Queen Mother

Hundreds of well-wishers showered Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, with flowers, cards and gifts on her 87th birthday today. Appearing on the balcony of Clarence House to acknowledge the cheers from the crowd in the street below, she waved and smiled broadly.

The woman whose countrymen and women are fond of praising her with the phrase "she never put a foot wrong" is celebrating her Diamond Jubilee -- 60 years on the throne. In Britain, only Queen Elizabeth II's great-great grandmother Victoria reigned longer. But the glittering mechanisms of sovereignty that now honor the 86-year-old woman who became queen at 25 are just as ready to set the gears in motion when she dies. Monarchy -- the British monarchy, at least -- - has a Darwinian genius for survival and accommodation that has kept it going for more than a millennium.

Britain's 100-year-old Queen Mother was in good spirits after breaking her collarbone in her second fall in a week, her office said. The mother of Queen Elizabeth II has canceled all engagements until her health improves, but the officials quoted her grandson Prince Charles as saying she was "very chirpy and in remarkably good form." On Oct. 31, the Queen Mother tripped over the hem of her gown as she was getting into a car, a spokeswoman said. The latest fall occurred Friday.

Helena Bonham Carter spent years trying to get away from her reputation as the queen of corsets, but she stepped back into period garb to play Queen Elizabeth, the wife of George VI and future Queen Mother, opposite Colin Firth in "The King's Speech. " In person, she dresses more like Madonna circa "Lucky Star," with a half-dozen silver chains slung around her neck and her nest of curls topped by a lopsided maroon bow. As she talked about her relationship with professional filmmaking oddball Tim Burton, her own arrested development and the Queen Mum's acid wit, she negotiated a forest of drinking glasses filled with varicolored liquids on a nearby table (a penchant that earned her the nickname "Cups" from her "King's" director Tom Hooper)

Thousands of Danes braved freezing wind to pay respects to Queen Mother Ingrid, who died Tuesday at 90. Hundreds of people had arrived at Christiansborg Palace chapel in Copenhagen, the capital, one hour before it opened at 10 a.m. An hour later, an estimated 3,000 people were lining up. The Queen Mother will lie in state until her funeral Tuesday at Roskilde Cathedral. She will be interred with her husband, King Frederik IX, who died in 1972.

Britain's 97-year-old queen mother, one of the most consistently popular members of the royal family, had a successful hip replacement operation Monday after a fall over the weekend. Buckingham Palace said the mother of Queen Elizabeth II had "passed a comfortable night" in a private London hospital. The queen mother, also named Elizabeth, widow of King George VI, broke her hip in a fall while at the family's rural Sandringham estate in eastern England.

Prince Charles gave the Queen Mother a special 90th birthday present today, a concert of specially commissioned music. The concert by the English Chamber Orchestra, and a recording to be released by EMI, benefit the prince's charity, The Prince's Trust. The trust helps disadvantaged young people. Charles commissioned one of the works by composer Patrick Doyle especially for his grandmother. The piece has a series of Scottish verses set to music and was sung by Scottish soprano Marie McLaughlin.

Riding in a horse-drawn coach past throngs of cheering fans, the Queen Mother Elizabeth disregarded bomb threats Wednesday and went to her 100th birthday party--an outdoor pageant of singing, dancing and floats. The hugely popular royal--the mother of Queen Elizabeth II and the widow of King George VI--will be 100 on Aug. 4. But celebrations began in earnest a week ago, when European royal families attended a St. Paul's Cathedral service of thanksgiving for her long and remarkably healthy life.

Queen Mother Ingrid, the widow of King Frederik IX and mother of Denmark's first female monarch in five centuries, died Tuesday, the royal palace said. She was 90. The Swedish-born Ingrid, beloved in Denmark for her casual, forthright style, died at Fredensborg Castle north of the capital, Copenhagen, the palace said. Her three daughters--Queen Margrethe, Princess Benedikte and ex-Queen Anne-Marie of Greece--and 10 grandchildren were by her bedside.

Queen Mother Elizabeth quietly celebrated her 91st birthday Sunday with her daughter, the queen, at the royal Sandringham estate in Norfolk. The church organist slipped a few bars of "Happy Birthday to You" into the processional as the Queen Mother left the morning service at the Sandringham parish church in eastern England. The church was packed with local residents and estate workers who joined the rector in wishing the Queen Mother "a very happy day."

When I asked about reviewing "The Queen Mother: The Official Biography," the response I got was something like: "It's 1,100 pages long!" Yes, I said, in my most imperturbable royal voice. But that works out to only about 11 pages a year. Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother lived to be 101. On her public and private timeline were two world wars, an empire lost, half a century of widowhood -- and a British throne that looked a lot more wobbly when she died in 2002 than it did when she was born during the reign of Queen Victoria, in 1900.

In a certain brand of commercial play, watching the formula stretch around itself is half the fun. That's the case with "An Act of Love" at the Falcon Theatre. David Landsberg's comedy about a newly divorced man and the women in his life is both familiar and original, and there lies its appeal. Meet Peter Sandusky (Timothy Hornor), an affably sarcastic insurance agent introduced mid-conversation with ne'er-do-well kid sister Julia (Hedy Burress).

Go ahead, admit it. Between the kerchiefs and the corgis, the sensible clothes and the semi-detached smile, Britain's Queen Elizabeth II has never been mistaken for the most dramatic monarch in the world, never given much of a hint that there might be a Major Motion Picture in her life. But this immovable object has met the unstoppable force that is actress Helen Mirren, one of the great masters of modern screen acting.

If the British monarchy were a publicly traded corporation--and who's to say there won't one day be an IPO of Windsor Ltd.--the stock would now be climbing as high as the new Typhoon fighter jet that will stage a dramatic flyover Tuesday to cap the four-day Golden Jubilee weekend celebrating Queen Elizabeth II's 50 years on the throne. As for such a royal stock's prospects for years to come, what wizard can predict that?

Britain came to a virtual standstill Tuesday morning as the country said its last goodbye to Queen Mother Elizabeth with a funeral at Westminster Abbey attended by more than 2,000 people inside the centuries-old church and thousands outside. First Lady Laura Bush represented her husband among the mourners for the royal great-grandmother, who died March 30 at 101.

Thousands of people formed a mile-long line to pay their respects to Britain's beloved queen mother on Friday, filing past her coffin as she lay in state after a grand funeral procession that matched that of British wartime leader Winston Churchill. The line of well-wishers snaked along the banks of the River Thames, and police said the imposing Westminster Hall, where the coffin will remain until burial Tuesday, would stay open until all mourners had filed past.

Queen Elizabeth the queen mother, whose relentless charm and iron will steered the British monarchy through a world war and an abdication crisis and into a modern age where its robes were sullied by embarrassing marital antics, died Saturday. She was 101, the oldest member of Britain's millennium-old monarchy, which has a history of short-lived men and long-lived women.

Admirers of Queen Elizabeth the queen mother gathered outside Britain's royal palaces Sunday to bid goodbye to a beloved symbol of the nation's imperial history and ponder what her death means for the future of the monarchy. They brought spring bouquets in the pastel colors favored by the royal matriarch and left condolence notes for Queen Elizabeth II, who has lost her mother and her sister, Princess Margaret, in less than two months.

How could they ever forget those pastel dresses, white gloves and feathered hats? A few had been on the receiving end of her impeccable manners, that charming smile. The lucky ones will forever treasure that one moment when they shook her white-gloved hand. But most of all, these British expatriates half a world away in Los Angeles reflected Saturday on the enduring strength of their "Queen Mum," who died in her sleep at age 101.