WHEN the first dress that Jacques Azagury designed for Princess Diana broke records late last year as the most expensive of her gowns to sell at auction, the couturier was travelling around India.

The black ballerina-length evening gown, embroidered with blue stars, and measuring 37 inches across the bust, 33 inches around the waist and 34 inches across the hips, raised £790,000 at Julien’s Auctions, in Los Angeles. for the New York Historical Society.

‘Amazing result,’ he told MailOnline. ‘I wish it had belonged to me!!!

‘ But that dress does exemplify the era and it is the very beginning of “the story” after all.’

The dress was one of 79 gowns that the Princess sold at auction on 25 June 1997, in one of the most anticipated auctions of the 20th century.

A total of 1,100 people, including museums, fashion connoisseurs, haute couture collectors and Diana fans crammed into Christie’s Park Avenue auction house in Manhattan, to bid for their moment in history.

Within two-and-a-half hours, the auction had raised £1.96 million for Diana’s chosen charities: the Royal Marsden Hospital Cancer Fund and the AIDS Crisis Trust. Another £2 million was raised from the sale of catalogues and fundraisers.

Now, 27 years later, I have tracked down 68 of Diana’s most iconic outfits to museums around the globe…although mystery surrounds the whereabouts of the Revenge Dress, which appears to have disappeared without a trace. Here are the highlights…

SANTIAGO, CHILE

The Grace Kelly Dress

When Diana wore her Catherine Walker pale blue silk chiffon strapless gown and matching stole to the Cannes Film Festival on 15 May 1987, she sparked comparisons to movie star Grace Kelly – later Princess Grace of Monaco – the star of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1955 classic To Catch A Thief.

Diana and Prince Charles were attending a gala in honour of the actor Sir Alec Guinness, but Diana was secretly dating James Hewitt at the time, a dashing former cavalry officer in the British Army.

Diana loved the dress and went on to wear it for the Leicester Square film première of Superman IV: Quest for Peace on 23 July 1987, and a Royal Gala Performance of Miss Saigon at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane on 19 September 1989.

She also chose it for a 1987 shoot with the late photographer Terence Donovan – the image is on the wall of the National Portrait Gallery.

However, Diana fans were appalled when an American cable TV station, WE TV, bought the Grace Kelly gown at Christie’s for £42,526, along with two other dresses, and took it on a ‘Dresses to Die For’ shopping centre tour.

The tour was halted following Diana’s death – but the dresses were then sent out under a new title, ‘Legacy of Love’.

The Grace Kelly Gown was finally sold on 8 May 2011, by Julien’s Auctions in Beverly Hills, California, for £114,072.75, to the Fundación Museo de la Moda in Santiago, Chile.

The One-Shouldered Gown

Given to Diana by Vogue fashion editor Anna Harvey as a gift, Diana first wore her one-shouldered Hachi gown for a gala at the Hilton Hotel in Melbourne on 16 April 1983, during her first official tour of the Commonwealth.

It was a move that sparked critical acclaim from fashion editors.

Until then the princess had become known for her fairytale appearance, wearing frills, flounces, lace, and ruffles. But by the time she went to Australia as a young mother and media superstar, she was exploring sleeker dresses that emphasised her broad shoulders.

The dress, which was embroidered with silver bugle beads, was one of Diana’s favourites: she wore it repeatedly over the next six years before it was consigned to the back of her wardrobe.

On 4 June that year, she chose the gown while accompanying Prince Charles to a ball at Broadlands, home of the late Lord Mountbatten, where Charles and Diana had spent part of their honeymoon.

Two days later, she wore it for the James Bond film première of Octopussy, where she met 007 himself, Roger Moore.

She later wore the dress for a gala at the National Gallery in Washington DC, on 11 November 1985; the première of Licence to Kill on 13 June 1989; her stepmother Raine’s 60th birthday party on 9 September 1989; and the Vanity Fair fashion shoot with Mario Testino the month before her death.

The Mail on Sunday’s You magazine bought the dress at the 1997 Christie’s Auction for £45,173. 

It became a prize in a competition won by farmer’s wife Margaret Thompson, 53, a lifelong royalist from Yorkshire.

Devastated by Diana’s death, she deposited it in a bank vault before later deciding to sell.

The gown was re-auctioned in on 13 December 2001 for £49,777.20, by Doyle’s in New York, and was the first dress bought by the Fundación Museo de la Moda, based in Santiago, Chile.

TOKYO, JAPAN

The Diplomatic Dress

Japanese designer Gnyuki ‘Yuki’ Torimaru was introduced to Diana through a close friend, who knew that she was going on a state visit to Japan in 1986.

Yuki presented her with a choice of three dresses – in red, white and blue, the colours of the UK flag – and she chose the royal blue number to match her engagement ring.

Yuki, who was inspired by the designs of Spanish designer Fortuny and Russian illustrator Erté, spent the whole tour keeping an eye out for the dress, which was decorated with blue bugle beads at the neckline and waist.

However, to his surprise, the princess had saved it for her final – and most important – engagement: a banquet with Emperor Hirohito.

She teamed the dress at the 12 May dinner with a sapphire and diamond headband made from jewels which she had had reset from the Saudi Suite, setting a trend which was much copied.

After Diana’s death, Yuki, who also designed for Bianca Jagger and Jerry Hall, said: ‘When she died, the days grew darker.’

Born in Miyazaki, Japan in 1937, Yuki studied architecture before becoming a textile engineer.

He moved to London in 1964 and attended the London College of Fashion. After graduating in 1966, he trained with some of the great couturiers of the day: Louis Feraud, Sir Norman Hartnell and Pierre Cardin.

He launched his own designer label collection, Yuki, at Harvey Nichols in 1972.

