A Remembrance of Queen Elizabeth II

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Let's partner for all of it. Learn more at edwardjones.com. Good morning. I'm Jane Pauley, and this is Sunday Morning. Dignity and grace. Two words used so often this past week to describe Queen Elizabeth II. As the world mourns her passing at age 96, what a life she lived. Born in the roaring 20s, raised in the Depression. In her teens, she boosted morale during the Second World War. Became queen at age 25. And for the next 70 years, she was the one constant in an ever-changing Great Britain. As the torches passed, this morning we remember Her Majesty the Queen with Lee Cowan. Then tell you about her successor and eldest son with Mark Phillips. And recall a life in full. A monarch devoted to service and duty.

The ceremonies of grief have only just begun. Queen Elizabeth's reign seemed to have no end. So when the end did come, few seemed ready. There was a hope on the part of many people that she really would live forever, but even she couldn't manage that. And then the man who would be king.

That promise of lifelong service I renew to you all today. King Charles III begins his rule, bringing with him a new style and old baggage. Is she an impossible act to follow? In some ways I think she is.

Either way, no one has trained for any job as long as he did. The royal family honors its past and looks to the future, coming up on Sunday morning. Not all of Elizabeth II's loyal subjects are of the human variety.

Some stand on four legs. And as Martha Teichner reminds us, she always stood in their corner. If dogs go to heaven, she is having the best time right now. With all those corgis.

Imagine them all just tumbling out. Dogs and horses. They were what the public saw of the queen's private life.

Walking windows into her true self later this Sunday morning. Every home, large or small, can be someone's castle. Ted Koppel this morning meets some new homeowners building on an act of faith. There was a time when this community was known as the murder capital of the state of New York.

East Brooklyn, New York. Not so very many years ago. So how did it get to this? It's the American dream. Everything changes when you have equity. Communities are able to build wealth. Families are able to build wealth. Life changes intergenerationally. The Nehemiah Project.

Building the American dream from the ground up. Ahead on Sunday morning. Also ahead this morning with Serena Altschul, we'll give a close listen to some fascinating sounds of nature as you've truly never heard them before. But mostly we'll focus on the passing of the torch for the British royal family. Ben Mankiewicz hears from filmmakers and actors including Dame Helen Mirren and John Lithgow about the queen's image on TV and in the movies. Rita Braver talks with Bill Clinton about Elizabeth II's relationships with America's presidents. Mo Rocca highlights some defining moments in the British monarch's life with author Tina Brown. Plus Seth Doan with a history of the House of Windsor and more this Sunday morning for the 11th of September 2022.

And we'll be right back. She truly was one of a kind. Lee Cowan looks back on the extraordinary life and times of Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor. Queen Elizabeth II. A few moments ago Buckingham Palace announced the death of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

Her death even at 96 still came as a seismic shock. Not so much that Queen Elizabeth II was gone but that her decades of stability and continuity were suddenly gone too. There are few alive today who remember a time without Queen Elizabeth. She was there during the Cold War through the age of Twiggy and the Beatles. Through wars in Afghanistan and Iraq she adjusted to social media, she weathered Brexit, she survived Covid. I hope in the years to come everyone will be able to take pride in how they responded to this challenge.

And those who come after us will say the Britons of this generation were as strong as any. In her 70 years on the throne she became one of the most recognizable admired and trusted figures in the world and yet as familiar as she was the Queen was largely unknowable. She had such a level of integrity and affection that many of us felt she really belonged to us and we belonged to her.

Gavin Ashenden was the Queen's chaplain for almost a decade. What was she like in private? Well she was actually an immensely intelligent and astute woman with a very dry wit. She didn't suffer fools gladly and above all was generous. There was no self-absorption about her. While some saw her as aloof, others saw her royal stiff upper lip as simply an outward expression of her role as a constitutional monarch. Having grown up in the Second World War she belonged to a generation which just got on with it. She didn't believe in emoting in public. She didn't believe in complaining in public. That was not ever her style.

