An effort to create a more human and appealing portrait of the Prince of Wales appeared to backfire Wednesday night when, in the course of a 21/2-hour documentary broadcast to the nation, the heir to the British throne admitted he had committed adultery.
Three-quarters of the way through the largely sympathetic portrayal, the prince, sitting a little stiffly on a chintz-covered sofa at his estate at Highgrove in Gloucestershire, was asked point blank if he tried to be "faithful and honorable" when he married Lady Diana Spencer in July 1981."Yes, absolutely," he replied.
"And you were?" pressed the questioner, Jonathan Dimbleby, a well-known British journalist.
"Yes," Prince Charles answered. Then after a slight pause he added, "Until it became irretrievably broken down, us both having tried."
That one exchange has landed the 45-year-old prince in hot water. Now estranged and separated from his wife since December 1991, he has been laboring for the past year to rebuild his popularity with state visits abroad and good works at home, assiduously documented and disseminated by his own beefed-up public relations staff.
The film, in which Dimbleby was given unparalleled access to the future sovereign and followed him around for 11/2 years, was to mark the 25th anniversary of his investiture as Prince of Wales, but really it was meant to be the capstone of his rehabilitation.
Now, some of that effort seems to have come to naught. Many of the details of the deteriorating marriage of the Prince and Princess of Wales have long since been in the public domain, especially since June 1992 when Andrew Morton's book "Diana: Her True Story" appeared, depicting her as "trapped in a loveless marriage."
At one point in the film, the prince said that he was not, at the moment, considering a divorce from the Princess of Wales, although he did not view divorce as a barrier to becoming king.
He insists there was "no truth" in much of the speculation about his private life and refers to Camilla Parker Bowles as "a great friend."
The current broadcast reopens all the old wounds, at a time when the monarchy has tried to overcome the scandals and a negative public image.