LADY DIANA COOPER RETAINS HER CHARM

Press, Volume C, Issue 29459, 10 March 1961, Page 2

LADY DIANA COOPER RETAINS HER CHARM

Once she was known as the most beautiful woman in England: even now, at 68, Lady Diana Cooper retains the classical facial features, the deep soulful eyes that have always set her apart whenever she steps into a ballroom or a theatre box. And her personality, her wit and charm are as sharp as ever, writes a London correspondent It is a personality which has rarely been seen in England over the last 12 years. For Lady Diana Cooper has been living in France, at the beautiful Chateau de Vineuil. This former palace—once a home of the Kings of France —has always been made

available to eminent people in need of a root over their heads. Now she is leaving the chateau and moving to a house in London, to be near

her son, John Julius, aged 31, and his family.

So begins another episode in the life of a woman who has beguiled the world for some 50 years. She was born Lady Diana Manners, younger daughter of the Duke of Rutland. Tn the First World War she nursed the wounded of Mons and the Somme. In the twenties she administered a series of shocks to the English aristocracy—by going on the stage, where she played the Virgin Mary in a play called "The Miracle," by taking film parts, by writing for the popular newspapers, and by a long string of motoring offences, mainly speeding. More than 20 years later unusual things were still happening to her. In 1051 she dressed up as Cleopatra at the “Ball of the Century” given in Venice by the Chilean millionaire. Don Carlos de Belstegui. She was left £30.000 bv a Spanish count, whom she had never met, but who had “admired he' from a distance.” Her husband was Alfred Duff Cooper. educated at Eton and Oxford, a British Cabinet Minister. Ambassador to France and later Lord Norwich. He died in 1954.

They made a handsome, clever couple and knew everyone—the great painters and composers, the heads of State.

Lady Diana Cooper’s career as hostess in Paris was one of the most brilliant in the history of that sparkling embassy. She made friends easily. Once, when sitting at dinner next to the Bey of Tunis, who eoiild not speak English Lady Diana Cooper bridged the awkward silence by drawing a palm tree on the menu. The Bey responded by adding dates. Their “conversation” proceeded smoothly.