The Web    CNN.com     
Powered by
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
ON TV
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
TRANSCRIPTS
Return to Transcripts main page

CNN PEOPLE IN THE NEWS

Profile of Retired Concorde Jets

Aired October 25, 2003 - 11:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(NEWSBREAK)
RICHARD QUEST, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Next on PEOPLE IN THE NEWS, she was the queen of the stratosphere.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's just one of the most beautiful pieces of industrial design ever.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

QUEST: She flew with the pinnacle of style.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANNA WINTOUR, "VOGUE" MAGAZINE: Sometimes it would remind me of a very chic nightclub.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It did make people in Britain feel proud.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

QUEST: Her speed was unmatched.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STING, MUSICIAN: It was exciting flying supersonic.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

QUEST: Now, Concorde is gone.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She's been an icon for three decades now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

QUEST: But not everyone mourns her passing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CAROL BERMAN, CONCORDE OPPONENT: I don't want to hear this noise.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

QUEST: The life and death of the world's only supersonic transport.

Then, they are the hope and the heritage of the British monarchy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You've got Prince Harry and Prince William coming into their own and the royal image has been greatly helped by that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

QUEST: A king in waiting, a modern day heartthrob.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's as though -- as if the Beatles had turned up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

QUEST: And a prince feeling the heat of public scrutiny.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANNE-MARIE O'NEILL, SENIOR EDITOR, "PEOPLE" MAGAZINE: Diana used to call him the naughty one. And when you think about it that really hasn't changed so much.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

QUEST: Two young men living lives of duty and growing up before the eyes of the world, through divorce, death, and destiny. The regal lives of Prince William and Harry. Their stories now on PEOPLE IN THE NEWS.

PAULA ZAHN, HOST: Hi, welcome to PEOPLE IN THE NEWS. I'm Paula Zahn. We begin, however, not with a specific person in the news but rather with a certain plane, the Concorde. On Friday, the world's first and only supersonic passenger jet made its last commercial flight. It was a fond farewell to an icon, an expensive, noisy, elite and exotic symbol of modern air travel. Here's Richard Quest.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

QUEST (voice-over): The skies had never seen anything like it, the flying machine that went faster than a rifle bullet and had the grace of a swan. Concorde was certainly a marvel of modern science. But over the course of 27 years, what was really just a plane became so much more.

MIKE BANNISTER, CHIEF CONCORDE PILOT: The plane's the star. The airplane is what turns heads.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: People from a young -- you know, from childhood upwards would just marvel at it.

DAVID KAMP, "VANITY FAIR": They have an almost anthropomorphic love of it like it's an animal or a person. The English don't call it The Concorde; they call it Concorde, almost like they're calling it Martha or Jim, because they have that kind of affection for it.

QUEST: Celebrities and style mavens morn its passing.

WINTOUR: I know about everybody in the world of fashion. It's so sad that we're not going to take it anymore.

STING: When the pilot came on and said, "Well, this is one of our last flights," the whole -- everyone on the plane got a little emotional.

QUEST: And even Concorde's engineers used to the realities of nuts and bolts admit to having a human reaction to its end.

CLAUD FREEMAN, CONCORDE ENGINEERING MANAGER: I will shed a tear, as I'm sure my staff will shed a tear.

ROD EDDINGTON, CHIEF EXECUTIVE, BRITISH AIRWAYS: If you look at the list of things people want to do in their lives before they die, Concorde is inevitably and invariably on that list.

QUEST: The idea of the Concorde was born in a magical time, when everyone wanted to push the envelope, and space exploration captured the imagination.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They've got the flag up now and you can see the stars and stripes.

KAMP: The Concorde's birth was really more like a space program than a commercial aircraft program. The French and the British were independently looking to supersonic flight for reasons of national pride and to, you know, expand the possibilities of humankind.

QUEST: In the early 1960's, the U.S. planemaker, Boeing, also started looking into a passenger plane that could fly faster than the speed of sound, and even the then U.S. president was excited.

RICHARD NIXON, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The supersonic transport is going to be built. The question is whether in the years ahead the people of the world will be flying in American supersonic transports or in the transports of other nations.