His diplomatic dress was auctioned by Christie’s at their 1997 sale. It was bought by New York art dealer James Kojima for £15,218, on behalf of his cousin Akihiko Kojima, principal of the Mejiro Fashion & Art College.

The Red Cross Gown

As patron of The British Red Cross Youth and Vice President of the British Red Cross Society, Diana was guest of honour at a Luciano Pavarotti concert on 8 May 1995 at the Royal Albert Hall, in aid of the Red Cross 125 Birthday Appeal.

She chose a Catherine Walker military-style gown with a black Hussar-style bodice and pleated red silk-crepe skirt, trimmed with a soutache braid and rouleaux at the waist.

The dress was sold at the 1997 Christie’s auction for £22,135, to New York art dealer James Kojima, who bought it on behalf of his cousin Akihiko Kojima, principal of the Mejiro Fashion & Art College Tokyo, Japan.

The purchase was made to celebrate the college’s 60th anniversary.

NEWBRIDGE, IRELAND

The Mughal dress

Made for her 1992 state visit to India, where she was memorably photographed alone at the Taj Mahal, Diana’s embroidered pink slubbed silk strapless dress and matching bolero was embroidered with pink and white flowers, and decorated with green sequins, star-shaped sequins, gold glass beads and gold braid, echoing Mughal embroidery motifs.

The inspiration came from the lid of an Indian inlaid marquetry box found in a London market. Diana did not wear the dress publicly on the tour – the only photo of Diana in the dress was taken by Lord Snowdon for the Christie’s auction catalogue. 

The dress sold for £37,233 to Maureen Rorech, who took it around the world in the Dresses for Humanity tour. However, the tour ran into trouble with creditors and this dress was confiscated for five months until the debt was repaid.

The dress was auctioned on 19 March 2013 by Kerry Taylor Auctions and was bought for £68,750 by William Doyle, owner of the Museum of Style Icons in Newbridge, County Kildare, Ireland, where it is on permanent display.

NEW YORK, USA

The Tulip Gown

As guest of honour at a banquet hosted by President Ibrahim Babangida and First Lady Maryam in Lagos, Nigeria, on 15 March 1990, Diana chose to reflect the colours of the national flag in a white silk chiffon halter-neck gown, printed with purple tulips and green leaves.

The dress, with its low back, folded bodice and long streamer down the back, was bought for £15,218 at the 1997 Christie’s auction by Veronica Hearst, the widow of high-flying media scion Randolph Hearst. A friend of the Princess, Hearst later donated the dress to the Metropolitan Museum of Art In New York.

LONDON, ENGLAND

The Elvis gown

Embroidered with 20,000 pearls and white sequins, the Catherine Walker sheath and matching bolero that Diana wore to the British Fashion Awards at London’s Royal Albert Hall on 17 October 1989 sparked comparisons to ‘the King’ – which is to say, Elvis himself.

Diana herself dubbed the gown her ‘Elvis Dress’, because of the upturned collar. She wore it on an official visit to Hong Kong on 10 November 1989, for the opening of the Hong Kong Culture Centre, teaming it with the Queen Mary’s Lover’s Knot Tiara.

She later sore the dress – minus the bolero – for a state banquet hosted by Hungarian President Arpad Goncz at the Parliament Building in Budapest, on 8 May 1990.

‘Whenever I saw the princess in this dress, I could not help but feel that it would not be possible for anyone else ever to wear this dress and bolero,’ the designer said afterwards.

‘She shone in the dress and the dress shone around her in a shimmering column of glistening pearls.’

The dress was bought for £90,827 at the Christie’s auction by the American memorabilia company The Franklin Mint, which created a portrait doll of Diana wearing a replica of the dress. They donated the dress to London’s Victoria & Albert Museum.

The Travolta Gown

This blue velvet Victor Edelstein gown became one of Diana’s iconic dresses after she wore it dancing with John Travolta on 9 November 1985, at a state dinner hosted by President Ronald Reagan and his wife Nancy at the White House.

She teamed the dress, that night, with a sapphire and pearl choker converted from a brooch given to her by The Queen Mother.

Travolta had not been invited to take a guest but, when Nancy Reagan took him aside during the banquet and explained that Diana wanted to dance with him, he understood the reason why.

At midnight, heart pounding, he crossed the floor and asked her if she wanted to dance. She turned around and she did that look that she did so, so beautifully,’ he recalled, ‘and I asked if she would care to dance.

‘She said she’d love to and we danced for 20 minutes to a medley of “Grease” and “Saturday Night Fever”.

I was on cloud nine. She has great rhythm. We did spins and turns. We did a kind of modern foxtrot and she followed me very well.

‘“Maybe someday we’ll get to do this in a less-watched situation,’ I said near the end. “That would be great,” she replied.’

The dress was one of Diana’s favourites. She wore it to the annual banquet of the Asian Affairs Society at the Savoy Hotel on 5 February 1986; on a state visit to Vienna, Austria, on 15 April 1986, to watch a performance of the London Philharmonic Orchestra at the Musikverein; on a state visit to Bonn, Germany on 2 November 1987; for an official portrait for the Royal Hussars by artist Israel Zohar in 1990; and to the Royal Opera House on 3 November 1991 when she met Vivienne Westwood.

Six years later, she pulled it out of her closet to wear for her official portrait by Lord Snowdon and teamed it with the same necklace she had worn 12 years earlier.

It has changed hands many times since. Maureen Rorech bought the gown for £133,835 – the highest price ever raised by Christie’s for a garment – beating the previous record of £120,709.71 for the white suit that John Travolta wore in Saturday Night Fever.

She eventually went bankrupt, and the dresses were seized as collateral.