Sir David Kennedy is a respected British author and historian. There is something about that mystery of the monarchy that that served her well in a lot of ways. Yes part of her charisma I think in the end derived from the fact that we didn't really know what she thought about most things and that gave her a particular kind of prestige which I think is completely unique. Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor wasn't born to be queen.

It was one of those accidents of history. Her uncle Edward VIII abdicated to marry Wallis Simpson, an American divorcee and that made Elizabeth's father King and her an heir. At only 14 she took to the BBC to address children during World War II. There was a poise, a willing acceptance of her royal duties even then. And at 21, long before she took the throne, she was already publicly pledging her loyalty to the realm. I declare before you all with my whole life whether it be long or short shall be devoted to your service. Madam is your majesty willing to take the oath?

I am willing. She took her vows in public at Westminster Abbey before a global TV audience of millions. Walter Cronkite reporting from London. A decision she made against the advice of her very first prime minister, Winston Churchill. There was a huge sense of euphoria. Perhaps there was a new Elizabethan age about to unfold and it was all terribly joyous and terribly wonderful.

It wasn't always that way of course. Of all her years on the throne, 1992 stood out for all the wrong reasons. The marriages of three of the queen's four children collapsed and a fire tore through historic Windsor Castle. A series of events that led her to speaking about as frankly as she ever did about her innermost thoughts. It has turned out to be an annus horribilis. More recently there were more family difficulties.

Prince Andrew settled a civil lawsuit over allegations that he sexually assaulted a 17 year old girl and Prince Harry and his wife Meghan Markle moved to the states and gave up their royal duties. You could see her hurting when some crisis or other overtook her children or her grandchildren and there wasn't anything she could do about it apart from love them. But of all the tumultuous years, 1997 may have been the worst. The princess who spent her life in the relentless glare of the public eye died. The death of princess Diana in a car crash in Paris was a point at which the queen's role as mother and grandmother clashed with her duties as head of state.

She chose family staying in Scotland at Balmoral Castle to tend to Diana's two children, princes William and Harry. It was a decision some thought made her look out of touch, callous even to the public mourning of mourning of a nation. Under pressure Queen Elizabeth returned to London and gave a rare live address. I for one believe there are lessons to be drawn from her life and from the extraordinary and moving reaction to her death. Her popularity recovered to the point that today most millennials remember nothing of the controversy over Diana's death, only that the queen responded. We realized that she was sort of an eccentric older lady in the style of a lot of other eccentric older ladies who I think millennials have a really particular love for. Erin Vanderhoof, staff writer at Vanity Fair and co-host of the podcast Dynasty, says while the queen may have reacted more to change than actually making change herself, she still became a part of pop culture. The two most famous examples of making her kind of more endearing even to a more counterculture set would be Andy Warhol's paintings of her which are very fun.

And of course God Save the Queen by the Sex Pistols which was banned by the BBC. The older the queen got the more it seemed she was willing to at least bend tradition. In 2009 when first lady Michelle Obama put her arm around the queen, protocol was shattered you just don't touch the monarch. And yet Queen Elizabeth responded by embracing Michelle Obama right back. There are a lot of people who are looking to older women as style inspiration but also life inspiration and she just fits like right in that nexus in a way that a rediscovery of her was kind of inevitable. Tea?

Oh yes please. She seemed more willing to show her sense of humor too. This year she had tea with Paddington Bear, revealing what she'd been carrying around in that ever-present handbag of hers all these years. Paddington's favorite, a marmalade sandwich. I keep mine in here for later.

Thank you for everything. That's very kind. When Prince Philip, the man whom she called her strength and her stay died in 2021, the queen was already slowing down but not much. She still appeared on the balcony this year to commemorate her 70 years of service, the first British monarch to ever celebrate a platinum jubilee.