QUEST: As the costs of supersonic development ballooned, America scrapped its plans for an SST. The French and the British, though, battled on.

KAMP: They realized that this was going to be really expensive and that they had a common interest so they signed a treaty in 1962 to pool their resources and develop this plane together.

QUEST: That agreement meant production could begin, with British and French taxpayers footing the bill. The unusual Concorde between the countries inspired the name of the plane. The British even agreed to add the letter "e", giving the plane a French spelling. Seven years of research passed by. Then, on March the 2nd of 1969, Concorde 001 rolled out to Toulouse in France for its maiden flight. It was a clear success. Seven months later, Concorde broke the sound barrier, becoming the world's first supersonic passenger plane. But there were earth-bound speed bumps standing in the way of its success.

KAMP: One thing that they didn't fully factor in the vehements of protests among grassroots people.

QUEST: Concorde was new and it was scary. Environmentalists claimed it would cause skin cancer and kill livestock, and there was one thing about Concorde that no one could dispute.

FREEMAN: The biggest downside of operating Concorde is the noise factor.

QUEST: Aside from the sonic boom it causes, Concorde is just a very noisy plane. At takeoff, it's three times as loud as a 747.

BERMAN: Ahhh! I don't want to hear this noise.

QUEST: Carol Berman lives under the flight path to New York's Kennedy Airport.

BERMAN: We heard from England about a real jet that was coming over called the Concorde.

QUEST: In the late 1970s, she was a state senator leading protests in an effort to prevent Concorde from landing stateside.

BERMAN: We were hip to the fact that we didn't want more noise in this area from jets or anything else.

QUEST: Being allowed to land in the United States was essential to Concorde's economic survival. Congressional hearings were held and after the Supreme Court turned down the case, the secretary of transportation, William Coleman allowed Concorde limited access to New York, but the plane would never be allowed to fly supersonic over the United States.

SIR RICHARD BRANSON, CEO, VIRGIN INC.: If Boeing had won the battle and supersonic travel had been invented in America rather than in Britain and France, supersonic travel would never have had the problems of being able to cross America to Los Angeles, for instance.

QUEST: Concorde's initial commercial landing at Kennedy finally came on November the 22nd, 1977, eight-and-a-half years after that first test flight.

Coming up on PEOPLE IN THE NEWS, the speed...

BANNISTER: She actually goes faster than the Earth rotates.

QUEST: ... the celebrities.

STING: It's always exciting flying supersonic.

QUEST: ... and the style...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, I love it!

QUEST: ... that are uniquely Concorde.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: We now return to PEOPLE IN THE NEWS.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

QUEST (voice-over): The year was 1977, and the Anglo-French supersonic transport was flying high. Air France and British Airways were operating twice-daily roundtrips to New York for celebrities, the power of travelers who really meant business.

BANNISTER: I remember one occasion, two very well-known businessmen sitting in the aircraft next to each other, normally perfectly happy to be filmed and to have their photograph take, abjectly refused on this one flight, which was a surprise to us until three months later. We saw their two companies merging.

QUEST: Flying time from London to New York took half the time of the regular subsonic flight.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Beautiful day here for flying. Smooth conditions all the way across the Atlantic, and the flight time, three hours and 18 minutes.

BANNISTER: In the autumn, we can take off from London in pitch dark, travel so far westbound that the sun comes up in the west and you land in daylight.

QUEST: But takeoff is the only moment in which one really feels Concorde's speed. When you get to 250 miles per hour you pull back on the control column.

EDDINGTON: When you're that close to the ground in an airplane, it accelerates well past 200 miles an hour before it gets airborne. That's a very special moment.

BANNISTER: Rotate the aircraft up to about 30 degrees nose up.

QUEST: Once airborne, the only indication of speed is the mach meter, positioned in the front of each cabin.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Make yourselves comfortable. We'll be blasting off through the sound barrier and across the Atlantic.

KAMP: Since you're going fast, you're not going wow; I'm breaking the threshold here.

QUEST: Whether you feel it or not, there's still a certain mystique in flying faster than the speed of sound.