This particular dress was resold by Kerry Taylor Auctions on 19 March 2013 for £250,000 to a man as a gift for his wife. The auction house sold the same dress again on 9 December 2019, for £275,000, to Historic Royal Palaces.

LOS ANGELES, USA

The Gala gown

When Diana attended the private viewing and reception for the Christie’s auction in London on 2 June 1997, she chose a Catherine Walker pale blue guipure lace dress, embroidered with silver diamante. 

She was photographed with her late stepmother Raine, Comtesse De Chambrun, formerly Countess Raine Spencer, and designer Catherine Walker.

Australian Renae Plant later bought this dress from a charity for The Princess & The Platypus Foundation, and it is now on display in her Princess Diana Museum in LA.

The Mint Green suit

Diana loved her mint green Chanel suit. She wore it on Valentine’s Day, 1997, to open a new renal unit at London’s Great Ormond Street Hospital, and again while shopping in New York on 23 June 1997, teaming it with a white Chanel bag.

She was in the city for the Christie’s auction – however, that shopping trip was the final time she would wear the label: within three months she was dead.

When Diana’s older sister Lady Sarah McCorquodale was clearing Diana’s wardrobe, she gifted the suit to the personal valet of her late father, Lord Spencer.

The valet had been helping her categorise it, for his wife. When his wife died in 2018, he sold it and it ended up in a charity store. It is now owned by The Princess & The Platypus Foundation, and it is on display in the interactive 3-D Princess Diana Museum.

MISSING IN ACTION…

The Revenge Dress – last seen Bridge of Weir, Scotland

In September 1991, Designer Christina Stambolian was working at her boutique in Beauchamp Place, on the other side of the road from Caroline Charles and Bruce Oldfield, when Princess Diana strolled in with her brother Earl Spencer.

The siblings had been out for lunch that Saturday at Diana’s favourite restaurant, San Lorenzo, and were meandering back towards Kensington Palace, when they decided to do some shopping.

That shopping trip led to the creation of one of the most talked-about dresses in history: the black silk crepe cocktail gown with an asymmetric ruched bodice and side sash, which Diana wore on 29 June 1994, the night that Prince Charles admitted having an affair with Camilla Parker Bowles on national television.

Combining the dress with her favourite sapphire, pearl and diamond choker, which matched her engagement ring, and scarlet nails, Diana stepped out at a Vanity Fair dinner at the Serpentine Gallery in London’s Hyde Park.

Her gown was christened by the American press the ‘Revenge Dress’.

The Telegraph newspaper dubbed it ‘the pièce de resistance’, describing it as ‘the brave, wicked, historic little “Serpentine Cocktail”, possibly the most strategic dress ever worn by a woman in modern times’.

The £900 dress went under the hammer at Christie’s four years later and was bought for £44,511 by Scotsman Graeme Mackenzie and his wife Briege, who owned the Body Shop franchise in Scotland.

They exhibited it to raise money for Scottish charities. After the princess’s death, the couple, from Bridge of Wier in Renfrewshire, wrapped it in tissue paper and put it in a bank vault. It has not been seen since.

The Ballerina – last seen Christies, New York

This was a favourite of the Princess – and, thanks to the recent sale, is the most expensive of Diana’s dresses ever to have sold at auction. 

But the buyer and its new location are unknown. 

She wore the black ballerina-length evening gown, embroidered with blue stars, to a mayoral dinner at the Palazzo Vecchio, in Florence, Italy, on December 11, 1985.

She later wore it for a performance by the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra at The Orpheum Theatre, in Vancouver, Canada, on May 5, the following year.

It was one of the gowns auctioned by the princess at Christie’s on June 25, 1997, two months before her death, and was sold to People magazine for £15,910.

They donated it to the New York Historical Society in 2015, which has just sold it for £790,000, to an unidentified buyer.

Designer Jacques Azagury first met Diana when he was showing his 1985 autumn/winter New Romantics Collection at the London’s Hyde Park Hotel – now the Mandarin Oriental.

Vogue fashion editor Anna Harvey tapped him on the shoulder and said: ‘Jacques, I would like you to meet somebody.’

‘I turned around and there she was straight in front of me,’ he recalled, ‘which kind of threw me.

‘Then literally we were just talking. She had this magic of making you feel comfortable and at home within seconds. Whilst I was talking to her, she was looking at a dress, which I wasn’t aware of.

‘Then, two or three weeks later we got a call from the Palace saying: “Princess Diana would like to visit your atelier. Would that be ok?” And we were, of course, absolutely delighted.

Jacques and his sister Solange were then invited to Kensington Palace to discuss the dress – which was made in Jakob Schlaepher fabric.

The Engagement Blouse – last seen Julien’s Auctions, Los Angeles

The phone call from Vogue’s beauty editor Felicity Clark came on 28 January 1981. She told them she was doing a shoot for the magazine on English Roses and wanted something ‘very romantic’ for ‘someone very famous’.

Hanging in their studio was the perfect garment: a pale pink silk chiffon blouse with a soft floaty collar and pink silk satin bow.

They sent it round the corner to Vogue, and photographer Lord Snowdon, then divorced from Princess Margaret, shot Diana in the blouse for the feature on ‘Upcoming Beauties’.

The engagement was announced on the day of the magazine’s release and Diana chose the image for her official engagement photograph.

In their book A Dress for Diana, David and Elizabeth Emanuel wrote, ‘It was this blouse that was hanging up in our studio when we suddenly received the phone call from Vogue requesting something which had a high neck and was very romantic.

It was only later that we discovered that the blouse had been worn by Lady Diana (whose sisters both worked at Vogue).

The blouse was sold for £27,500 by Kerry Taylor Auctions on 8 June 2010, to the Museum of Style Icons in Newbridge, County Kildare, Ireland. 

