Desperate and virtually penniless, she longed to become Queen of England. And after a seven-year campaign to ensnare her prince, she almost made it.
‘She’s the most beautiful girl I have ever seen,’ wrote one of Princess Marina of Greece’s admirers. ‘And she would be good in bed.’
‘She’s excessively beautiful,’ gushed society photographer Cecil Beaton in agreement, and – despite his preference for men – promptly fell in love with her.
Later, she would become renowned as a world-famous fashion icon.
But for now – like her first cousinPrince Philip – Princess Marina of Greece was a stateless person, living in Paris and accepting handouts from friends and well-wishers while desperately trying to keep up appearances.
The family took money from anyone they could, including the decidedly downmarket daughter of a Wisconsin lumberjack, Laura Corrigan, who’d married well and was now very wealthy.
Desperate and virtually penniless, she longed to become Queen of England. And after a seven-year campaign to ensnare her prince, she almost made it. ‘She’s the most beautiful girl I have ever seen,’ wrote one of Princess Marina of Greece’s admirers. ‘And she would be good in bed’. Above: Princess Marina of Greece in August 1934, shortly before she married Prince George, Duke of Kent
Marina desperately wanted to marry David, Prince of Wales, who would go on to briefly become King Edward VIII. Above: Marina stands next to the Prince of Wales (second from left) and herfianc, Prince George at a film performance in London, April 1932
But despite the fact they’d been kicked out of Greece and told never to return, the Greek royals continued to see themselves as something special and Marina’s mother Elena, the cousin of a Russian Tsar, took the view that, for them, the only way was up.
So Marina was dispatched to London to track down and ensnare David, Prince of Wales, who would go on to briefly become King Edward VIII.
It was 1927 and Marina was barely 17 – while her target was, at 33, sixteen years older.
Marina’s brother-in-law splashed out a huge cash sum to rent a house in Chelsea’s Cheyne Walk as a launch-pad for the campaign.
But it did not start well, and only by chance did she bump into the Prince at a dinner party he’d surprisingly agreed to attend, and then again in nightclubs and at the Ritz Hotel as the London season progressed.
All seemed to be going smoothly but then, at a costume ball given by the Duchess of Sutherland, David ignored Marina altogether.
The campaign was back to square one.
She was ready to pack up and return to Paris, but suddenly she was invited to a dinner at the Prince’s apartments in St James’s Palace.
Here she received from an intermediary an explanation for David’s behaviour: ‘He was very much attracted to you, but he wished to do away with gossip by not seeing you.’
If she believed that, she’d believe anything David was in the grips of a passionate affair with the married Freda Dudley Ward, who’d been his mistress for the past nine years.
Princess Marina and Prince George married in a spectacular wedding at Westminster Abbey in 1934. It was the first royal wedding to be broadcast on radio, with millions across the British Empire tuning in
A photograph showing the finishing touches being made to the wedding cake of George, Duke of Kent to Princess Marina of Greece in 1934
A poster of the Duke of Kent and Princess Marina of Greece about to be put up in preparation for the royal couple’s wedding
Prince George and Princess Marina, who became engaged on August 28, 1934
Prince George, Duke of Kent, in full ceremonial uniform, and his wife, Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent, wearing the Kent City of London Fringe Tiara, leaving for the coronation ceremony of George VI and Queen Elizabeth, in London, May 12, 1937
King George V (second from left), Queen Mary (second from right), Prince George, Princess Marina and her parents at Balmoral
Princess Marina of Greece and Denmark and Prince George with their children Prince Edward, the Duke of Kent, and Princess Alexandra, October 1940
The widowed Princess Marina is seen with Prince Edward, Princess Alexandra and the young Prince Michael (left) at their Buckinghamshire home in 1950
He knew that, sooner or later, he would have to marry but he was in no hurry. Hungry princesses could wait.
So Marina retreated back to Paris, ready to have another stab at becoming queen the following season.
‘May God grant this year to be more satisfactory for Marina than last,’ wrote the princess’s older sister Olga in her diary.
Back in Britain, Marina was becoming noticed around the tight-knit circle of London society.
‘A large and voluptuous girl with one leg slightly shorter than the other,’ wrote the MP and diarist ‘Chips’ Channon, not disapprovingly
‘Will we be able to marry the Prince of Wales to Marina? I think so,’ he went on.
‘I started things going this summer when he took her out dancing several times. She certainly fell a little in love with him.’
Back in Paris, Marina’s mother, the Grand Duchess Elena, champed at the bit.
As far as she was concerned, the slow progress being made by her daughter just wasn’t good enough.
And so for the next few years Marina would return to London each summer in the eternal hope that the Prince would give up his mistresses he’d moved on to Thelma, Lady Furness by now and make an honest women out of her.