And just two days before she died she was still carrying out those duties, meeting with Liz Truss at Balmoral, her 15th prime minister. But as much as tradition remains, change is afoot. The royal anthem, it no longer mentions the queen. It's a king's turn to be saved now, the first time in most of his subjects memory. The longest-serving heir apparent in British history is taking his first steps out of the long shadow of his mother's 70-year reign. Mark Phillips assesses the challenges and the promise of the reign of King Charles III. In 1949, Elizabeth proudly presented Prince Charlie to the world. From the moment of his birth there was little mystery as to what life held in store for the then infant prince, now King Charles III. He was the first baby born to a British heir presumptive in a thousand years. This tiny sneezing prince stands next in line of succession after his mother.

That sneeze may have been one of the few things in Charles's life that was unplanned. He was always meant to have an orderly procession to where he finds himself now, even if it all took rather a long time until this. Three cheers for his majesty the king, hip hip, hooray! Hip hip, hooray!

Hip hip, hooray! Charles had what's been called the longest internship in history. In taking up these responsibilities I shall strive to follow the inspiring example I have been set. I think he's going to be the best prepared king this country's ever had, after all he was heir to the throne for longer than anyone else. Robert Hardman's latest book on the royals is Queen of Our Times. I mean the idea you can be an apprentice in your 70s might seem a bit odd in any other job but I mean the fact is he has been preparing for this for a very long time.

But in so far as British monarchs have any real power Charles arrives with a severe handicap. He follows a very successful holder of the job, his mother. Everyone's been talking about how she is going to be a hard act to follow. Is she an impossible act to follow? In some ways I think she is because she became so affectionately familiar for the vast majority of Britons.

Both somehow mystically distant and touchy feely would not be the right word to use about the queen but warm essentially, warm and sympathetic. And Charles says historian Sir Simon Shama has had trouble with the sympathetic thing. The kind of received wisdom about Charles as he very endearingly says he's sometimes seen as an eccentric really.

He's too wrapped up in the passionate principles in which he believes to have this touch for the for ordinary people. The queen's early and frequent use of the crowd walkabout was one way she had of bringing her closer to the people. Well the apprentice seems to have learned from the master.

Charles's first act on returning to London was to work the rope line. He got out of the car and you know and was very warmly received. Turns out he's a natural although it's doubtful this ever happened to his mother. He got less majesty a kiss from someone well actually she said is it all right if I kiss you and he didn't hesitate. You actually can't imagine the queen not hesitating.

So that is a good start I think. Is there a kind though of magical royal fairy dust that that descends at times like this? Yeah you know it's a thousand years of fairy dust. But Charles has another problem unlike his mother people know what he thinks. On modern architecture he hates it. On global warming where he was well ahead of the curve. We cannot be anything less than courageous and revolutionary in our approach to tackling climate change.

You might say the fundamental problem of our moment of the 21st century is the fate of the earth and there he's been asked that for like 30 40 years. Had the queen not lived as long as she did Charles might have had another problem Diana but the ill-starred marriage and the tragic death now seemed like a long time ago. Camilla is now queen consort a title to which the queen had given her blessing. New kings mean new beginnings even between the two sons of the marriage who had publicly fallen out after allegations that Prince Harry's American wife Meghan experienced racism at the palace and the couple moved to California. Yet there were the two princes together with their wives greeting the thousands who had gathered outside Windsor castle. Their grandmother's death and words of reconciliation from the new king seemed to have done what many hoped brought the feuding sons together. I want also to express my love for Harry and Meghan as they continue to build their lives overseas.

This was definitely a kind of outreach to reassemble the family in all its complications. Charles will be a king with a different personality and a different style but some things will likely never change. What about the royal trappings? Could we stand a little less of that perhaps? Each culture needs its dressing up.

Why the hell not? From Balmoral to Buckingham all eyes are on the royal family their crowns and palaces but as we know here in America every man's home is his castle. Senior contributor Ted Koppel has a story about Holmes rising from the ashes in the face of impossible odds. Imagination. You have to imagine something new.

So you had empty lots, abandoned swaths of land and we were able to imagine something else. That's the Reverend David Brawley of Saint Paul Community Baptist Church in East Brooklyn, New York and he's talking about an enterprise that's been 40 years in the making. A lot of his parishioners live in this neighborhood. There was a time when this community was known as the murder capital of the state of New York.

