We don\u2019t linger long on the exiled royals though, instead turning to a local young man, who introduces himself as Mohamed Fayed.<\/p>\n
Who is Mohamed al-Fayed?<\/h2>\n ![\"""\"]( "\\"\"\"\\"\/")
<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div> Egyptian businessman Mohamed Al-Fayed in the food hall of Harrods, his London department store, 6 April 1989. (Photo by Peter Macdiarmid\/Getty Images)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\nThe real Mohammed Fayed is said to have been born in Alexandria in 1929 (this year is often disputed) and was the eldest son of a primary school teacher. Egypt had been a British protectorate between 1882 and 1922, and while his father is depicted in The Crown<\/em> as resentful of the colonisers, and eyes those who had \u2018accepted\u2019 their rule with disdain, the drama depicts young Mohamed instead expressing admiration. \u201cI want to match them\u2026 to have power like them\u201d, he says. His zeal sets the scene for Fayed\u2019s relationship with the British establishment, which, in reality, continues to be complex and contentious.<\/p>\nAs shown in the drama, the real Fayed worked as a salesman of Coca Cola<\/a> and sewing machines, later marrying Samira Khashoggi, the sister of Saudi Arabian businessman and international arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi, in 1954. Mohamed named their son, born in 1955, Emad El-Din Mohamed Abdel Mena\u2019em Fayed: Dodi. Though Fayed and Samira divorced in 1956, Mohamed went on to make his name in Khashoggi\u2019s company before founding his own shipping business.<\/p>\n- Read more | Philip Murphy on The Crown: \u201cIf scholars can\u2019t write accurate histories of the Queen\u2019s reign, drama is what we\u2019ll continue to rely on\u201d<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>
In the drama, we then fast-forward to 1979, with an older Mohamed (played by Salim Daw) having made his fortune and proposing to buy the Paris Ritz, accompanied by his now adult son, Dodi (played by Khalid Abdalla). In reality, Fayed had moved to Britain in 1974, adding the al- to his name, and by the late seventies had already amounted huge wealth in European holdings.<\/p>\n
The woman with whom he spars in The Crown<\/em> is Monique Ritz (played by Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu), the widow of hotelier Charles Ritz. Following Charles\u2019s death in 1976, Monique \u2013 then in her mid-50s \u2013 took over the Ritz Paris, and the hotel entered a period of decline, which led to her decision to sell it three years later.<\/p>\n ![\"""\"]( "\\"\"\"\\"\/")
<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div> Mohammed al-Fayed (Salim Dau) and Dodi Fayed (Khalid Abdalla) in \u2018The Crown\u2019<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\nThough al-Fayed succeeded in this prestige purchase in 1979, in the drama he is still rebuffed by the social echelons he is so keen to emulate and join. In reality, moments of establishment rejection in his life are evident; in the 1970s, British satirical magazine Private Eye<\/em> nicknamed al-Fayed \u201cthe Phoney Pharaoh\u201d for his \u2018wheeler dealer\u2019 persona, and when al-Fayed applied for a British passport in 1995, he was turned down by the Conservative government \u2013 further fuel for the notion of al-Fayed as an \u2018outsider\u2019.<\/p>\nDuring a celebration of al-Fayed\u2019s purchase of the Ritz, we find another tie to the exiled Windsors, as Mohamed meets Sydney Johnson. As we saw earlier in the episode, Johnson had joined the household staff of the exiled Windsors in 1940 as a 16-year-old, during the duke\u2019s governorship of the Bahamas between 1940\u201345. Historian Andrew Lownie, author of Traitor King<\/em>: The Scandalous Exile of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor<\/em> (Bonnier Books, 2021), told the HistoryExtra<\/em> podcast<\/a> how installing the duke as governor was in part a manoeuvre by the British government and royal family to absent the former king from wartime Britain. Edward and Wallis needed, explains Lownie, to be removed from Nazi agents of influence, due to concerns about the couple\u2019s perceived lack of discretion and fascist sympathies.<\/p> \u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHis royal highness was never one to restrain his pen,\u201d one aide later says in this episode, referring to the period when the exiled royals were \u201cfrequently in the company of Nazis, who hoped to install him as a possible puppet king.\u201d<\/p>\n
Edward VIII, \u201cthe puppet king\u201d?<\/h3>\n
There is evidence during the summer of 1940, explains Lownie, of a plan called Operation Willi, during which the Germans tried to recruit Edward as \u201ca British Petain\u201d. The plan involved an offer to take care of the duke\u2019s possessions and house in Paris, and letters and diaries from royal courtiers and Mi5 agents<\/a> show that Edward did engage with these offers.<\/p>\n ![\"""\"]( "\\"\"\"\\"\/")