STING: Of course, it's always exciting flying supersonic and it's always exciting to get to New York before you've left.

QUEST: Not only is Concorde traveling at more than 1,300 miles an hour, speed burner, as she's known, is also flying twice as high as any other commercial aircraft, about 60,000 feet or 11 miles in the sky.

KAMP: When you're up that high, the sky's a different color. It's a deeper, darker blue because you're getting that much closer to outer space.

LOUISE BROWN, CONCORDE PURSER: You're very near to God, I think, one archbishop said.

QUEST: It's said that you can actually see the curvature of the earth out of the windows of Concorde.

KAMP: If you look out there and you think I really am short of astronauts, people in the space shuttle, the highest human being above the earth, and that's an extraordinary experience.

QUEST: The plane was, indeed, extraordinary, in a scientific way, but Concorde developed a certain cache. Celebrities were drawn to it.

WINTOUR: Sometimes it would remind me of a very chic nightclub.

CINDY CRAWFORD, MODEL: There was something very glamorous about going into that Concorde lounge and knowing that you were going to be in New York in -- under four hours.

WINTOUR: Only certain people were allowed in. I mean it sounds snobby and awful, but there was, I don't know, a sense of belonging.

QUEST (on camera): The club?

WINTOUR: Yes.

CRAWFORD: You always saw somebody on it, you know.

QUEST: Even though there's only one class aboard Concorde, where you sat said something about who you were. For instance, these first few rows of the plane, they were reserved for members of royal families, celebrities and top business people. The middle of the plane, that's for your middle of the road CEOs, and your "C" and "D" list celebrities. And the back of the plane, this is where you found your Concorde upgrades, your once in a lifetimers and the likes of you and me. There were some celebrities, though, that always wanted to sit back here.

SIR DAVID FROST, TV JOURNALIST: I always preferred rows 20 to 26 in the second cabin towards the back. Originally, it was -- smoking was allowed too, but basically because there were fewer people back there and you could often get an empty seat next to you, whereas people piled into the front cabin.

KAMP: Sitting closer to the entrance so can you get in and out faster and sort of swan around at the front of the cabin more, that seemed to matter.

QUEST (voice-over): Louise Brown was a member of Concorde's cabin crew for 24 years.

BROWN: And I've kept an autograph book through the decades I've been on here. Sir Paul McCartney is a very charming person. When I first carried him, gosh, in the early '80s, I think, he got up and sang me a little song, which was just wonderful.

QUEST: The list of boldfaced names was extensive.

(on camera): Henry Kissinger, Margaret Thatcher.

BROWN: Oh, gosh, who else? Rod Stewart, Mick Jagger, gosh, Keith Richards, Diana Ross.

QUEST (voice-over): British royalty were natural regulars. Concorde, after all, was the matter of national pride.

KAMP: Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, found the Concorde useful almost in a soccer mom way. She could drop her kids off at school at 8:30 in the morning, then hop on the Concorde from Heathrow, get to New York just in time to have her meetings with the Weight Watchers people and do whatever she needs to do, and then she could catch another flight back to London the same day and be home with her kids to tuck them in.

QUEST: Coming up on pint, I get to join the club.

(on camera): Can I sit next to somebody famous?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: Welcome back to PEOPLE IN THE NEWS.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

QUEST (voice-over): Throughout the '80s and the '90s, Concorde was ferrying its rich and famous passengers across the Atlantic, oblivious to the earthly matters that would finally bring it down.

BERMAN: The basic flaws of not being environmentally sound and not being economically sound were what did it in.

QUEST: Fuel costs for the plane were exorbitant. Maintenance costs were sky-high and the ticket price was out of this world.

KAMP: Your regular Concorde flyer was paying, you know, anywhere from $10,000 to $14,000 for a round trip to New York. BERMAN: There were just so many Hollywood movie stars and Japanese sumo wrestlers or whatever who could afford this kind of flight.

QUEST: With the global economy suffering, Concorde was losing its bread and butter business travelers.