Linger on that for a moment. Live there? People didn't even want to drive through the neighborhood.

It was that unimaginably awful. But in the early 1980s community organizers dreamed up an audacious plan to build privately owned houses to be sold at working-class prices. They took land that nobody wanted and turned it into something highly desirable. They called it the Nehemiah Project.

It got its name from an Old Testament developer, the prophet Nehemiah, who rebuilt the walls around the ancient city of Jerusalem. Equity. Equity.

Right. Equity. When you have a home, that's what you got.

It's the American dream. Everything changes when you have equity. Communities are able to build wealth, families are able to build wealth. Life changes intergenerationally. Here in East Brooklyn, as in many parts of the country, African-American and Latino families faced rampant discrimination, getting affordable financing or even where they could buy property. You're sort of a repository of the history of this community. Yes, I am. Sarah Plowden is a venerated figure at St. Paul's Church holding the honorific title of Queen Mother.

She's been involved with the Nehemiah Project from the beginning when she was a church secretary and her family lived in what used to be called the projects. It was like living with no hope. These kids cannot imagine how bad it was. Well, remind them. I want to forget it. I know you do, but I want you to remember it just for the moment.

Okay. To shut the lights off and the roaches appear. To live with rats and mice.

I don't wish that on nobody. These were neighborhoods you drove through to go someplace else, not any place you wanted to be. Kirk Goodrich grew up in the area to become an affordable housing developer. One, it should be noted, who has helped transform this East Brooklyn neighborhood. This was landfill. Landfill sounds like such a nice, neutral term. What is landfill? Trash dump. Trash dump.

Right. People would come here and dump dead pets, although I didn't see it. I'm sure bodies were, you know, here. But what was also buried under all that rubble and garbage was opportunity. To continue in the struggle. Those community organizers came from local churches and worked with the Industrial Areas Foundation, the engine driving the Nehemiah Project. We came from the struggle.

Are you ready for the resurrection of your community? EBC, East Brooklyn Churches, worked with local people to raise money that could be used for loans. They mobilized the community to put pressure on local politicians. Back then, Ed Koch was the mayor of New York City. You came to a big open meeting, they'd bring in 500 people, they would cheer you, they would boo you, whatever it is to manipulate you.

And the pressure paid off. Koch sold 16 square blocks of New York City property at $1 a lot. And the city provided subsidies. Under a Democrat mayor, surely. But how about this fellow? We're going to make sure that there's enough funding in the budget so that Spring Creek can begin, so that it can begin on time, and so that it won't be interrupted.

That's right. The Republican mayor of New York, Rudy Giuliani. And all the while, East Brooklyn Churches raised millions toward a fund that helped defray costs. I want to go pick me up some of that dirt. Even so, initially, there were very few takers.

When I got to look at the area, though, I was not excited, I'll tell you that. Matilda Dyer, an immigrant from the Caribbean island, Dominica. She worked as a nurse.

Her husband, Clinton, worked as a welder. They were not easily discouraged. It was totally abandoned. It didn't seem possible.

It didn't seem possible that you could have a thriving community of homes. What tipped the scales for Matilda Dyer was that the project was being put together by East Brooklyn Churches. I didn't know all about EBC, but I knew it was churches, and I know if churches, God is in the center. You are describing what is often referred to as an act of faith.

It is. It was faith. And after I stepped forth, three or four of my friends, they put these homes in there. Those first Nehemiah homes cost $40,000. Now, this was almost 40 years ago. For many homeowners, like the Dyer's, the mortgage payments were actually less than the rent they had been paying.

Soon, those Nehemiah homes became so popular that people had to enter lotteries just for the chance of owning a home. People like Sandra and Armando Martinez. He was a political refugee from El Salvador. Both of them were teachers, each working two jobs to raise their two children, whom they helped put through college. 2002, we went to church on a Sunday, like always.

The priest told us that it will be a coupon in the newspaper to apply for affordable houses. And then what happened? Then you waited. And then we waited. How long did before they called you? Five years after. Five years later?

