When Charles Met Laura Jo
Fifty years ago, he fell head over heels for a beautiful American woman. He arranged for her to visit England, where she slipped into Buckingham Palace in the back of a florist's van
Meghan Markle was not the first California girl to capture the heart of a British prince. In 1974 Prince Charles was besotted with the daughter of an American admiral, a beautiful young woman named Laura Jo Watkins. The romance made waves in Britain when it was discovered, and I tracked down people with first-hand knowledge who described not only how it began, but how it evolved in surprising ways, and what the American ingénue thought of the British heir to the throne. I also recently learned additional details from one of my longtime friends who helped the love-struck couple during Laura Jo’s dramatic visit to London.
Charles was ready for a new romantic interest
The mutual infatuation began early in 1974 when Prince Charles, then a lieutenant in the Royal Navy, arrived in California on HMS Jupiter during his third tour of duty since he received his commission in the autumn of 1971. He had been at sea in April 1973 on his second tour when he heard that Camilla Shand, with whom he had a love affair for six months the previous year, was engaged to marry cavalry officer Andrew Parker Bowles in July. On the rebound, Charles was ready for a new romantic interest after a training voyage that had taken him to Australia, New Zealand, Suva, Tonga, Western Samoa, and Hawaii before docking at San Diego on Thursday March 14th for a week.
Two nights later, he signed the Officers Club Register at the North Island Officers Club on arriving at a reception in his honor. Rear Admiral James D. Watkins had been designated to welcome the twenty-five-year-old prince, but he and his wife had a prior commitment in Los Angeles. He asked their twenty-year-old daughter, Laura Jo, and her sixteen-year-old sister, Susan, to do the honors instead. The dutiful daughters sipped ginger ale at the club bar as they waited. “Your Royal Highness, I would like to introduce you to two young American girls,” said Albert Franklin, the British Consul-General in Los Angeles. Laura Jo sweetly presented Charles with her parents’ calling card.
“Let the young man speak to a real girl”
Described by The New York Times as a “blonde, green-eyed beauty,” Laura Jo wore a green dress and instantly captivated Charles: a “soul to soul meeting,” by one recollection. His bodyguards told the throng of reporters and photographers to back off. “Let the young man speak to a real girl,” they said. “Mum’s the word,” Charles said to Laura Jo. “I got it,” she replied.
But a reporter eavesdropped on their opening gambit. “Oh my God, I heard you went out surfing today,” Laura Jo said. “How did you know that?” asked Charles. “Your bodyguard came and borrowed the surfboard of my neighbor. Weren’t you cold?” she replied. “My dear,” said the prince, “I come from a very rough school.”
The couple managed to find some private time over the course of the evening, and Laura Jo happily discovered that the Prince of Wales was easy and a lot of fun. But at midnight he traveled over the Santa Rosa Mountains to Palm Springs for a long-scheduled visit with Walter Annenberg, the United States Ambassador to the Court of St. James’s, and his wife, Lee, at Sunnylands, their two-hundred-acre estate. They entertained Charles over cocktails and caviar with A-list celebrities including Governor Ronald Reagan and his wife Nancy, who would become close friends with the prince, as well as Frank Sinatra and Bob Hope.
“Sweetheart where is Laura Jo?”
As soon as Charles returned to San Diego on Monday, he headed straight to the Watkins’ home to see Laura Jo. There he met her mother and father as well as James and Edward, her two younger brothers (there were six Watkins children in all). “Sweetheart where is Laura Jo?” the admiral called to his wife, Sheila Jo. “It was so beautiful to hear your father call your mother ‘sweetheart,’” Charles later said to Laura. “People don’t say those endearing things to each other in front of me.” It was “an American thing,” he reckoned.
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