-class family.

“My mother took great pains to have us kept beautifully clean and dressed because she didn’t want people to know how poor we were,” he said.

After leaving school, he found work in advertising before landing a scholarship to drama college and swiftly became part of an exciting group of authentic young actors who captured the rebellious energy of the times – even sharing living quarters with Michael Caine.

“Once Albert Finney and Peter O’Toole and others had broken through, that was what people wanted,” he said. “They didn’t mind if you had a real working-class accent or attitude. You didn’t have to pretend that you were middle-class any more.

“These days the fame is of first importance, whereas in the 1960s it was the craft that was of first importance.”

After his stunning performance as the lead character Billy Budd, he gained massive celebrity status through a series of praised movies throughout the decade, including The Collector (which won him Best Actor at the Cannes Film Festival), Ken Loach’s Poor Cow, and Far From The Madding Crowd.

Yet, following the end of his widely-publicized relationship with Shrimpton, Stamp withdrew from public attention at the end of the 1960s, leaving Swinging London behind and traveling to India to study yoga and undergo a “spiritual awakening”.

It wasn’t until 1978 and his role as villain General Zod in Superman, starring alongside Marlon Brando, that he again made news for his acting abilities. The influence of his time amid India’s spiritual serenity remains strong, however.

Gone is the philandering maverick of old: in his golden years Terence Stamp gave up drinking, stuck to a rigid plant-based diet and kept up his daily yoga routine.

“I am in good health. My body knows how long it has been here, though. It doesn’t matter how much yoga I do, the body has been here for a long time, it’s nearer 80 years than 70. It’s pride and vanity that enables me to stay with a body not dictating to the mind.

“I know a lot of actors just can’t. They get addicted to the sherbet [alcohol] and to the food in the same way. And I feel those things but I’ve always regarded my body as an Aston Martin.

“My only ambition is to die healthy like a lot of the fakirs and dervishes I met in the East. Death happens to everybody and it’s going to happen to me and it could happen any time.

“I’m very famous now in a way that has only been true over the past 10 years in the sense that I get recognised a lot on the street. The nice reason is that the British appreciate longevity. And the ordinary reason is a lot of my movies are on the box now.

“When people come up to me it’s no longer a drag. They want to say hello. Guys want to tell their mums they’ve met me because their mums love me.”