Yes. They pull the number, you move into the house. No, we had the number, so that means we eventually, one day, we'll have a house. I stand as witness. A dream can become a reality. It was a struggle for me to own it, but it was worth it.

Good morning. By the early 1990s, Miss Plowden, who worked at St. Paul's Church, finally could afford to buy a home of her own. How much did you pay for your home? Do you remember?

Yes, I do remember. It was $120,000. And what is your home worth now? Over $500,000.

$100,000. So when you pass on and you leave that to your children, you're leaving an estate. Yes, I am, but I don't intend to leave them a pay-for-house. I intend to enjoy my money and my house.

Message received. All three of Miss Plowden's sons own property of their own. Overall, the Nehemiah Homes have created an estimated $1.5 billion in wealth for first-time Black and Latino homeowners. Here's developer Kirk Goodrich. This is the most consequential, important community development effort in our country, because it was done by one organization over 40-plus years, and they've never stopped.

There are Nehemiah projects at various stages of development around the country. So far, they've built 6,500 homes. The houses are quite literally the foundation, but the owners, says the Reverend Brawley, they're the ones who breathe life into a community. People who are city workers who now own a home, people who have come out of public housing, teachers, law enforcement officers, fire department workers who now own their own homes. And the harder the struggle to get here, the greater the sense of achievement.

It took the Martinez family seven years to get their house. This is our palace, and every day we thank God. We think that every other family should have this opportunity. You can't be what you can't see. Nehemiah, for us, is something for everybody to see.

It is possible. As you like to say in this building, amen. Amen.

Armpits. Also, we're going to get into things that you just kind of won't believe and we're not able to do in daytime television, so watch out. Listen to Drew's News wherever you get your podcasts. It's your good news on the go.

Listen up. Serena Altschul has a story about the sounds that surround us. Along the water's edge, Nikki Lindt patiently waits for her subject to sound. She's here in Long Island City, across the water from Manhattan, for the hum of the ferry. And the wind blowing through the grass. Do people come up to you and just say, what are you doing?

I think people would be more likely if I didn't have my headset on, but sometimes somebody will wait. I can tell. They really want to know, and I love sharing the work. That work is multimedia sound art. Exploring a hidden universe most of us rarely experience, or even think about. Like under a stream. Or in the soil. Underground, it's really resonant. It's almost, I would compare it in a way, to a drum. It just carries sound in this really beautiful, deep, dramatic, mysterious way. Here's what we might typically hear out walking in the woods. And here is what Lindt is able to capture with her subterranean microphones. A tree creaking.

An acorn falling. Just to spend time with a tree and learn this whole other thing about it that I didn't know before, what it sounds like inside, it creates a connection for me. Come rain, sleet, or snow, Lindt records sounds all the time.

Do you still find surprises and things that are unexpected? When I put my microphone under thawing icicles, and they were hitting the ground, it really, really sounds like music. It's got that beat. I was like mesmerized.

She started as a visual artist, and then she started as a visual artist. But during a trip to Alaska four years ago to paint permafrost thawing, her ears perked up. The sounds are almost like meditative, but then at the same time relentless. And you realize what it is, so that's very, very scary. A project starts with a few microphones and a deep-rooted curiosity.

I'm going to be putting a hydrophone in the water in different areas, and you'll hear the difference in the sounds in different parts of the stream. Is this your happy place? Oh, absolutely. It just transports you. You're just not here, and immediately I have to smile.

Yeah, that's how I feel too. We're all interconnected as all kinds of species, and that becomes much more of a And that becomes much more apparent when you slow down and become part of the surrounding around yourself. The excitement and opportunity to... A sentiment Nikki Lindt is hoping to share. From now until next May, visitors to Brooklyn's Prospect Park can tune in to some of her underground recordings taken throughout the seasons here and in other areas of New York as part of a sound walk. The walk is about a mile, and actually here's one of the signs. Oh, nice. How many are there?