They then sold it at Julien’s Auctions on 14 December 2023 for £300,000 to an unknown buyer.

• Diana: A Life in Dresses by Claudia Joseph is published by ACC Art Books for £40.

 

DIANA’S DRESSES AROUND THE WORLD

Fundación Museo de la Moda, Santiago, Chile

The Back to the Future Gown

The Bahrain Day Dress The Bahrain Evening Gown

The Bangkok Ballgown

The Black Ballgown The Blue Velvet Gown The Burgundy Velvet Gown

The Cocktail Dress

The Cocktail Gown The Crushed Velvet Gown

The Debutante Dress The Fairytale Ballgown The French Gown The Grace Kelly Gown The Grey Gown The India Dress The Ivory Gown The Madame Grès Gown

The One-Shouldered Gown

The Petal Pink Ballet Dress

The Ruffled Suit The Scottish Gown The Spencer House Gown

The White Lace Gown The White Silk Chiffon Gown

The Royal Ceremonial Dress Collection, Historic Royal Palaces, London

The Black Velvet Ballgown

The Braemar Dress

The Cherry Blossom Gown

The Honeymoon Suit

The Liza Minelli Gown

The Mermaid Dress

The New Zealand Ensemble

The Red Suit

The Stately Gown

The Tartan Suit

The Travolta Gown

The Tuxedo Dress

The Victoria & Albert Museum, London, England

The Elvis Dress

The Princess Diana Museum, Los Angeles

The Black Polka Dot Number

The Burgundy Dress

The Gala Gown

The Mint Green Suit

The Patrick Demarchelier Gown

The Peach Polka Dot Dress

The Pink Suit

The Red Coat

The Metropolitan Museum, New York

The Tulip Gown

The Mejiro Fashion & Art College, Tokyo, Japan

The Diplomatic Dress

The Red Cross Gown

The Terence Donovan Gown

The Museum of Style Icons, Newbridge, Co Kildare, Ireland

The Mughal Dress

The Pat Kerr Private Royal Collection, USA

The Spanish Dancer Dress

When he practices guitar now, he focuses on musicians he calls “the Original Elvises,” such as Buddy Guy, BB King and John Lee Hooker. As a Muslim, he finds solace in Southern Black gospel music and knows more of the words of those holy songs than of the verses from the Koran. He sang as he shaped a life for us:

The wildlife will be lit by a child
And I will be changed
Changed from this being that I am, oh yes
One day there will be peace in the valley for me.

Originally written for Mahalia Jackson by Thomas A. Dorsey, an African-American gospel and blues musician, “Peace in the Valley” was later covered by Elvis. Over the years, my father has broadened his musical tastes, and he now understands that Elvis would not have existed without black musicians. At the age of 80, he no longer performs as often as he used to.

Watching his grandchildren grow up, my father still hums Elvis songs, but now he also beams with pride when we speak Urdu. I recently asked him why he was so determined to separate his children from their heritage. “I was trying to live a life, not a political statement,” he said. It wasn’t the heroic insight I was looking for.

I didn’t understand it until after September 11, 2001, when I was subjected to death threats and insults. During interviews in medical school, I was asked if I would wear a burqa and if my father taught me how to make bombs. I was told that I was the reason women were being stoned. My father understood it well. We had to act: put on our Texas accents, present ourselves as innocent, hard-working immigrants who showed gratitude and buried our heritage deep in the ocean my father had crossed.

I’m similarly obsessed with a Southern visionary rooted in gospel music, a transformative enigma that stirs my spirit, one also with Louisiana and Texas roots, who taps into her own charisma and work ethic to reclaim the American dream, except that she didn’t have to do that. trust that you are white and male: Beyoncé. I saw her live for the first time at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, and my crush began.

While Elvis’ music pushed people like me aside, Beyoncé thunders on our behalf — ‘Get out of my way’ she sings—reinforcing the idea that we will take up space because, as Langston Hughes wrote, we, too, are America. Her indelible impact speaks to Black women, but also women like me: those who have been pushed to the margins. My father still performs his impersonations, and I now hold impromptu Beyoncé, Nina Simone, and Erykah Badu concerts in the living room with my daughter.

Film director Sofia Coppola had yet to portray the key role of Elvis Presley in her highly anticipated film Priscilla when a young Australian named Jacob Elordi walked through the door of a Los Angeles restaurant.

He was there for an initial interview with the award-winning director, but Coppola noticed how his 6-foot-4, razor-sharp bone structure and curvy physique had captured the attention of almost every woman in the area.

'There were a few girls there – and you could just feel them all turning towards him. I mean, he's striking, so tall,” Sofia recently recalled. “He just has charisma; he has an effect on women that, I think, is similar to Elvis's.”

Here, she thought, was her Elvis. A year later, it's clear that Coppola's directorial instincts have paid off: Elordi's turn as the troubled singer in the biopic about the courtship and marriage of Elvis and the former Priscilla Wagner has received rave reviews from moviegoers and critics.

Many of the latter have praised the actor's “layered” and “nuanced” performance.

It's not the only critically acclaimed role he's taken on recently either, with the 26-year-old also being praised for his portrayal of dashing aristocrat Felix Catton in Emerald Fennell's Saltburn.

Not bad for a young man who was virtually unknown this time last year, save for the legion of young female fans who watched him in a series of tween dramas. 7

Now Elordi has been nominated for the EE Rising Star award at this year's Baftas – the only man in the race, alongside four women, including Bridgerton actress Phoebe Dynevor.

It marks the culmination of an extraordinary year for Elordi, who has been dubbed Hollywood's hottest new star – a title for which he seems ideally equipped, having already amassed a roster of stunningly beautiful and famous exes alongside a current girlfriend who comes with a seductive hint of scandal.