<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div> The Duke and Duchess of Windsor seated outdoors with their small dogs. (Photo by Bettmann via Getty Images)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\nThe Duke of Windsor \u201cwas much more concerned with the threat of communism than he was with fascism. And he thought that the fascists would act as bulwark against communists, and that would save the empire,\u201d explains Lownie. \u201cHe was very open about it. And what shocked me was that he continued to hold these views, not just after his abdication, but right through to, and during, the Second World War<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n- On the podcast | The Windsors in exile\u00a0<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>
It\u2019s little wonder, as portrayed in The Crown<\/em>, that senior members of the royal family would have been keen to recover the duke\u2019s papers and diaries from this period.<\/p>\nWho was Sydney Johnson?<\/h2>\n
Eagle-eyed viewers of The Crown<\/em> might remember Sydney Johnson from season three, episode eight. When the Duke of Windsor (then played by Derek Jacobi) falls ill, Wallis instructs \u201cSydney\u201d, present in full red and gold livery, to call a doctor, and Johnson later announces an imminent visit of the Queen to the couple\u2019s Le Bois mansion.<\/p>\nJohnson really was a personal valet to the duke until Edward\u2019s death in 1972 of throat cancer, and continued to serve the duchess until 1973 (Wallis reportedly wouldn\u2019t allow Johnson to leave daily service early enough to collect his children, so Johnson resigned). As shown in the drama, Wallis\u2019s final years were isolated, and she died in 1986 aged 89 after a long period of declining health. She was buried at Frogmore<\/a> alongside her husband, and the Queen and other senior royals did attend her funeral.<\/p>\nIn this episode, Sydney Johnson (played by Jude Akuwudike, with Joshua Kekana as the younger Sydney) returns as a teacher to al-Fayed, instructing the tycoon in the ways of the establishment, which he had learned in the service of the Windsors. Al-Fayed really did enlist Johnson\u2019s help in buying and curating the former home of the exiled couple, referring to Johnson as \u201ca dictionary\u201d in 1986. \u201cHe\u2019s a very cultured man,\u201d said al-Fayed. \u201cHe got all these things out of boxes and safes and storage rooms, and he knows their history.\u201d<\/p>\n
- Read more | Royal historian Tracy Borman on the real events behind The Crown<\/em> season 5<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>
Upon his purchase and restoration of Le Bois, al-Fayed intended the site to become a museum, renamed Villa Windsor, to be visited only by \u201chistorians, members of the British royal family, personalities, friends and important guests of the Ritz.\u201d Johnson was pivotal in curating the former possessions of the duke and duchess in al-Fayed\u2019s vision, and when Johnson died in January 1990 aged 69, the businessman paid tribute, calling Johnson a \u201cgentleman\u2019s gentleman\u201d.<\/p>\n
The mansion continues to be leased by al-Fayed today and is not open to the public.<\/p>\n
Harrods, Dodi & Princess Diana<\/h3>\n
In the drama, the royals\u2019 snub of Villa Windsor only serves to heighten al-Fayed\u2019s sense as an outsider, a feeling which is played upon by his son Dodi in his role as a producer on the 1981 Oscar-winning film Chariots of Fire<\/em>. In reality, the pair did stake nearly \u00a32m for the film to be made, setting up a film production company called Allied Stars. (The younger al-Fayed was later a producer on the and 1986 thriller F\/X<\/em> and the 1991 blockbuster Hook<\/em>.) During this period, Dodi also developed somewhat of a reputation as a playboy, living between Paris and Egypt and dating several high-profile women such as Brooke Shields, Cathy Lee Crosby, and Joanne Whalley.<\/p>\n ![\"""\"]( "\\"\"\"\\"\/")
<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div> Dodi Al-Fayed and actress Cathy Lee Crosby attend the premiere party for \u201cChariots Of Fire\u201d on 8 April, 1982 at the Bistro in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Ron Galella, Ltd.\/Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\nIt was clear that the success of Chariots<\/em> became another feather in Mohamed\u2019s cap. In contrast to the depiction in The Crown<\/em>, which has Dodi petitioning his unwilling father for the film\u2019s financing, Mohamed in 2016 said: \u201cI didn\u2019t hesitate when Dodi asked me to finance the production\u2026 It was a British film but, let us be honest, it would not have been made without Egyptian money.\u201d<\/p>\nBut it wasn\u2019t the only venture that Mohamed found attractive. Grand department stores had been part of London\u2019s landscape since the mid 19th century, and as Mohamed sees in The Crown<\/em>, ownership of such sites brought prestige and access into a particular sort of society. His purchase of the Knightsbridge department store Harrods<\/a> was not without controversy, with claims that al-Fayed had \u2018misrepresented his wealth\u2019 during the purchase. But ultimately, he became the owner of the famed site in 1985. This in turn afforded entry into rarefied events that included the royals, such as the Harrods Polo Cups in the late 1980s.<\/p>\n- Read more | Charles and Diana: a history of their marriage\u00a0<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>