There are eight stops along the route. So next time you stop to smell the roses, remember to stop and listen too. Are you always thinking about, wonder what it sounds like under this rock? I wonder what it sounds like inside that tree.

Absolutely. It's completely changed when I walk around and the wind blows and I see a bunch of grasses move in the wind, and it's just so magical. Like there's this whole frontier right under our feet. By some counts over the last 1200 years, there have been more than 60 monarchs in the family of King Charles III. Seth Doane takes a short look at their very long and colorful history.

These rituals of mourning tie in traditions which date back centuries. A royal reminder of this family's thousand-plus year history. You have pictures of you with the Queen around us here.

I do. I'm not unique in that if there's a picture of you with the Queen, you tend to have it around. Hugo Vickers met the Queen around 40 times. He's one of the preeminent biographers of the royal family. This is the family tree. Yes.

It's quite extraordinary. The crown passes down the line, sideways, up and down, but it gets there in the end, doesn't it? The royal family here in the UK is also connected by blood to other royal families across Europe.

Pretty much all of them, yes. Is there a first king of England or the United Kingdom? Alfred the Great, which springs to mind.

Alfred the Great fought the Vikings and was the great-great-great, say it 32 times, grandfather of Queen Elizabeth II. She's part of the House of Windsor, which followed other houses, including York, Tudor and Stuart. What is a house within the same family?

When the daughter marries, the man gives his name to the house, usually. In 10-plus centuries, there's plenty of family drama. The War of the Roses pitted factions of the family against each other, and Henry VIII had six wives, two divorced, two beheaded.

When you look back, there were a lot of sorted details. Well, I think if you look back at a lot of families, you might find a lot of sorted details. But when you're royal, family politics is geopolitics. In the First World War, the Kaiser was the grandson of Queen Victoria, and he's on one side, and George V was also a grandson of Queen Victoria on another side. The House of Windsor had been the house of Saxe-Coburg-Gurtha until World War I, when King George V decided to distance his family from that German-sounding name and take one that was more English, Windsor, named after this castle and its town. Windsor Castle, Hugo Vicker says, runs through the fabric of British history, much like the family of the Queen he so admires.

There's a wonderful thread of continuity. We're jolly lucky to have had a head of state like the one we've just lost. What country wouldn't have liked to have had our Queen as head of state? As Queen, she was credited with stabilizing and modernizing the monarchy. For future sovereigns, that's both an inheritance and a challenge.

When you no longer understand your people, Mummy, maybe it is time to hand it over to the next generation. In countless movies and TV shows about the Queen, it's a lingering question. Who was she, really?

Ben Mankiewicz is our man in Hollywood. We're going out incognito. Does the tiara rather give the game away, ma'am?

Yes. There's the playful princess. The restrained ruler. I am protecting the Constitution. I am protecting democracy. And the Queen with a quick and biting wit.

You obviously know my job better than I do. Yes, well, you are my tenth Prime Minister, Mr. Blair. For seven decades, the Queen was the face of Great Britain. But that face betrayed little, making her an ideal canvas for actresses playing her on the screen, both big and small. You know, she's such a great subject for filmmakers and television directors, because what they've got is a blank slate waving to the public.

Ella Taylor is a longtime film critic and an adjunct professor at the USC School of Cinematic Arts. She gave away nothing of her real personality in life. I don't think any of us knows anything about the Queen.

Her job was to follow protocol in public, and that's an absolute bonanza, because they can just go nuts with it. There, grief. If you imagine, I'm going to drop everything and come down to London before I attend to my grandchildren who've just lost their mother.

Then you're mistaken. Dame Helen Mirren seized that blank canvas and ran off with an Oscar for playing Elizabeth in The Queen from 2006. In a Sunday morning interview in 2015, Mirren told Lee Cowan her inspiration wasn't real life, but her own imagination. I'm just doing a portrait. It happens to be a portrait on film, but it's a portrait.

It's not her. It's our understanding of her. And when you're an artist, you are in there. You can't not be in there.