There's no disputing that he looks like a Hollywood idol: his height, tanned skin, piercing eyes and general presence have led Coppola to compare him to legends like Montgomery Clift and Paul Newman. She's been thinking about his “super-masculine actor quality.”

Ironically, however, Elordi once believed that his tall stature could get in the way of his dream of becoming an actor, revealing in a 2020 interview that some agents had told him as a teenager that he was too tall for stardom.

“I was super nervous about telling people my height,” he recalls. “I used to try to pass for 6-foot-1 or 6-foot-1, but I'm actually 6-foot-4.”

Born in 1997 in Brisbane, Australia, Elordi comes from a close-knit family and admits that as the youngest of four children – with three older sisters – he was in love with his parents and siblings. “I was absolutely spoiled, and I still am,” he has said.

His father John had emigrated to Queensland from his native Basque Country in Spain with just £5 in his pocket, where he built a career as a house painter.

Elordi has described his father as the “totem of the kind of man I would like to be,” and credited him with his dedicated work ethic.

He is equally devoted to his Australian stay-at-home mother, Melissa, calling her “the most present, loving, just beautiful, angelic human being on this planet” – recalling how she volunteered to work in his school cafeteria, so she could spend time with her son while he ate his lunch.

Elordi caught the acting bug early, and in 2017, still in his early twenties, he got his first taste of the spotlight when he played an extra in Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, in which he played the uncredited role of took on a Saint Martin's Marine.

He then landed his first credited role in the 2018 Australian film Swinging Safari in a cast that included popular Australians Guy Pearce and Kylie Minogue.

Later that year, he landed what is considered his big break: the role of Noah in The Kissing Booth – the first of three Netflix films that follow a headstrong, late-blooming teenage girl's budding romance with high school bad boy Noah ( played by Elordi) and the way it jeopardizes her lifelong friendship with Noah's younger brother.

Based on the novel by Welsh writer Beth Reekles, the first film was panned by critics, but fans loved it and the final trilogy was deemed a huge commercial success by Netflix.

Elordi seems to share the opinion of the detractors, telling an interviewer: 'Those films are ridiculous. They are not universal. They are an escape.” Still, it wasn't all bad: Elordi met the first of his many famous girlfriends on set.

Joey King played Elordi's love interest, Elle, and their relationship soon spilled into real life.

“I thought he was really cute when we first met, but it started as a friendship,” King revealed in a 2018 interview. “It was such an interesting experience meeting your boyfriend on set because you spend so much time spending time together and so close so quickly. We spent 17 hours a day together.”

Great – until it wasn't. In an awkward twist, the pair split before filming the second in the series, meaning they had to play an on-screen couple after breaking up in real life.

After the film wrapped, in a leap of faith, Elordi moved from Australia to Los Angeles, only to struggle for work.

Reduced to living in a car and with only a few hundred dollars to his name, he decided that if his next audition didn't work out, he would return to Australia.

That audition was for a role in the American teen drama series Euphoria.

Now one of HBO's most popular productions, it follows the high school trials and tribulations of Rue Bennett (played by American actress and singer Zendaya), a troubled teenage drug addict struggling to cope with life in the fictional town of East Highland, California, after a period in rehabilitation.

That roll of the dice turned out to be crucial: Elordi got the role of Nate Jacobs, a star football player who is prone to outbursts of anger to mask his sexual insecurities.

Elordi soon began a yearlong relationship with Zendaya, and in late 2019 she flew to Australia to spend Thanksgiving with Elordi's parents.

It wouldn't last. In 2020, Elordi was linked to Kaia Gerber, the model daughter of supermodel Cindy Crawford.

While the young couple conducted their romance largely out of the spotlight, they posted a photo to Instagram of them posing in Halloween costumes.

And in 2021, Gerber opened up to American Vogue about their relationship, saying, “Being able to be with someone I trust, where we don't want anything from each other, and having such a safe, committed relationship, has opened my eyes. to the possibilities of love and what it feels like to love without conditions.'

Unfortunately, that relationship didn't last either – by November 2021, the couple had split and Kaia was dating Austin Butler – another 'Elvis': he also played the role of the singer in Baz Luhrmann's 2022 musical biopic of the same name. .

The grass did not grow under Elordi's feet either.

In December 2021, a month after splitting from Kaia, he was photographed having coffee in the Silverlake neighborhood of Los Angeles with 24-year-old influencer and YouTuber Olivia Jade Giannulli.

The two have refused to confirm or discuss their relationship, although they have been photographed together several times and vacationed last summer with Giannulli's parents, fashion designer Mossimo Giannulli and his actress wife Lori Loughlin — best known for her role in the popular American sitcom from the 80s. Full House.

One topic unlikely to be discussed at the family dinner table is how Giannulli's parents were named in an FBI investigation into illegal payments made to influence student admissions at several top U.S. universities.

The Giannullis had paid £400,000 to get Olivia Jade and her younger sister into the University of Southern California (USC).

A month after the revelations, they pleaded not guilty to the charges against them, although they subsequently changed their pleas to guilty.

Lori was sentenced to two months in prison, Mossimo to five months and the pair were fined a combined £315,000.

Olivia Jade, who had started her freshman year at USC the year before, majoring in communications, was on vacation in the Bahamas when the scandal broke, but immediately dropped out of her studies and later spoke of the shame she felt about the revelations.

'I never went back. I was too ashamed. “I clearly shouldn't have been there,” she said.

Already influential on social media, she lost a number of lucrative brand sponsorships, although she has since recovered, with 1.2 million followers on Instagram and 1.8 million subscribers to her YouTube beauty channel.

Her relationship with Elordi probably won't have done her any harm, because whether or not her boyfriend lifts the coveted Rising Star trophy, his future looks dazzling.

