We’re used to seeing them performing their polished royal waves on the balcony at Buckingham Palace, or cutting ribbons and shaking hands at official public engagements, but what you may not know is that several members of the royal family have actually pursued careers in showbusiness.
While ‘working royals’ such as the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Her Majesty the Queen spend their days performing an array of public duties across the realm, many of those further down the line of succession hold down regular jobs and receive no income from the Privy Purse.
And, despite living their lives under close media attention, one of the most popular trades seems to be the entertainment industry, with Prince Edward, Princess Beatrice, Princess Michael of Kent and Lord Snowdon all landing jobs in the field.
The youngest son of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Prince Edward, attempted to forge a career as a television producer after a short stint at Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Really Useful Theatre Company, where he commissioned the musical Cricket in honour of his mother’s 60th birthday in 1986.
It is Edward’s foray into television though that garnered the most attention, specifically the gameshow episode It’s A Royal Knockout in 1987, which featured the 54-year-old, along with his brother Prince Andrew, sister Princess Anne and Andrew’s wife Sarah Ferguson, in ‘Olde English’ style fancy dress taking part in a number of silly challenges for charity.
The programme was slammed, but that didn’t deter the prince, who once said he “loves the razzmatazz of show business”, and Edward founded his own production company Ardent Productions in 1993. The company reported losses every year, except one, that it operated and its programmes were widely criticised.
In 2001, Ardent also came under fire when two cameramen invaded the privacy of Prince William on campus at the University of St. Andrews. Edward stepped down as production director and joint managing director of Ardent in March 2002, and the company was dissolved in June 2009.
Unlike her cousins William and Harry, Princess Beatrice, 29, is not technically a ‘working royal’ and the eldest daughter of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson landed an internship at Sony Pictures after graduating from University of London’s Goldsmiths College with a combined honours degree in History and History of Ideas.
Princess Beatrice worked as a paid intern at Sony for just 11 months before she quit following a hack on the company in 2014, which revealed some of the princess’ personal details, including her salary which was just £19,500 (AU$34,618). At the time it was claimed that the hack had been carried out by North Korea in retaliation to the release of Seth Rogan’s controversial movie The Interview.
The Queen’s brother-in-law Antony Armstrong-Jones, commonly known as Lord Snowdon, also worked in showbiz as a British photographer and film-maker and shot some of the most famous stars in the world. Armstrong-Jones began photographing the Queen and other members of the royal family in 1957, one year before he started a relationship with Princess Margaret, and took many photos of his wife including the infamous black and white shot in which she appeared to be topless.
The final British royal with a career in showbiz is Princess Michael of Kent, the wife of the Queen’s cousin, who is known for her work as an author and biographer. Commonly referred to as “Princess Pushy”, she has written a number of books, including Crowned in a Foreign Country: Portrait of Eight Royal Brides, Queen of Four Kingdoms and A Cheetah’s Tale.