So I thought that was an acceptable way to approach it. Met the Queen, as I understand it now. What was that like? Did she? I got made to what we call Queen-itis, which is when you see the Queen, you just become this babbling idiot.

You start sort of saying things like, it was such fun, wasn't it? On the Emmy Award-winning Netflix series The Crown, there are three versions of Elizabeth. Claire Foy as the young Royal Highness.

Olivia Colman, who we were on set with in 2019, captures the Queen in monarchical middle age. Now, much more importantly, who is Billy Joel? Billy Joel. Oh, Joel? Who is uptown go?

What are you talking about? I'm delighted to be here, inheriting the role of Queen Elizabeth from two outstanding actresses. Next season, Elizabeth will be played by Imelda Staunton. Hopefully, I look calm, collected and capable.

My stomach, meanwhile, is doing somersaults. I never got to meet the Queen, and I always wished I had had that experience. John Lithgow won an Emmy for The Crown, playing Winston Churchill opposite Claire Foy. Your Majesty. Claire Foy is a wonderful actress. She brought youth.

She brought this wonderful, tremulous trepidation. Very well, I will discuss it with cabinet. No.

No, you will inform the cabinet, Prime Minister. The scenes between Claire and me were gradually seeing her assert her authority over him. I would ask you to consider your response in light of the respect that my rank and my office deserve, not that which my age and gender might suggest. And so it became a very particular kind of family drama. And who knows, maybe it's accurate.

I don't mean that life shouldn't be agreeable, but we can't possibly all be happy all of the time. So many good actresses have played Elizabeth. Emma Thompson. Your Majesty.

Mr Cameron. Kristen Scott Thomas. Extraordinary. Yes.

Never seen anything like it. Sarah Gadden in the romantic comedy A Royal Night Out. Price, you may be a captain, but I am a princess. And the Queen has been fodder for comedy, too. On The Simpsons. The Queen's in trouble.

Saturday Night Live. You think if you just like show up and take over, yeah, do a bit of Queening and that, right? And multiple times by British actress Jeanette Charles, most notably in The Naked Gun. She came across so adorably. With the Queen of England ready to toss out the first ball. And the commentator says, how about the Queen?

Which only an American could pull off. Four-time Oscar-nominated actress Jane Alexander played Elizabeth in a Hallmark TV movie. I have been a lifelong devotee of Elizabeth from the time she was a princess in World War II.

Alexander's father was a doctor serving in London during the blitz. And later in France, after the invasion of Normandy, a teenaged Elizabeth, she says, inspired young people in Britain and America to support the war effort. My mom would say, come, Jane, the princesses are on. And you'd hear these little high voices talking like this. It will be for us, the children of today, to make the world of tomorrow a better and happier place. And they were talking about the war effort and what we could do as children.

And it really inspired those of us in that household. As I spoke to Jane on Thursday, producer Gabe Falcon interrupted with news that it was official. The Queen had died. How do you react to that news that she's passed right in the middle of our conversation? I'm sorry, Ben. I'm sorry.

No, it's all right. It's really the end of an incredible person for me, for all of us, for so many who have followed her all her life. She just meant a lot to me in terms of who you could be if you set out to be.

Always a mistake to assume just because people are privileged, they lack grit. Though Elizabeth is gone, these performances live on. There is no possibility of my forgiving you.

The question is, how on earth can you forgive yourself? And that, says John Lithgow, will only cement her legacy. I think that's the magic. Whether it was an extreme version of shyness or just the wisdom and self-knowledge of knowing this is my role. And it's a very veiled role.

Veiled role. We just cannot know her, but we really miss her. Seventy years is a long time.

Even so, there are moments, Mo Rocca tells us, that can't be forgotten. He's talking with author Tina Brown. The Queen had a wonderfully dry and ironic sense of humor. As dry as a James Bond martini, says CBS News contributor and author of the Palace Papers, Tina Brown. During the opening ceremonies of the 2012 Olympics in London, Her Majesty stole the show opposite Daniel Craig's 007.

