In countless British homes last week there was a gasp of disbelief. In London newspaper offices, gossip columnists hung their ignorant little heads in shame. To a few titled socialites the event was shocking. But to most everyone, once they got used to it, the news was splendid.
It was certainly the best-kept secret of the year. From Clarence House, the home of the Queen Mother, a court circular announced the "betrothal of her beloved daughter the Princess Margaret to Mr. Antony Charles Robert Armstrong-Jones." Who, asked nearly everybody, is Antony Armstrong-Jones?
Lucky Working Lad. He is, to begin with, a commoner, the son of Welsh Barrister Ronald Armstrong-Jones, 60, and his first wife, Anne, a sister of Stage Designer Oliver Messel. Young Tony is also a hard-working and extremely able photographer. The Laborite Daily Herald gushed: "Good wishes to Margaret and the lucky working lad she is to marry."
Though a working lad, Tony is no hornyhanded proletarian. A graduate of Eton and Cambridge, where he won his blue as coxswain of the 1950 crew, Tony served his apprenticeship under the late society photographer known as Baron, a close friend of Prince Philip. On assignment from the Tatler, Tony managed to inject into his pictures of society dowagers and hunt balls a touch of lightheartedness. His first commission for the royal family, in 1956, was a 21st birthday picture of the Duke of Kent, which helped bring the era of stiff, formal pictures of royalty to an end. Tony's childhood studies of young Prince Charles and Princess Anne, and his coolly beautiful portrait of Margaret on her 29th birthday, made his reputation as a "society photographer." It is a label he disliked, and Tony prowled London streets for odd and amusing shots, and covered fascist rallies and anti-A-bomb parades.
At 29 (he is five months older than Margaret), Tony Armstrong-Jones is slender, volatile, charming in manner, and not very much taller than his bride-to-be (5 ft. 2 in.). He is not stuffy, and not particularly intellectual either. His flat in unfashionable Pimlico has a laundry on one side and an antique shop on the other, and his friends come chiefly from bohemian Chelsea, Fleet Street, and the theater and fashion world. For two years Tony's great and good friend was a sloe-eyed Chinese model named Jackie Chan (now playing a "yum-yum girl" prostitute in the London production of The World of Suzie Wong), and last year they holidayed together in Switzerland.
Drainpipe Trousers. Unlike Margaret, he does not enjoy dancing, because of a childhood polio attack which has left him with a stiffened leg, but he is happy to play the clown at parties. Wearing drainpipe trousers and suede jacket, he serves friends his own well-spiced cooking.