Photo: HBO; Alamy
Princess Margaretwas a well-known fan of the arts, butSuccessionstarBrian Coxclaims he was once part of a command performance for the royal when he was a young West End theater actor.
Now 75, Cox shared an excerpt from his memoirThe Rabbit in the Hatwith theMail on Saturday. In the passage, he recalls a run-in with the “rebel royal” after a 1969 performance of the playIn Celebrationat the Royal Court Theatre in London.
The meet-and-greet with Margaret and her then-husband,Lord Snowdon, happened to coincide with Cox’s June 1 birthday, and the Scottish actor got a gift he could not have expected.
He continues that Margaret then “put a hand to my chest, undid one button and slid her hand inside. I froze. Her hand was inside my shirt and travelling in the direction of my left nipple, yet the princess was just chatting away as though this was something she had done a hundred times before.”
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Cox shares that one of his costars was standing in such a way that he was “creating a barrier” to the others in the room, including the princess’s husband, when his panic started to flare up.
“And with the whole terrible surreality of the situation threatening to engulf me, I found some semblance of composure and blurted out, ‘Oh, Ma’am, I have to return to my dressing room. I’ve left something there.'”
“And with that,” he writes. “I beat a hasty retreat, bowing and scraping, and sliding past Jimmy Bolam to head for the door and out to safety.”
Years later, Cox would win a Golden Globe for playing the irascible media mogul Logan Roy, whoseobscene signature phrasemight have been useful during that unexpectedly hands-on bonding moment with the princess.
source: people.com
