Anthony Holden
Anthony Holden
Anthony Holdenis an English writer, broadcaster and critic, particularly known as a biographer of artists including Shakespeare, Tchaikovsky, Leigh Hunt, Lorenzo da Ponte and Laurence Olivier, and of members of the British Royal family, notably Charles, Prince of Wales. He has also published translations of opera and Ancient Greek poetry as well as several autobiographical books about poker. In 2009, he was elected the first President of the International Federation of Poker...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionJournalist
Date of Birth22 May 1947
As somebody who's been writing about this subject for getting on twenty years now, it's astonishing how the climate has changed in the last five years.
He did once say the time to worry is when they stop writing about you but again I think that was pretty token of the coverage was very respectful, he rather resented the intrusions on his private life, but that was about it.
I first got to know Charles in the late seventies when I wrote an article and then a book about him and I think at the time he came across as quite appealing, it was probably the height of his popularity.
I remember a moment when the Prince went back to his old school, Grammar School in Melbourne, and slightly to his horror his old music teacher produced a cello.
Thatcher came under pressure from right wing backbenchers to shut up the Prince of Wales and there was a deal done between them where he did actually shut up in the end.
I think her friends were worried that the bulimia might come back, about some psychological slide, and she was given breathing space to some extent by the media as much as she ever has been.
The Princess's so-called 'time and space speech' at the end of '93 about a year after the formal separation, looking back on it it's called her retirement from public life but we've seen in fact it's nothing of the kind.
I think the relation between the monarchy and the press is very much a two-way street.
The winner is not the player who wins the most pots. The winner is the player who wins the most money.
Though there have been several attempts to launch and relaunch Charles and they're still going on as we speak, they've all been by amateurs.
The good news is that in every deck of fifty-two cards there are 2,598,960 possible hands. The bad news is that you are only going to be dealt one of them.
What it was at the time was literally a plea for, to get the pressure off for a while, to give her space to breathe. She was very unhappy. She was feeling pretty claustrophobic.