He just finished filming Oh Canada, another highly anticipated big-screen release that delves into the life of a troubled writer who fled to Canada to avoid the Vietnam War and now finds himself on the brink of death.

Written and directed by Paul Schrader – who wrote the screenplay for Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver and directed the 1980 thriller American Gigolo – Elordi appears as a younger version of a character later played by Richard Gere late in life.

At 6-foot-1, Gere doesn't share the height of his younger incarnation, but Schrader said he thinks the two men otherwise have a lot in common.

“He has a lot of the same qualities as Richard,” he said. 'With Jacob I could have made America Gigolo 40 years ago.

“He's a throwback to a kind of old movie star in a way.”

An old movie star for the modern age and the star none of us knew we were waiting for.

By Sean O’grady for Mailonline

Published: 5:40 AM EST, January 4, 2024 | Updated: 06:04 EST, January 4, 2024

• The latest chart-topper, announced Sunday, marks 68 cumulative weeks with Swift at the top, while her 1989 (Taylor’s Version) achieved its fifth consecutive No. 1 position.
• Swift’s 2022 Midnights album is also in the top 10
• The Beatles hold the record for most weeks atop the Billboard charts for any artist – solo or group – with 132 weeks

By Terry Zeller for Dailymail.com

Published: 7:50 PM EST, December 31, 2023 | Updated: 7:50 PM EST, December 31, 2023

Priscilla (15, 113 minutes)

Verdict: Return to sender

Judgement:

Everyone But You (15, 103 min)

Judgement:

Verdict: Lame rom-com

Elvis Presley himself said it best, or rather sang it: ‘We’re caught in a trap, I can’t walk away, ’cause I love you too much, baby’.

The opening lyrics of his 1968 hit Suspicious Minds were not a reference to the relationship with the former Priscilla Beaulieu that had started when he was 24 and she was only 14. But that easily could have been.

Sofia Coppola’s film Priscilla opens in 1959 in West Germany, where Elvis, like Priscilla’s stepfather, is stationed with the U.S. Army. After one of his acolytes spots her sipping Coke at a counter, Priscilla (beautifully played by Cailee Spaeny) is invited to a party at Presley’s house.

To, yes, wary minds, this looks grimly like the sexual acquisition of a minor, especially when an apparently bewitched Elvis (a well-cast Jacob Elordi) invites her upstairs and asks her a rhetorical question: “Where have you been all this life?” ?’ Only in the audience does the obvious, non-rhetorical response arise: that she wasn’t alive almost half the time.

But, undeterred by her extremely young years, he begins to sob to her about his homesickness and the recent death of his mother. “Oh, I wish my mother could have met you,” he whines.

It’s hard to understand why. All she has done so far is a sweet smile. Yet this attention from Elvis the King, even though he is temporarily removed from his throne while serving in the army, touches her young heart. And soon the rest of her is affected too.

Yet, according to both the film and Priscilla’s 1985 memoir Elvis And Me, on which the film is based, Elvis refuses to have actual sex until they are married more than seven years later. Even when she is old enough, he tells her that her virginity remains sacred to him. We are perhaps meant to admire his gentle reserve. Instead, he seems weird and controlling.

And once she’s installed in Graceland, in Memphis, his possessiveness and control-freakery get worse. She is showered with gifts – a poodle, a car, a gun – and yet she is told what she can and cannot wear.

At her parents’ insistence, she goes to high school, but is under no circumstances allowed to bring friends home.

Elvis’s influence is downright ominous. To keep her awake at school after late nights at Graceland, he plies her with amphetamines. For each dress in her wardrobe he gives her a matching gun. At this point, common sense has left the building.

My problem with all of this isn’t that it’s not interesting, but that it seems relentlessly agenda-driven.

Coppola has said that she was inspired to tell the story by her own experience of growing up with a famously overbearing father figure (director Francis Ford Coppola), and that Priscilla Presley’s memoir struck a chord. Priscilla herself is one of the film’s executive producers.

Whether or not the pair intended to make Elvis look irredeemably creepy, that’s how he emerges, with not nearly enough evidence of his seductive charisma.

It may not be a surprise that the Presley estate, now majority owned by a brand management company, denied Coppola the rights to play his songs, but it creates a major problem.

The film opens with Baby, I Love You by The Ramones and ends with Dolly Parton singing I Will Always Love You. They’re great songs, but they’re not Elvis.

The only time we get any sense of his genius as an artist is when he does a Jerry Lee Lewis impression and belts out Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On. That’s not the same as All Shook Up. That’s the feeling this movie can give you, just not in a good way.

Still on the subject of titles, on Boxing Day I dutifully went to Everyone But You (so you don’t have to), and in reference to all those who didn’t make it to Screen 2 at the Odeon Hereford for the 8.45pm screening, privately renamed to Everyone But Me. Yes, I got through it entirely on my own strength.

Now there have been some fantastic films over the years inspired by Shakespeare’s plays, including classic film adaptations of stage productions such as West Side Story (Romeo & Juliet) and Kiss Me Kate (Taming Of The Shrew), not to mention My Own Private Idaho (Henry V) and indeed The Lion King (Hamlet).

In the non-fantastic category, there’s Everyone But You, a romantic comedy loosely based on Much Ado About Nothing, starring Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney as bickering would-be lovers Ben and Bea. They do their best, but the film, directed and co-written by Will Gluck, gets just about everything else wrong.

The dialogue is smooth, the slapstick not funny, the relationship dynamics unbelievable.

On the plus side, as a showcase for fine muscles and great dentistry, you can’t fault it.

A longer review of Priscilla ran during the Venice Film Festival. It opens across Britain on Monday.

