Today, the eyes of the world will be on Paris, where the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympic Games will be held. There will be plenty of dignitaries and talented athletes present for the occasion, but I’m not sure anything can top a royal moment from the 2012 Opening Ceremony, featuring Queen Elizabeth II, James Bond, a helicopter, and some truly fabulous royal diamonds.
Director Danny Boyle was in charge of the spectacular opening ceremony for the 2012 Summer Games in London. He knew that he needed to include a moment when the head of state arrives and the national anthem is sung. But he dreamed up a way to do it that added a bit more flair: a segment called “Happy & Glorious” that would feature James Bond escorting “the monarch” (with a stand-in actress playing the Queen, possibly Dame Helen Mirren) to the stadium via helicopter and parachuting inside.
In an interview with Jonathan Ross, Boyle explained that they sent the idea in to Buckingham Palace for approval and for permission to film inside the palace. “They came back and said, ‘We’re delighted for you to do it, and Her Majesty would like to be in it herself,'” he said. He described the moment as “surreal.” He also revealed that, when he arrived at the palace to film the piece, he was greeted by the Queen in her private rooms at the palace. “She said hello,” he said, “and she said, ‘I’ve been at the dentist all morning, so I’m not in a very good mood.'” But he described her as both cooperative and capable during filming.
Meanwhile, Daniel Craig had arrived in his full 007 tuxedo to film the segment. BBC cameras followed him as he stepped out of an iconic black taxi cab and headed inside the palace. Handel’s “The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba” played merrily in the background as Bond passed by a palace tour (featuring children visiting from Brazil, the host country for the next Summer Games) and climbed the palace stairs with a corgi escort.
Then, the Queen’s trusted personal page, Paul Whybrew, escorted Bond to the Audience Room, where the monarch usually holds a weekly audience with the Prime Minister. There, at the desk, a white-haired lady in a peach-colored dress and headpiece was writing in a notebook at an antique desk. As the short film played for viewers during the opening ceremony, even the Queen’s family members had no inkling that she had actually taken part in the piece. “Nothing was told to any of us,” Prince William would confirm a few years later.
One cousin, Queen Margrethe II of Denmark–whose portrait is featured prominently on a table in the room–shared her recollections of the moment with the BBC for the documentary Elizabeth at 90 in 2016. She remembers realizing that James Bond really was in Buckingham Palace. When the camera focused on the lady at the desk, Queen Margrethe said, “I thought, ‘Is that somebody being very clever impersonating her?’ And she got up, and it was her!” According to Danny Boyle, the Queen’s line, “Good evening, Mr. Bond,” was an adlib–in the original script, she didn’t have any lines at all.
Whybrew, who was known as “Tall Paul” for good reason, walked with the monarch and the secret agent as they headed out of the palace toward the garden, where a helicopter awaited them for a merry tour of London on their way to the Olympic Stadium. Prince William recalled, “I was sat next to Lord Coe at the time, and I remember certain expletives coming out of my mouth when I realized what was going on.” As the pair stepped into the helicopter, the role of the Queen was taken over by a double, the actress Julia McKenzie, who is perhaps best known for playing Miss Marple in several adaptations of Agatha Christie novels.
“We saw her leave the palace, and sometime later something dropped out of a helicopter,” Queen Margrethe recalled. That something was another double, the professional stuntman and skydiver Gary Connery. The role of James Bond was also played by a stunt double for the jump: the stuntman Mark Sutton, who sadly died in an accident the following year. When an interviewer asked William about how the Queen “seemed” to jump out of a helicopter, he slyly replied with a smile, “She did jump. Everyone thinks it was a joke. She jumped.”
William had a similar wry smile on his face when his grandparents stepped out into the royal box at the stadium, accompanied by IOC President Jacques Rogge. Queen Margrethe remembered, “People went absolutely wild. What a good sport, to take part in something like that. And it shows that she has a wonderful sense of humor, and a sense of occasion as well.” She added, “I told her how much I admired that she’d taken part in it, and I told her that we all thought it was absolutely wonderful. I think she enjoyed the surprise, because apparently, she hadn’t even told her children.”
The small smile on the Queen’s face as the people in the stadium gave her a standing ovation was evident. She had arrived for the ceremony wearing the same dress, hat, and jewels that she’d worn while filming at Buckingham Palace with Daniel Craig. The peach cocktail dress and matching headpiece had been made for the Queen by her dresser and personal assistant, Angela Kelly. Both Julia McKenzie and Gary Connery had also worn copies of the outfit for their portions of the film.
The jewelry pieces that the Queen had chosen for the film and the ceremony were very special indeed. The brooch, necklace, and earrings were all set with heirloom diamonds, and some of the stones represented some of the longest-held gems in the royal jewelry collection.
Both Queen Victoria and Queen Mary owned pairs of large diamond stud earrings, and the ones that the Queen wore for the Olympics opening ceremony seem to be one of those pairs. (It’s extremely difficult to differentiate between the two pairs from photographs.)
She also wore a classic diamond collet necklace from the royal vaults. This is one of the smaller diamond necklaces from the collection. But it was the brooch that really stole the show–and emphasized the longevity of the royal family in Britain. This is Queen Adelaide’s Brooch, made by Rundell, Bridge, & Co. on commission from King William IV in 1831, his coronation year. The brooch was a present for his wife, Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen.
The diamonds used to make the brooch have an even longer royal history. They were originally set in a piece of chivalric insignia: a badge of the Order of the Bath that belonged to William’s father, King George III. Adelaide treasured the brooch, and she ensured that it would stay with the family by passing it down to her niece, Queen Victoria. In turn, Victoria designated the jewel as an Heirloom of the Crown, and almost two centuries after it was made, the brooch remains with the monarch today.
Elizabeth II’s surprise Bond film was one of the highlights of her triumphant Diamond Jubilee year. Four years later, as she celebrated her 90th birthday, the dress and hat made for her to wear in the film and at the opening ceremony were put on display as part of a special exhibition, Fashioning a Reign: 90 Years of Style from The Queen’s Wardrobe, at Buckingham Palace.
You can relive the Queen’s meeting with James Bond right now on YouTube. I’m looking forward to seeing even more memorable moments later today in Paris!
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