EXCLUSIVE: Diana planned to move to Malibu with William and Harry as romance with Dodi Fayed blossomed and wanted to break into Hollywood, voice coach reveals on 24th anniversary of her death
- Stewart Pearce, Princess Diana’s voice coach and confidante, tells DailyMail.com she wanted to move to Malibu and make movies
- He said Diana planned to take sons William and Harry to the US as her romance blossomed with Dodi Fayed
- Pearce is breaking his silence about the princess’s plans on the 24th anniversary of her tragic death on August 31, 1997
- Pearce, 68, learned of Diana’s production plans during his years as her private voice and presence coach, beginning in 1995
- Kevin Costner courted her for a potential sequel to his 1992 blockbuster The Bodyguard, but Pearce said her ambitions were behind the camera
- Pearce was adamant that Diana wanted to be a movie maker, not a movie star
- ‘One of the major opportunities that she wanted to create, was to start developing documentaries about three charitable interests,’ Pearce said
- Pearce writes about his time with the princess in his book, Diana The Voice of Change
Princess Diana wanted to move to California and make movies behind the camera – a striking similarity to her daughter-in-law Meghan, her voice coach and confidante told DailyMail.com.
Stewart Pearce, who is breaking his silence on the princess’s plans for the first time on the 24th anniversary of her death, said Diana planned to take sons William and Harry to the US as her romance blossomed with Dodi Fayed.
The voice coach who befriended the princess in the years before her death says Diana was developing a Hollywood career but was not interested in becoming an actress.
While Kevin Costner courted her for a potential sequel to his 1992 blockbuster The Bodyguard, her ambitions lay behind the cameras.
Pearce said the Princess of Wales, who died in a fatal car accident on Sunday August 31, 1997, saw a move to Malibu, California, as key to working on her screen career.
But he dismissed speculation that his close friend was either pregnant or planning to marry film executive Fayed.
Princess Diana’s voice coach Stewart Pearce tells DailyMail.com Diana planned to take sons William and Harry to the US to pursue a career in Hollywood
Pearce says the plans to move to California came at a time when her romance blossomed with Dodi Fayed. They couple are pictured vacationing in Saint Tropez the year of their death
This is the Dodi Fayed’s Malibu beach home where Princess Diana planned to live but her plans were tragically cut short when she was killed in a car crash in 1997
Pearce, 68, learned of Diana’s production plans during his years as her private voice and presence coach, beginning in 1995.
The coach, who spent time with the mother-of-two just days before her death, aged 36, in a high speed car crash in a Parisian tunnel, revealed: ‘There were a number of major projects brewing in her consciousness through offers that had been offered to her.’
‘But one of the major opportunities that she wanted to create, was to start developing documentaries about three charitable interests that would then be assimilated into major movie pictures,’ he said. ‘She was planning on spending a lot of time in Hollywood.
‘The point was that Diana was really beginning to explore her creative power.’
Pearce (pictured) is breaking his silence about the princess’s plans on the 24th anniversary of her tragic death on August 31, 1997
Pearce added that Diana was consulting with top Hollywood executives and agents about her movie-making ambitions.
‘Everything she did was signed with the autograph of excellence, meaning she consulted the right people,’ he said.
‘It was all about the highest echelon of opinions that could be maintained for the greatest project management.
‘So I know whomever she employed or worked in liaison with it would have been an excellent standard moving towards the possibility of an award winning status. There is no doubt. She was all full of the action of co-creativity.’
It was not just Diana’s Royal fame, which made her a natural fit for the arts world and Hollywood.
‘The creative industries are based on overt communication,’ Pearce said. ‘And she was an ace communicator.
‘One of the things she was able to do was be immediately accessible by something she would say. Obviously her reputation preceded her. She made the first move always. It would be a gentle touch about the way the person looked or dressed; “I love your shoes. Where did you get those?” for example.
‘These immediate touches, which she applied, are so beautifully beguiling and enchanting being expressed through the innocence and fun with her sparkling blue eyes. People felt immediately endeared to her.
‘Communication was always completely overt. She found it very easy to establish contact with major artists.’
Pearce added that Diana had forged a close friendship with Oscar-winning respected British film producer Lord David Puttnam, whose films include The Killing Fields, Midnight Express and Memphis Belle.
Puttnam helped her make top Hollywood contacts. But the princess’s life was tragically cut short before she could meet them, Pearce said.
‘David was advising her about a number of people she was going to be in contact with in the fall of 1997, but unfortunately did not make those meetings,’ he told DailyMail.com.
In the mid 90s, Oscar-winner Costner courted Diana, through her sister-in-law Sarah Ferguson, to star in the follow up to The Bodyguard with Whitney Houston.