![\"""\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/7\/2022\/11\/GettyImages-97962262-8f22750-e1667928694635.jpg?quality=90&resize=619%2C413"\" "\\"\"\"\\"\/")
<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>The real Mohammed Fayed is said to have been born in Alexandria in 1929 (this year is often disputed) and was the eldest son of a primary school teacher. Egypt had been a British protectorate between 1882 and 1922, and while his father is depicted in The Crown<\/em> as resentful of the colonisers, and eyes those who had \u2018accepted\u2019 their rule with disdain, the drama depicts young Mohamed instead expressing admiration. \u201cI want to match them\u2026 to have power like them\u201d, he says. His zeal sets the scene for Fayed\u2019s relationship with the British establishment, which, in reality, continues to be complex and contentious.<\/p>\n As shown in the drama, the real Fayed worked as a salesman of Coca Cola<\/a> and sewing machines, later marrying Samira Khashoggi, the sister of Saudi Arabian businessman and international arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi, in 1954. Mohamed named their son, born in 1955, Emad El-Din Mohamed Abdel Mena\u2019em Fayed: Dodi. Though Fayed and Samira divorced in 1956, Mohamed went on to make his name in Khashoggi\u2019s company before founding his own shipping business.<\/p>\n In the drama, we then fast-forward to 1979, with an older Mohamed (played by Salim Daw) having made his fortune and proposing to buy the Paris Ritz, accompanied by his now adult son, Dodi (played by Khalid Abdalla). In reality, Fayed had moved to Britain in 1974, adding the al- to his name, and by the late seventies had already amounted huge wealth in European holdings.<\/p>\n The woman with whom he spars in The Crown<\/em> is Monique Ritz (played by Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu), the widow of hotelier Charles Ritz. Following Charles\u2019s death in 1976, Monique \u2013 then in her mid-50s \u2013 took over the Ritz Paris, and the hotel entered a period of decline, which led to her decision to sell it three years later.<\/p>\n Though al-Fayed succeeded in this prestige purchase in 1979, in the drama he is still rebuffed by the social echelons he is so keen to emulate and join. In reality, moments of establishment rejection in his life are evident; in the 1970s, British satirical magazine Private Eye<\/em> nicknamed al-Fayed \u201cthe Phoney Pharaoh\u201d for his \u2018wheeler dealer\u2019 persona, and when al-Fayed applied for a British passport in 1995, he was turned down by the Conservative government \u2013 further fuel for the notion of al-Fayed as an \u2018outsider\u2019.<\/p>\n During a celebration of al-Fayed\u2019s purchase of the Ritz, we find another tie to the exiled Windsors, as Mohamed meets Sydney Johnson. As we saw earlier in the episode, Johnson had joined the household staff of the exiled Windsors in 1940 as a 16-year-old, during the duke\u2019s governorship of the Bahamas between 1940\u201345. Historian Andrew Lownie, author of Traitor King<\/em>: The Scandalous Exile of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor<\/em> (Bonnier Books, 2021), told the HistoryExtra<\/em> podcast<\/a> how installing the duke as governor was in part a manoeuvre by the British government and royal family to absent the former king from wartime Britain. Edward and Wallis needed, explains Lownie, to be removed from Nazi agents of influence, due to concerns about the couple\u2019s perceived lack of discretion and fascist sympathies.<\/p> \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cHis royal highness was never one to restrain his pen,\u201d one aide later says in this episode, referring to the period when the exiled royals were \u201cfrequently in the company of Nazis, who hoped to install him as a possible puppet king.\u201d<\/p>\n There is evidence during the summer of 1940, explains Lownie, of a plan called Operation Willi, during which the Germans tried to recruit Edward as \u201ca British Petain\u201d. The plan involved an offer to take care of the duke\u2019s possessions and house in Paris, and letters and diaries from royal courtiers and Mi5 agents<\/a> show that Edward did engage with these offers.<\/p>\n The Duke of Windsor \u201cwas much more concerned with the threat of communism than he was with fascism. And he thought that the fascists would act as bulwark against communists, and that would save the empire,\u201d explains Lownie. \u201cHe was very open about it. And what shocked me was that he continued to hold these views, not just after his abdication, but right through to, and during, the Second World War<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s little wonder, as portrayed in The Crown<\/em>, that senior members of the royal family would have been keen to recover the duke\u2019s papers and diaries from this period.