EDDINGTON: Many of the sorts of people who used to fly Concorde felt they could no longer justify flying Concorde themselves if they're asking their own people at different levels in their organizations to be more prudent about their travel spending. It was just simply not acceptable.

QUEST: Then on July the 25th, 2000, disaster. A plane full of German tourists departing from Charles De Gaulle Airport in Paris crashed on takeoff, killing all 109 people onboard and four people on the ground.

FREEMAN: Up until that point in time, there had never been a single fatality on the Concorde fleet and it was one that both -- between ourselves and Air France -- we took immense pride in that fact.

QUEST: All Concorde flights were grounded immediately. After an extensive investigation, the accident was blamed on a stray piece of metal on the runway.

KAMP: I'm one of the people who believes that it was a true aberration and that these people have generally done a fantastic job of maintaining the plane and making it safe.

QUEST: But a little more than a year later, another disaster.

KAMP: That double whammy of a crash followed by 9/11, just when the program is getting back on its feet, they never recovered from that.

QUEST: British Airways and Air France did manage to come back into service on November the 7th, 2001.

RUDOLPH GIULIANI (R), FORMER MAYOR OF NEW YORK CITY: New York City is very, very pleased and very happy that the Concorde service has been reestablished.

QUEST: New York City mayor, Rudy Guiliani, hailed their return, but Concorde continued its financial nosedive. And last April, Air France and British Airways joined for one last time in announcing the end of commercial service for Concorde.

EDDINGTON: I recognize that she is an icon, but I also recognize that it's right to retire Concorde gracefully at the right time.

QUEST: The remaining six months of Concorde flights booked up immediately.

BANNISTER: What we've been doing over the last few months is making sure that the retirement of Concorde was a celebration, not a wake.

QUEST: Never wanting to miss a party, I decided I better get moving.

(on camera): Concorde, and can I sit next to somebody famous, somebody rich? I don't want to sit next to somebody like myself.

(voice-over) The Concorde experience begins in the ultra exclusive lounge. At Kennedy Airport, it was 7:00 in the morning, but the faces I saw weren't typical of the weary road warriors I've grown accustomed to in airports. These people were using the lounge for lounging on museum-quality furniture no less and they were actually excited about their flight.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) kicking and one or two souvenirs.

QUEST: Celebrations were at hand.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was actually a 50th birthday present, my 50th birthday present, thank you.

QUEST: The champagne flowed copiously and the food looked delicious, all well and proper for the princely sum of each ticket.

(on camera): Your ticket obviously cost several thousand dollars?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, about $6,000.

QUEST: Was it worth it?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'll tell you at the end of the flight, but I think it will be.

QUEST: You think so?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

QUEST (voice-over): Oh, I even had the chance to engage in some celebrity spotting of my own.

(on camera): You're no stranger to Concorde, are you?

WINTOUR: Not at all. I've been taking it since it started and I think this is sadly going to be my last trip.

PLACIDO DOMINGO, OPERA SINGER: Let's hope that whatever happens, the Concorde is back one day, you know. I think it should be.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Once again, that's (UNINTELLIGIBLE) Supersonic Concorde dating 002 now ready for boarding at gate number 6.

QUEST (voice-over): They were on their way and I was excited about taking my very own flight of a lifetime from London. (on camera): Thank you very much. It's lovely to be on board.

(voice-over) The only complaint you ever hear about Concorde is that it's a bit cramped. I will admit, it's a bit tight, especially for someone 6-foot-2 tall but the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) leather seats, the short flight time and impeccable service make it quite tolerable for the 100 or so passengers.

BROWN: Passengers would come on. They'd have the drink of their choice or a glass of vintage champagne that's been on the ice.

QUEST (on camera): Oh, how lovely. Cheers!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Cheers.

QUEST (voice-over): The meals almost always include salmon and caviar with a selection of five different entrees, followed by cheese, bread, dessert and coffee. All of this to be served in just three hours, and with one narrow aisle, it's quite a task for the cabin crew. At the same time, they're trying keep out of the way of passengers taking pictures in front of the mach meter.

BANNISTER: It turned into a party atmosphere with everybody absolutely determined to enjoy themselves.