It’s all rock and roll in one garage in Florida.

YouTuber James Webb of Jimmy’s World has revealed how he started converting Elvis Presley’s beloved private plane into a camper after buying it at auction for $260,000 in January.

The plane sat abandoned in a New Mexico desert for almost 40 years until it went up for sale, and now Webb has big plans to convert it into a car and take it on tour across the US.

In a new videothe Florida-based influencer shows how he mounted the body of the 1962 Lockheed 1329 Jetstar onto the reinforced frame of a donated camper.

He explains to the viewers that the whole project is a bit of an experiment for him, as he has never taken on such a challenge before.

“To say the least, I’ve never done this before, I don’t see what could go wrong,” he says.

Webb, who is known to turn around abandoned planes, purchased the 1962 Lockheed 1329 Jetstar on what would have been the King of Rock and Roll’s 88th birthday on January 8.

He then transported the plane to his work station in Florida in an attempt to turn it into a camper for a cross-country road trip to raise money for charities.

“I knew this was a unique opportunity,” Webb previously told Fox News.

‘It was the largest financial purchase I have ever made other than a house, and ironically this was more expensive than my house. How crazy is that?’

The King of Rock ‘n’ Roll had purchased the plane for $840,000 in December 1976, less than a year before his death in August 1977.

It subsequently changed hands several times before being removed from service by the FAA in 1983. “Because of FAA regulations, that was the reason it was grounded in the first place. They haven’t changed those regulations and the parts for this plane no longer exist. We don’t have them to fly this plan again,” Webb told Spectrum News after purchasing the plane.

The once 60-foot-long plane was originally lipstick red, but after being exposed to extreme weather, Webb says it has more of a “salmon color.”

“We’re going to paint it, repair it and get it all nice and tidy on the outside,” he revealed.

Although refurbishing the nine-seater aircraft can be expensive, the original cassette player, wood paneling of the cabin and 1970s charm have been preserved.

Webb documents the progress of the worn aircraft and has already successfully repaired the lights.

The exterior of the rusted plane is also getting a makeover, but Webb plans to keep the interior velvet seats, deep-pile carpet and wooden cabin panels.

Webb’s vision for the plane is to turn it into an Elvis mobile – a project he believes could either succeed or fail.

“Maybe we’ll take it to Las Vegas, to Graceland,” Webb added.

From the scraps of the plane not used for the camper, such as the wings and gas tanks, Webb will turn the pieces into Elvis souvenirs to make a profit.

This rare aircraft is one of only 204 aircraft manufactured between 1957 and 1978 in a private partnership between Jetstar and Lockheed.

The opening bid for the 1962 Lockheed 1329 Jetstar was $100,000, but bidding slowly increased.

In Webb’s latest YouTube, he shows how he successfully mounted the plane on its new base, with subsequent jobs including installing a steering column, extending the stairs and stripping the interior.

Never-before-seen photos have been discovered of Elvis Presley enjoying a ‘secret’ holiday with a young German woman during his time in the army.

The black and white footage shows the then 24-year-old relaxing with Rosemarie Prass while on leave from the army in the summer of 1959.

Elvis was already a superstar during his military service, which lasted from 1958 to 1960.

Fans had sent tens of thousands of letters to army leaders begging them to spare him from mandatory service, but to no avail.

After basic training, he was given emergency leave to travel back home to see his mother Gladys before she died in August 1985, as well as some time to finish the film he was working on, King Creole.

On the day he reported for his physical examination, March 24, 1958, which was dubbed “Black Monday” by his fans, he was sworn in and appointed leader of his group, after being assigned the Army serial number 53310761.

He stayed in a remote boarding house twenty miles away and spent time in the company of a family camping on the property.

Among them was 18-year-old Rosemarie and the pair went on bike rides, trips in a Messerschmidt bubble car and sunbathed together.

The Prass family took several photos of the king of rock ‘n’ roll during his vacation.

It is not known if the pair were romantically involved, but there is one photo of him with his arm around Rosemarie who is wearing a swimsuit.

There is also a photo of Elvis relaxing in his army uniform while sitting in a beer garden chair.

A few weeks after the photos were taken, Elvis was introduced by an army buddy to his future wife Priscilla, then 14 years old, at a party at his home in Bad Nauheim, Germany.

The images were kept by Rosemarie for the rest of her life, along with the chair that Elvis signed at the time.

She only revealed details about his ‘secret holiday’ in 2002, 25 years after his death.

The photos and chair were later acquired by Rosemarie’s friend and neighbor, Natalie Pech.

They are now offered for sale at Kruse GWS Auctions in Los Angeles, USA, for £15,000.

Auctioneer Dame Brigitte Kruse said: ‘This beautiful story has truly never been told before.

‘What makes this archive special is that Elvis met Priscillla in September 1959 and that these photos of his secret holiday were taken just before then.

“He spent time with another young lady that no one has ever heard of. They clearly had a great time together. Were they romantically involved? Who knows.

‘These items provide a rare glimpse into some of the most important moments in his personal life.

“One can only imagine the conversations Elvis led while sitting in this remarkable chair.

‘The wooden slatted chair is great. It is foldable and very compact. They don’t make furniture like that anymore. It is very sturdy and I can see it lasting another 200 years.

‘The photos are part of the story of the chair. They are very candid and have never been seen before.”

The sale will take place on December 2.

Elvis fought in the 1st Medium Tank Battalion, 32nd Armor, 3rd Armored Division, as an armor intelligence specialist.

While he was offered special accommodations during his time in the army, he stayed with his fellow soldiers and worked with them.

His service ended on March 2, 1960, when he flew home from Germany to the US with a brief stopover at Prestwick Airport in Scotland, the only time Elvis ever set foot in Britain.