Costner revealed he had a phone call with Diana about the project, during which she asked if there would be a ‘kissing scene’.
Actor Kevin Costner courted Diana for a potential sequel to his 1992 blockbuster The Bodyguard, but her ambitions were behind the camera
Pearce was adamant that Diana wanted to be a movie maker, not a movie star. ‘One of the major opportunities that she wanted to create, was to start developing documentaries about three charitable interests,’ Pearce said
However Pearce is adamant that becoming a leading lady was never in her mind.
‘No, no. no. That is something that Diana was not interested in, not at all,’ he told DailyMail.com. ‘You can see how emphatic I am.
‘Although she was an aficionado and keen enthusiast about the performing arts, particularly dance, [acting] was not something she saw as being her new creative trajectory.
Pearce writes about his time with the princess in his book, Diana The Voice of Change
‘I do remember her talking about the whimsy of the wonderful idea of Kevin stepping forward saying we would love to make a movie about you,’ he added.
The revelations about Diana’s Hollywood ambitions come on the 24th anniversary of her death from a car crash in Paris.
Pearce’s claim that she was planning to take her children with her to Los Angeles adds a new perspective to Prince Harry’s move to Southern California with his actress wife, Meghan Markle – suggesting the Duke and Duchess of Sussex could be following in her intended footsteps.
In a 2007 interview with ABC News, Diana’s butler Paul Burrell revealed the princess’ intentions to move to her Fayed’s oceanfront house in Malibu.
‘She said, “This is our new life, just won’t it be great, think of the lifestyle the boys — nobody’s judgmental here in America, you don’t have the class system, you don’t have the establishment.”’
The Tuscan-style villa was formerly owned by Julie Andrews, and was bought by Dodi months before his death alongside Diana in Paris. He was 42.
Pearce was adamant that Diana wanted to be a movie maker rather than a movie star.
‘She would have stayed behind the lens,’ he said.
‘I was very fortunate to attend a number of private parties where we went to theaters.
‘If we went backstage or had dinner afterwards this was something not within her consciousness to become [an actress].’
‘She knew she was much better as a person behind the camera rather than in front of the camera.’
Pearce said that before her death, Diana was heading for Los Angeles with Dodi Fayed at her side. Fayed, who executive-produced Puttnam’s Oscar-winning Chariots of Fire encouraged his new girlfriend to find her voice in documentaries.
‘Diana was who Diana was. It sounds slightly glib, but what I mean is her charm, smile and the way people applied respect towards her, that I feel it would have been a foregone conclusion that she would have found easy access points in major production companies throughout the western seaboard,’ Pearce said.
‘I do not know how serious Dodi was about fulfilling his practice as a producer. These were just possibilities being discussed.
‘I don’t know who she was speaking to. But she asked me: ‘Do you think this is a good idea, and spoke about documentaries and about major movie features.’
Asked if her work would have been Oscar or Emmy worthy, he said: ‘I am sure it would have been very easy for her to gain accomplishments.’
The entrance to the Malibu home Diana hoped to live in is pictured. The late princess saw moving to Southern California as the key to her film career
Pearce’s claim that Diana was planning to take her children with her to Los Angeles adds new perspective to Prince Harry’s move to Southern California with his actress wife, Meghan Markle – suggesting the Duke and Duchess of Sussex could be following in his mother’s planned footsteps
Pearce asserts that divorcee Diana was in the midst of a whirlwind summer romance with Dodi, rather than a woman settled on marrying and starting a new family.
‘It was not in Diana’s mind when I last saw her, which was a week before she went to join Dodi on the yacht, to run off into the horizon with him.
‘She was actually having an amazing time, but there was no intention within her of marrying. She certainly was not pregnant. This was a wonderful opportunity to explore the sybaritic life, of pure luxury and indulgence, because that is what was being offered to her. She felt very safe.
‘They were enjoying each other’s bodies. “The inexorable gentleman,” was the way Diana described him.
‘He was always gracious, courteous, not fawning but kindly. There was a gentleness and fragility and vulnerability that she so enjoyed.’
Diana became close to Pearce when under strict confidentiality he helped perfect her voice, poise and expression from 1995 until her death.
In his book, Diana The Voice of Change, Pearce wrote how the pair refined her voice technically, using mental exercises to improve her confidence, independence and resolve.
Pearce said he is planning to write more about his friend and student.
‘I’m already starting to write the next book, which will be based on Diana’s legacy. So again, the momentum is really moving ahead. I’m absolutely thrilled. I think it’s really amazing that people have found my humble contribution useful.’
Diana The Voice Of Change is available on Amazon and in bookstores now.
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