QUEST: And if the worldwide auctioneer, eBay, is any indication, plenty of passengers are leaving the plane with more than just a piece of Concorde in their hearts. Napkin rings, silverware and safety cards could all be had for a price. Even I was tempted to get in on the act.

(on camera): What else can we take? What else can we take?

(LAUGHTER)

QUEST (voice-over): Sadly, for now, souvenirs are all that's left of Concorde's reign in the skies.

FROST: I shall prepare myself for the seven hours, 40 minutes one way and six hours the other way.

BERMAN: It's a nice looking plane as planes go, but that was never my thing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) nose come up to 20 degrees. She's airborne.

QUEST: Currently, there are no large supersonic passenger planes in development anywhere in the world...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She flies. Concorde flies at last!

QUEST: ... which is a shame, because flying faster than the speed of sound, after all, is a very romantic thought. Concorde will be missed. It expanded in our lifetimes the possibilities of what humankind can do. (END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAHN: Richard Branson, the billionaire behind Virgin Atlantic, has made it clear that he would like to buy at least one newly retired Concorde from British Airways, but enthusiasts shouldn't hold their breath. The company has firmly and consistently declined Branson's offers. They company plans to have most of their planes permanently grounded at museums around the world.

QUEST: Coming up on PEOPLE IN THE NEWS, it's the tale of two princes, one the future king...

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRINCE WILLIAM: My name is Will. I am a wombat.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

QUEST: ... the other, a playboy in waiting.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

O'NEILL: He's very attractive to women, has a lot of friends, and just seems like someone that you would have a really good time with.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

QUEST: Princes William and Harry are the heirs to the British throne, grappled with adolescence, tragedy, and celebrity. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(NEWSBREAK)

ZAHN: Welcome back to PEOPLE IN THE NEWS. Prince William and Prince Harry, the sons of Diana. One born to be king, the other born to duties all his own. Young, rich, and royal, they are the great hope of a dynasty that has seen its share of suffering and scandal. Here again is Richard Quest.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

QUEST (voice-over): If polo is the sport of kings, you might say this is the match of princes. Prince Charles has played the game for his entire life. His two sons, Prince William and Prince Harry, also excel on the field. It's a love of sport passed from one royal generation to the next. But the legacy for these princes is far greater than any polo game. They are the future of the monarchy. Theirs is a family business steeped in tradition and tarnished by scandal. Prince Charles waits patiently to succeed his mother in the top job. But it is Prince William, second in line for the throne, who may restore the royal luster with a common touch.

INGRID SEWARD, EDITOR, "MAJESTY" MAGAZINE: He likes people to call him William or Wills. And he doesn't want to know about your Royal Highness or Sir and that in itself makes it easy for people to relate to him.

QUEST: While the burden of the monarchy will one day be William's alone, Prince Harry shares his brother's public spotlight.

O'NEILL: He's very handsome. He's grown to this -- from this kind of geeky little redhead guy into this tall, strapping young man.

QUEST: Two strapping young men destined for high function, raised amid a spectacle of dysfunction.

July 1981, millions of people around the world tuned in to see the fairy tale wedding of Prince Charles and Princess Diana.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: With this ring...

PRINCE CHARLES: With this ring...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... I thee wed.

PRINCE CHARLES: ... I thee wed.

QUEST: Just 11 months after the wedding on June the 21st, 1982, Diana gave birth to a baby boy, Prince William Arthur Phillip Louis.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is a boy.

(CHEERING)

QUEST: The fairy tale continued when two years later, Prince Henry Charles Albert David, also known as Prince Harry, came into the world. On the outside, it appeared to be a happy family. But young William was acting out.

PRINCE WILLIAM: Bad. Bad.

O'NEILL: William as a toddler was a little horror.

PRINCE CHARLES: Camera. Camera.

O'NEILL: He was known in the British press as the basher. He used to throw tantrums.

BRIAN HOEY, BIOGRAPHER, "PRINCE WILLIAM": And he'd say, "I'm the king of England. If you don't obey me, I'll have your heads cut off." And he -- what a -- and he meant it.