The airport bar has since been renamed in honor of the King of Rock, and a plaque still stands commemorating his short but well-remembered time in Britain.

Jessie Wallace was spotted in the same VIP box as infamous roadkiller Kenneth Noye during an Elvis tribute concert at London’s O2 Arena this week.

The EastEnders actress, 52, enjoyed lavish £200-per-person hospitality alongside a number of other guests including the gangster, 76, who was jailed for 25 years for the murder of Stephen Cameron, 21, on an M25 slip road , in May 1996 – before fleeing to Spain.

Noye also fatally stabbed police officer John Fordman in 1985, but was acquitted on grounds of self-defense.

Jessie, who plays Kat Slater in the BBC soap, was herself arrested in 2022 after punching a police officer in the groin following a drunken night out, with the officer later quitting his job after feeling ‘unsupported and exposed’ when she was released with a caution.

In new snaps obtained by The sun Jessie can be seen dressed in all black and sat separately from Kenneth as they enjoyed the show with their respective celebrations.

A retired police officer told the publication: “You’ve got the cop killer and the cop abuser in one box.”

While an onlooker said: ‘They both sat in the company box and had a blast. Seeing Kat Slater next to Kenny Noye waving Elvis was surreal to say the least, not to mention incredibly uncomfortable.”

Adding: ‘Boxes at the O2 must be signed out in advance, and names and contact details must be provided. People knew who else was there and there was gossip about Kenneth beforehand – everyone was quite stunned that he was going.

MailOnline has contacted Jessie’s representatives for comment.

Last year, footage emerged of the moment Jessie was arrested after a night out, with some witnesses claiming she was kicked out of a nightclub for being ‘gobby’.

As well as kneeing an officer, it was claimed the actress also said ‘f*** off you fat c***’, before being placed in a police van.

At the time, a witness said Wallace “went out of control” with “truly shocking behavior.”

Another said: ‘She behaved very drunk and disorderly, assaulted police officers and swore constantly.

She then shouted, “I hope this is all entertainment for you,” as she charged through the middle of our group. She then banged on the door of the police car she was in.

“Bouncers had thrown her out because she was so naughty and annoying to others.”

She was arrested on suspicion of assaulting a police officer and for being drunk and disorderly in Bury St Edmunds.

Meanwhile, Noye was arrested in Spain in August 1997 and extradited to Britain to stand trial for the murder of Stephen Cameron, after two years on the run.

The father-of-two is now back on the streets after serving 21 years in prison for Stephen’s fatal stabbing.

Danielle Cable, who witnessed the horror crime at the age of 17 and helped identify her friend’s killer after being taken to Spain by British detectives ahead of his arrest, is still in witness protection.

In the 1980s, Noye ensured that most of the gold bars stolen in the infamous Brink’s Mat robbery were melted down and sold.

An armed gang had stolen £26 million worth of gold, diamonds and cash from a warehouse on the Heathrow International Trading Estate.

The heist has already been turned into a BBC drama this year called The Gold, starring Hugh Bonneville, Dominic Cooper, Charlotte Spencer and Jack Lowden as Noye.

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Elvis Presley’s stepbrother, David Stanley, has apologized after he committed suicide in 1977 at the age of 42.

The now 67-year-old Stanley, who became the legendary singer’s stepbrother when his mother Dee married the singer’s father, Vernon Presley, in 1960, expressed regret over the comments in the three-part Amazon Prime documentary Elvis’s Women in an emotional Instagram post on Tuesday.

Stanley, who became the music icon’s bodyguard in the 1970s and was part of his famous “Memphis Mafia,” previously said he believed Elvis killed himself, fearing his obsession with underage girls was about to be written into a book at the come light. wracked with his guilt over betraying so many lovers.

“I think he just couldn’t go on,” said Stanley. “He premeditatedly took the drugs that killed him. Love, pain, hurt, exposure – he just couldn’t take it anymore.”

Stanley’s Instagram apology read, “To all Elvis fans and associates who follow me here on Facebook and beyond. I’m sorry for the derogatory comments I made in a documentary about Elvis that was filmed last year.

“There is no excuse for my comments and I can totally understand why you would be upset. I love and will always love Elvis and be a part of his family. He is more than worth the love you have for him. He loved you. I love you and all I can ask of you is that you forgive me for my irresponsible actions.

The documentary claims that the Blue Suede Shoes hitmaker had a steady stream of teenage sexual relations from the start of his fame in the 1950s until his death at age 42.

Stanley said, “His predilection for young girls aged 15 or 16 sickened me. I told him it’s a miracle he wasn’t caught.

“He got away with things that most people didn’t, because of his money, fortune, fame and power, charisma and appeal. Elvis could talk you off your socks.’

Stanley was at Graceland on the day in August 1977 that Elvis died of a heart attack caused by a drug overdose at the age of 42.

In his later years, Elvis became addicted to junk food and prescription drugs, causing the former sex symbol to become massively overweight and die of cardiac arrhythmia.

The star was married to Priscilla Presley from 1967-1973. Elvis and Priscilla first met in Germany in 1959 when he was 24 and serving in the military and she was only 14.

After he returned home to the US, they kept in touch through phone calls – before finally convincing her parents to let her move to Memphis, Tennessee full-time in 1963 to be with him.

Priscilla dated Elvis for eight years before they got married in 1967 in a Las Vegas ceremony.

The couple shared daughter Lisa Marie, who died of cardiac arrest in January aged 54.

The first trailer for the highly anticipated biopic Priscilla, written and directed by Sofia Coppola, was shared recently.

The film tells Priscilla Presley’s side of the story of her life with the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll.

It stars Jacob Elordi as Elvis and Cailee Spaeny as his gorgeous wife Priscilla.