{"id":714,"date":"2013-03-06T23:38:01","date_gmt":"2013-03-07T04:38:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jenniferpickens.com\/blog\/?p=714"},"modified":"2018-04-16T13:31:08","modified_gmt":"2018-04-16T18:31:08","slug":"diana-princess-of-wales-an-evening-at-the-white-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jenniferpickens.com\/blog\/diana-princess-of-wales-an-evening-at-the-white-house\/","title":{"rendered":"Diana: Princess of Wales, an Evening at the White House"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-715\" src=\"http:\/\/www.jenniferpickens.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/AP050103017955_image_1024w-600x403.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"403\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.jenniferpickens.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/AP050103017955_image_1024w-600x403.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.jenniferpickens.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/AP050103017955_image_1024w-300x201.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.jenniferpickens.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/AP050103017955_image_1024w.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Ten iconic dresses worn by the late Diana, Princess of Wales are expected to raise a huge sum when auctioned by Kerry Taylor on the 19<sup>th<\/sup> of March.\u00a0 The collection was originally bought at a charity sale held in New York in June 1997, arranged by the Princess a few months before her death.\u00a0 The upcoming auction will feature gowns by designers including <a href=\"http:\/\/www.vogue.co.uk\/brand\/zandra-rhodes\">Zandra Rhodes<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.vogue.co.uk\/person\/catherine-walker\">Catherine Walker<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.vogue.co.uk\/person\/bruce-oldfield\">Bruce Oldfield<\/a>. The highlight of the collection however will certainly be the midnight blue velvet Victor Edelstein gown that Diana wore to the White House for a State Dinner held by President and Mrs. Reagan.\u00a0 The dress and that State Dinner became famous when she danced with Saturday Night Fever star John Travolta, an experience Travolta later described as being &#8220;like a fairytale.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>It was a memorable evening at the White House for many reasons.\u00a0 The star-studded guest list that included Neil Diamond, Clint Eastwood, and Tom Selleck to name just a few dined a perfect menu that included lobster mousse.\u00a0 But what most don\u2019t know is that Princess Diana had actually requested that John Travolta be there for that dance and that Mrs. Reagan as the perfect hostess made sure that all of the princess&#8217;s requests came true.<\/p>\n<p>The Washington Post ran Travolta\u2019s reaction to the moment the following Monday:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cObservers at the party the night before suggested Diana had indeed enjoyed the dance. The royal couple didn\u2019t leave the White House until 12:30, according to the embassy, despite the accumulated effect of a day spent traversing the city. While guest Neil Diamond, a favorite of Diana\u2019s and not scheduled to perform, sang \u201cSeptember Morn\u201d and \u201cYou Don\u2019t Send Me Flowers,\u201d the guests danced for more than half an hour. The royals and the Reagans took the first round (Nancy with Charles, Ronald with Diana), followed by the Diana-Travolta performance. The crowd of fewer than 100 artists, dancers, actors and others reportedly stayed off the dance floor and watched.<\/p>\n<p>According to Nancy Reagan\u2019s press secretary Elaine Crispen, Diana and Travolta performed something that \u201cwas certainly more energetic than a fox trot. I don\u2019t know what you\u2019d call it \u2014 rock or whatever.\u201d After the party ended, Olympic swimmer Steve Lundquist said that he was too nervous to ask the princess for a dance and added, \u201cShe certainly holds her own. John Travolta is a pretty hard guy to butt in on. I would hate to butt in on John Travolta.\u201d\u00a0 Travolta, who also danced with Nancy Reagan, said Diana \u201cwas charming. I found her refreshing and down-to-earth.\u201d\u00a0 And her dancing, he said, was \u201cgood. She has style and rhythm.\u201d\u00a0 Diana offered no critique of her partner.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ten iconic dresses worn by the late Diana, Princess of Wales are expected to raise a huge sum when auctioned by Kerry Taylor on the 19th of March.\u00a0 The collection was originally bought at a charity sale held in New York in June 1997, arranged by the Princess a few months before her death.\u00a0 The&hellip; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.jenniferpickens.com\/blog\/diana-princess-of-wales-an-evening-at-the-white-house\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":715,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-white-house-wednesdays"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jenniferpickens.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jenniferpickens.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jenniferpickens.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jenniferpickens.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jenniferpickens.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=714"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.jenniferpickens.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1430,"href":"https:\/\/www.jenniferpickens.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714\/revisions\/1430"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jenniferpickens.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jenniferpickens.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jenniferpickens.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jenniferpickens.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}