QUEST: William may have been aware of his lofty status, but his mother made sure both her sons got a taste of the common life early on. When William was 3 years old, she enrolled her precocious first born into Mrs. Minor's Nursery School.

KITTY KELLEY, AUTHOR, "THE ROYALS": Their father had private tutors and the queen herself never went to school really. They brought tutors in. But Diana really wanted her children to be in a school setting.

QUEST: But as the older prince mellowed with age, the younger was just getting started.

O'NEILL: Diana used to call him the naughty one, and when you think about it, that really hasn't changed so much.

QUEST: If the prince's naughtiness was amusing, their parents' misbehavior was more serious stuff. Shortly after Harry's birth, rumors circulated that Prince Charles was fooling around with his old flame, Camilla Parker Bowles.

COMPTON MILLER, ROYAL COMMENTATOR: Whoever he married, that would have been very bad but with a sensitive girl like Princess Diana, it was, you know, a real a body blow to feel that she was sharing him with somebody else.

QUEST: Still Diana and Charles appeared comfortable together. On William's birthday at Ludgrove Boarding School, the 8-year-old prince wore a brave face as he moved into the dormitory where he would share a room with four other classmates. A popular student, William excelled at sports. But his athletic prowess couldn't save him from getting clocked in the skull with a golf club. The accident caused a ghastly fracture and the young prince was rushed into surgery.

KELLEY: Diana was there with him most of the night. Charles, unfortunately, went to the opera.

ROBERT JOBSON, ROYAL COMMENTATOR: The reality of situation was, of course, he was just doing his duty. He checked with the doctors. They said that William was going to be fine.

HOEY: I spoke to Diana herself about this. I knew her reasonably well. And I spoke to her about this some years afterwards and she said that was one thing she couldn't quite get to grips with as far as the royal family were concerned, that they felt parental responsibility should come a very poor second to their royal duties.

QUEST: Prince William recovered from his wounds but his parents' marriage continued to unravel. Charles and his ongoing relationship with Camilla Parker Bowles was perhaps the worst kept secret in Britain and the tabloids brimmed with tottered details of Diana's extramarital flirtations. The fairy tale was clearly over. The only thing the royal couple still shared was the love of their two young sons. When we come back, a gilded childhood and a devastating loss.

JOBSON: It must have been an agonizing couple of hours for Prince Charles whilst he thought how he was going to break the worst possible news that his sons could hear.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: Now back to PEOPLE IN THE NEWS.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

QUEST (voice-over): By 1990, the royal family was sliding into a most awkward time. But as the tabloids pried into Charles and Diana's every peccadillo, something else became plain, the couple's indisputable love for their children.

JOBSON: He took his boys hunting, shooting, fishing, the things that traditionally royals did whereas, I think Diana wanted to give them a broader spectrum.

QUEST: She introduced her sons to amusement parks and fast food. She also exposed them to heavier issues, the homeless and AIDS clinics.

JOBSON: She wanted them to experience things even though she knew they were going to have extraordinary lives and they were extraordinary people in terms of their roles.

QUEST: Even as a young boy, William was well aware of his parent's tumultuous marriage. He tried hard to be a rock for his mother.

SEWARD: William used to give her -- his mother chocolates and flowers and little gifts, which is really touching because he knew she was unhappy and she did let him witness her unhappiness.

QUEST: The whole world witnessed the unhappiness on a Korean visit in November of 1992. As Charles and Diana frowned their way through the trip, the press nicknamed the couple, The Glums. The images told the story of two people painfully uncomfortable with each other's company. Finally, it was December 1992, and the announcement everyone knew was coming.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is announced from Buckingham Palace that with regret, the Prince and Princess of Wales have decided to separate.

QUEST: Diana's private life became the stuff of tabloids. She was linked with several high society gentlemen, including Dodi Al Fayed, the 42-year-old son of a retail magnet. Just eight weeks after her 36th birthday, she joined him on an excursion to France. The trip was supposed to be a romantic getaway, but a fateful evening in Paris turned the getaway into tragedy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Diana, Princess of Wales has died after a car crash in Paris.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The death of the Princess of Wales fills us all with deep shock and with deep grief.

