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Phil Ramone is very special. Barbra Streisand or Diana Ross... they are the best.
First, I want to pay tribute to Diana myself. She was an exceptional and gifted human being. In good times and bad, she never lost her capacity to smile and laugh, nor to inspire others with her warmth and kindness. I admired and respected her - for her energy and commitment to others, and especially for her devotion to her two boys.
Like Andy Warhol and unlike God Almighty, Larry King does not presume to judge; all celebrities are equal in his eyes, saints and sinners alike sharing the same 'Love Boat' voyage into the dark beyond, a former sitcom star as deserving of pious send-off as Princess Diana.
With the '60s era and Motown, my grandparents actually introduced us to that when I was younger, so I grew up listening to the Jackson Five, Aretha Franklin, The Temptations, The Supremes and Diana Ross' solo stuff. I just loved it.
There's always a sense of tragedy with icons. It happened to both the Princess of Wales and Diana Dors. A lot of people had grown up with them, and everybody loved them. Then, when they had at last found happiness, they were taken in the most dreadful way.
It was in August or September of 1995 that I met Diana, Princess of Wales. Diana and I met through Oonagh Toffolo, whose husband was recovering from heart surgery at the Royal Brompton. At the time, I was working for Professor Yacoub, the heart surgeon, and Mr. Toffolo was one of his patients, so I was involved in his medical treatment and care.
When Princess Diana got married, I was a very little kid, I think. I remember her dress, and I found the dress amazing when I was a kid.
Diana and I had a very good relationship with no personal problems. The only problem we did have was with the media, and the only place we could have any real privacy was at Kensington Palace, as they could not get to us there.
That to me was the most poignant part of Diana's wedding; as she was walking up the aisle and her eyes were going left to right, looking at people and smiling in the way that Diana did - and that diamond tiara glittering like mad. It was great.
I starred in a Broadway play that was Sidney Poitier's first directing job and the cast was Lou Gossett, Cicely Tyson, Diana Ladd and I played a Jewish kid who offered himself as a slave to two Columbia University students as reparations.