But the years sped by, and Marina remained on the shelf. On paper she was a major catch for the right man.
Yet she was also a bit of a white elephant in the blue-blooded marriage market, given her family’s determination that she should not marry ‘beneath’ her.
She was back in London again in May 1934 seven years after her campaign to become Queen of England had kicked off.
With her came sister Princess Olga, ‘surely the two most beautiful princesses, if not women , in the world,’ declared Channon of them both.
‘And Olga’s eyes were still firmly on the ultimate prize a marriage between her sister and the Prince of Wales,’ writes her biographer Robert Prentice.
‘However, she was soon in despair when, after a week, there was still no [invitation] from Sir Godfrey Thomas, the Prince’s private secretary.
‘From Paris Grand Duchess Elena continued to ramp up the pressure by telephone. She said [Olga] ought to ring him up.’
This was pushing her luck beyond the limits of acceptability, but Elena’s determination won through Marina was invited to lunch with the Prince at Fort Belvedere, his home in Windsor Great Park.
But – though made welcome, the prince ‘paid no special attention to Marina, as we feared.’
And no wonder, for another woman present at the lunch was an American, Wallis Warfield Simpson.
Marina had missed the boat.
That was on May 13, 1934. Just two days later Marina’s sister Olga just as ruthlessly ambitious as her mother turned her focus on to the Prince of Wales’s youngest brother, Prince George.
The following day, Prince George lunched with the sisters and said casually he might visit Yugoslavia, where Olga lived with her husband Prince Paul of Yugoslavia, some time in the summer. Would Marina be there?
This was an astonishing piece of good fortune, but not so far as Elena was concerned.
Prince Nicolas of Greece and Grand Duchess Elena Vladimirovna of Russia with their children, princesses Olga, Elisabeth and Marina (centre)
Princess Marina (right) as a young girl with her sisters Olga and Elizabeth
The two sisters should have kept knocking on David’s door since he couldn’t possibly marry an American divorcee mistress or not.
‘I don’t think we could have done more,’ came the acid reply.
In the hope her second choice, Prince George, might come to visit in the summer – he hadn’t said another word about it Marina took herself off to a French spa in an attempt to lose weight.
Four months later, a telegram arrived on Olga’s desk saying George would be arriving in a week’s time. The family was astonished.
What the sisters did not know was that in the intervening months, George had faced increasing pressure from his parents Queen Mary and King George V to find himself a wife in a hurry.
His recent past had been one long tale of drink, drugs, and promiscuity and he’d been ordered to clean up his act fast.
He got close to proposing to Lady Anne Wood, daughter of the Earl of Halifax, but the affair quickly fizzled out.
And in desperation, some might think George suddenly remembered Marina.
He flew to Bohinj, Slovenia, where the family was staying, and parked his bags in the hall. Four days later, despite barely knowing each other, the couple were engaged.
Prince George was killed aged 39 on his way to Iceland on August 25, 1942 when his Sunderland flying-boat crashed in the north of Scotland. Above: The wreckage
Fourteen of the 15 passengers and crew were killed when the plane came down in Caithness
Three months later, on November 29, 1934, before there was time for their brand-new ‘love’ to go off the boil, the couple were married in a spectacular Westminster Abbey wedding.
It was the firstroyal wedding to be broadcast on radio, with millions across the British Empire tuning in.
Each got what they wanted – and the marriage turned out to be a success, producing the present Duke of Kent, 88, his brother Prince Michael, 82, and Princess Alexandra, 87.
But, it was hardly the romance of the century – whatever the breathless newsreel commentators wanted you to believe.
In being turned down by Prince George’s elder brother, Marina had ultimately settled for second best.
In 1942, Marina’s marriage was cut tragically short when Prince George was killed in a plane crash, less than two months after the birth of Prince Michael.
The Daily Mail’s front page in August 1942 announcing the death of Prince George, the Duke of Kent, uncle to Princess Elizabeth
The Daily Mail’s tribute to Princess Marina after her death from a brain tumour in August 1968
A report in the Daily Mail detailing Princess Marina’s funeral at St George’s Chapel in Windsor
An experienced officer in the RAF, George – who had served with distinction in the Second World War up to that point – was killed along with 13 other crew members when his Sunderland flying boat crashed shortly after take-off in the Scottish Highlands.
The aircraft had been bound for Iceland.
Marina would never remarry. She was left to raise her children – who were aged seven, five and just a few weeks when their father died – alone, but did so admirably.
Her death from a brain tumour aged just 61 in 1968 left the Royal Family shell-shocked.
One wonders what might have been had she found a way into King Edward’s affections before Wallis did.