QUEST: August the 31st, 1997, Diana along with Dodi Al Fayed died in a Paris automobile crash. Their car had been lost spotted speeding away from paparazzi on motorbikes.

O'NEILL: Charles and the boys were at Balmoral in Scotland, and Charles heard within an hour of her death that she had died. JOBSON: It must have been an agonizing couple of hours for Prince William not to wake his sons immediately but to let them sleep whilst he thought how he was going to break the worst possible news that his sons could hear.

KELLEY: Charles went to their room at about 7:00 in the morning, and they knew something was wrong because he, too, had been crying.

QUEST: September 1997, millions of people around the world tuned in to see the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales. It would seem Prince William would become the media's new fixation but the palace and the press quickly forged a gentleman's agreement, giving both princes the privacy to grow up. When we come back, William, the heartthrob.

JOBSON: Screaming girls were amazing. It was as though -- as if the Beatles had turned up.

QUEST: And Harry's walk on the wild side.

O'NEILL: He moves in quite a fast set and, obviously, drugs were available.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: Welcome back to PEOPLE IN THE NEWS.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

QUEST (voice-over): With Diana's passing, her sons took a giant step towards manhood, but they were still schoolboys and the decisions their mother made in life, particularly when it came to education, still held firm.

JOBSON: It was actually Diana who was the driving force for them both to go to Eton and I think it was her that wanted him to have more of an education based upon mixing with many, many other children.

QUEST: By all accounts, those years at Eton were good ones. Both boys involved themselves fully in sports. William left Eton in June of 2000 and like other teenagers, decided to go on a gap year abroad before university. He went to Chile as part of a charity project.

The world saw pictures of Prince William scrubbing toilets, working in forests, helping children, and the world heard William speak.

PRINCE WILLIAM: When you catch the ball, you say, "My name is -- my name is Will. I am a wombat." And then you try and make a noise that the wombat makes.

QUEST: He had his mother's good looks and wherever he went, the call was always the same -- William. William. William. He was the world's heartthrob.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And I love him and he said hi and he took my hand.

JOBSON: I remember being on a trip to Canada, actually, when Prince William went on a walk about, and screaming girls were amazing. It was as though -- as if the Beatles had turned up.

QUEST: After his gap year, William went to Scotland, to St. Andrews University, to study art history and geography. The university made every effort to insure a private life for the prince and the media also kept their agreement.

MILLER: And of course, the irony there is the one person who broke this self-imposed embargo was his uncle, Prince Edward, because Prince Edward has a television company called Ardent and who should be following him in the streets at St. Andrews but his uncle's TV crew, which made Prince Charles go ballistic.

QUEST: Other insiders have also had the royal laundry. Diana's former butler sold and confidant, Paul Burrell, sold his story to a tabloid late last year. During a gap year photo-op, William expressed disgust with a tell-all book penned by his mother's former secretary.

PRINCE WILLIAM: Of course, I'm paranoid but I'm quite upset about it, that my mother's trust has been betrayed and even now she's still being exploited. But I don't really want to say anymore on that.

QUEST: At 21, William is halfway through his university course and speculation has been begun about his love life.

SEWARD: We don't know very much about his William's love life because he is so discrete. But we know that he really can have pretty much any girl he wants.

QUEST: William has a way of keeping the public in the dark, meeting potential girlfriends in large groups so no one knows with whom he's interested.

HOEY: I know guys who have been to parties with him, and they said, "You go into one of the back rooms," into the kitchen or something, and William is there with a bottle of beer and yet he's surrounded by four or five beautiful girls, and he's loving every minute of it.

QUEST: If William is the heir, Harry is the spare.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How do you (UNINTELLIGIBLE) yourself, to his Royal Highness?

PRINCE HARRY: No, it's Harry.

QUEST: Waiting in the wings and likely to ever succeed the crown, but having to be there just in case. Harry has turned into the lovable rogue. O'NEILL: He's very attractive to women, has a lot of friends, and, you know, just seems like someone that you would have a really good time with.