<\/p>\n Eagle-eyed viewers of The Crown<\/em> might remember Sydney Johnson from season three, episode eight. When the Duke of Windsor (then played by Derek Jacobi) falls ill, Wallis instructs \u201cSydney\u201d, present in full red and gold livery, to call a doctor, and Johnson later announces an imminent visit of the Queen to the couple\u2019s Le Bois mansion.<\/p>\n Johnson really was a personal valet to the duke until Edward\u2019s death in 1972 of throat cancer, and continued to serve the duchess until 1973 (Wallis reportedly wouldn\u2019t allow Johnson to leave daily service early enough to collect his children, so Johnson resigned). As shown in the drama, Wallis\u2019s final years were isolated, and she died in 1986 aged 89 after a long period of declining health. She was buried at Frogmore<\/a> alongside her husband, and the Queen and other senior royals did attend her funeral.<\/p>\n In this episode, Sydney Johnson (played by Jude Akuwudike, with Joshua Kekana as the younger Sydney) returns as a teacher to al-Fayed, instructing the tycoon in the ways of the establishment, which he had learned in the service of the Windsors. Al-Fayed really did enlist Johnson\u2019s help in buying and curating the former home of the exiled couple, referring to Johnson as \u201ca dictionary\u201d in 1986. \u201cHe\u2019s a very cultured man,\u201d said al-Fayed. \u201cHe got all these things out of boxes and safes and storage rooms, and he knows their history.\u201d<\/p>\n Upon his purchase and restoration of Le Bois, al-Fayed intended the site to become a museum, renamed Villa Windsor, to be visited only by \u201chistorians, members of the British royal family, personalities, friends and important guests of the Ritz.\u201d Johnson was pivotal in curating the former possessions of the duke and duchess in al-Fayed\u2019s vision, and when Johnson died in January 1990 aged 69, the businessman paid tribute, calling Johnson a \u201cgentleman\u2019s gentleman\u201d.<\/p>\n The mansion continues to be leased by al-Fayed today and is not open to the public.<\/p>\n In the drama, the royals\u2019 snub of Villa Windsor only serves to heighten al-Fayed\u2019s sense as an outsider, a feeling which is played upon by his son Dodi in his role as a producer on the 1981 Oscar-winning film Chariots of Fire<\/em>. In reality, the pair did stake nearly \u00a32m for the film to be made, setting up a film production company called Allied Stars. (The younger al-Fayed was later a producer on the and 1986 thriller F\/X<\/em> and the 1991 blockbuster Hook<\/em>.) During this period, Dodi also developed somewhat of a reputation as a playboy, living between Paris and Egypt and dating several high-profile women such as Brooke Shields, Cathy Lee Crosby, and Joanne Whalley.<\/p>\n It was clear that the success of Chariots<\/em> became another feather in Mohamed\u2019s cap. In contrast to the depiction in The Crown<\/em>, which has Dodi petitioning his unwilling father for the film\u2019s financing, Mohamed in 2016 said: \u201cI didn\u2019t hesitate when Dodi asked me to finance the production\u2026 It was a British film but, let us be honest, it would not have been made without Egyptian money.\u201d<\/p>\n But it wasn\u2019t the only venture that Mohamed found attractive. Grand department stores had been part of London\u2019s landscape since the mid 19th century, and as Mohamed sees in The Crown<\/em>, ownership of such sites brought prestige and access into a particular sort of society. His purchase of the Knightsbridge department store Harrods<\/a> was not without controversy, with claims that al-Fayed had \u2018misrepresented his wealth\u2019 during the purchase. But ultimately, he became the owner of the famed site in 1985. This in turn afforded entry into rarefied events that included the royals, such as the Harrods Polo Cups in the late 1980s.<\/p>\n![\"""\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/7\/2022\/11\/TheCrownS05Image34-3436570-e1667928970801.png?quality=90&resize=620%2C412"\" "\\"\"\"\\"\/")
<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>Edward VIII, \u201cthe puppet king\u201d?<\/h3>\n
![\"""\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/7\/2022\/11\/GettyImages-515463142-0df3a20-e1667928722352.jpg?quality=90&resize=617%2C413"\" "\\"\"\"\\"\/")
<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>Who was Sydney Johnson?<\/h2>\n
Harrods, Dodi & Princess Diana<\/h3>\n
![\"""\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/7\/2022\/11\/GettyImages-119426452-cfffa78-e1667928861649.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C412"\" "\\"\"\"\\"\/")
<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>
![\"""\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/7\/2022\/11\/GettyImages-52113485-5dc33c6-e1667928766198.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C412"\" "\\"\"\"\\"\/")
<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>