QUEST: But Harry was having too much of a good time. There were stories of his underage drinking at Eton and then something more serious. Prince Harry was caught smoking cannabis. It brought him into the public eye in the worst possible way and his nickname became Harry Pot Head. Charles didn't wait to act.

O'NEILL: Instead of, you know, hauling him out in public for a thrashing, he basically lined up a visit for Harry to a rehab center where Harry went in quietly and toured the rehab center with a former addict, and also, sat with a group of addicts and listened to their stories.

QUEST: Now, a military career beckons for the prince who has no ready-made job. In his last term at Eton, Harry cleaned up his act, excelled in the cadet corps, commanding the corps underguard before his proud father. When he left school earlier this year, the palace announced that Harry would be applying to Sandhurst, Britain's top military academy, hoping to join after his gap year.

SEWARD: I mean Diana told me he loves pomp and soldiers and castles, so he's a natural candidate to the army and also, it means he can carry on playing polo.

QUEST: On September 23, eight days after Harry turned 19, he arrived in Australia to spend four months of his gap year as a jackeroo or Australian cowboy. But so far instead of herding cattle, Harry's been dodging cameras. The prince's stint down under has been marked by media intrusion, a sign that the freedom from news cameras and paparazzi, which both William and Harry once enjoyed, may be coming to an end.

As adults, the two princes have had to come to term with their father's relationship with Camilla Parker Bowles. William broke the ice three years ago when he casually but deliberately dropped in on his father while Camilla was visiting. Since then, both sons have grown to accept the woman Diana famously described as the third in her marriage.

KELLEY: They know that Camilla Parker Bowles is a nonnegotiable factor in their father's life. She's very good for their father. They care about their father. And so, if she makes him happy, she makes them happy.

QUEST: If not exactly happy families, the relationship that Charles shares with his sons has certainly enjoyed a renaissance.

JOBSON: I think the death of the late Princess Diana had an cataclysmic affect upon all of them and naturally, although they were already close, drew them even closer together so that Charles became both mother and father, if you like.

QUEST: And now, though his children are grown up, Prince Charles remains in the same boat with his son, William. Both are monarchs in waiting and that wait for both of them could be quite long.

HOEY: And if the queen has inherited the longevity genes of her mother, who, of course, died at the age of 101, she's going to rein for another 20, 25 years. Charles is going to be approaching 80 when he becomes king.

QUEST: But what sort of monarchy will William inherit? Certainly, nothing like the reverengal treatment his grandmother, Elizabeth, faced when she came to the throne in 1953. William himself has said he believes it's important that people feel the monarchy can keep up with them and is relevant to their lives.

KELLEY: There's just no way that Wills is going to be dressed up in a crown and robe and an orb and a scepter to open parliament because by the time that happens, what, 10, 20, 30, 40 years from now, it will be antiquated.

QUEST: Princes William and Harry have been born into their respective roles. Both have come of age in an atmosphere very different from previous royal adolescents. A degree of privacy, punctuated by moments of intense media coverage and speculation -- divorce, death, drugs, and dating, the life of the modern princes. And if the natural order follows through, one will be king; one will spend his life watching. That is the nature of royal duty.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAHN: Despite ongoing speculation, Prince Charles has made it clear that he has no intention of stepping aside after the queen is gone. So Prince William, like his father, will have to wait to claim the throne.

That's it for this edition of PEOPLE IN THE NEWS. Coming up next week, murder in Modesto, the Laci Peterson story. I'm Paula Zahn. Thanks so much for joining us.

ANNOUNCER: For more on the people and personalities shaping our world, pick up a copy of "People" magazine this week.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com




CNN US
On CNN TV E-mail Services CNN Mobile CNN AvantGo CNNtext Ad info Preferences
SEARCH
   The Web    CNN.com     
Powered by
© 2005 Cable News Network LP, LLLP.
A Time Warner Company. All Rights Reserved.
Terms under which this service is provided to you.
Read our privacy guidelines. Contact us.
external link
All external sites will open in a new browser.
CNN.com does not endorse external sites.
 Premium content icon Denotes premium content.