Good evening, Bond. Her whole family were kept out of the secret and were astonished when they saw the Queen, as it seemed, descending from a parachute of the stadium. And Prince William and Harry were heard to shout, go granny, go! Yeah, and I think you wrote that she actually said, I think I should have a line in this.

That's exactly right. She really got into it. The Queen was a great performer, is the truth, by that time. She was a natural. She spent all her life on stage and she obviously thoroughly enjoyed thespian moments. Always acting the part, though never acting out.

The Queen came from the tradition espoused by her grandmother, Queen Mary, who famously said, we are the royal family. We're never tired and we all love hospitals. Such a great quote. Smiling through maximum discomfort is their most priceless skill.

That is exactly right. The Queen never portrayed how she was feeling at any point. Did not betray fatigue, irritation, or actually even enjoyment, really. Her poker face was a strategic device, essentially. You know, I'm wondering, for someone who never gave an interview, who never really expressed a political opinion, why do so many of us feel close to her?

The Queen's mystique was really created by the fact that we never knew what she thought about anything. But her reassuring presence at every moment of our lives, in expressions of national joy, expressions of national anxiety, she has been there as the matriarch, essentially, of the nation. The only kind of recognizable, familiar, encouraging thing in a very, very turbulent world. I'm speaking to you at what I know is an increasingly challenging time. It's difficult to imagine anyone else addressing a global audience, as she did in April 2020, with the same bedside manner. Together we are tackling this disease, and I want to reassure you that if we remain united and resolute, then we will overcome it.

She clearly felt that it was her role to be the comforter-in-chief and allay the tremendous anxieties of her people in the darkest days of the pandemic. And the address that she made from Windsor Castle was enormously moving, because she ended it by saying, we will meet again, which evoked World War II. We will be with our friends again. We will be with our families again.

We will meet again. And the British people were consoled. You know, it's interesting, though, because she could evoke history and never sound fusty about it, right? Well, because the Queen was history. She had a personal recollection of every single meaningful figure of the 20th and early 21st century.

So this wasn't history, this was just personal recollection. While she seemed unflappable to the public, at home, her concerns could be refreshingly relatable. I talked to a woman who had been a girlfriend of Prince Charles, who was at Windsor Castle one weekend, and the Queen apparently was extremely flustered about being overcharged on her heating bill. And this was a person who still would walk through the castle at night, turning off the lights if she thought that they had been left on rather wantonly. She was known to return lemon slices back on the tea tray if they hadn't been used. Where do you think the frugality came from? The Queen's frugality was part of the ethic of World War II and its rationing. She was always very, very careful when it came to spending, as was Prince Philip, who once sent a 45-year-old pair of trousers to be tailored.

Because he felt there was still use there for him. When it came to matters of state, she almost always got it right. In 2011, she became the first British monarch to visit Ireland since the country's independence from Great Britain. She was going there to show the pageantry of detente, and she spoke what became iconic words at the state banquet when she spoke of the need for reconciliation and said, we must bow to the past, but not be bound by it. So it wasn't a formal apology. The Queen doesn't do apologies, she does regret.

We can all see things which we would wish had been done differently. David Cameron, the Prime Minister at the time, said every one of her well-chosen words healed a wound of history. To use a modern expression she might not have, Elizabeth II understood the assignment. Her longevity gave her a remarkable perspective, but she always took the long view. And in fact, even as a very young girl, her serious-mindedness was noted by everybody. The monarchy was incredibly lucky that it is she who inherited the throne, because temperamentally she actually was in tune with the job at hand.

They were a constant throughout the lifetime of Queen Elizabeth II. Martha Teichner takes a closer look at her many four-legged friends. You've seen it.

900 million other people have seen it. The part of the opening ceremonies for the 2012 Olympics in which 007 is upstaged by the Queen's corgis at Buckingham Palace. From the age of seven until the day she died, the Queen had corgis. The first corgi was named Dukie. Michael Joseph Gross is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and is writing a book about the Queen and her corgis. Was there a consistent pattern of corgi PR, corgi diplomacy?

I would call it less a consistent pattern than a regular through line. In 1936, when Princess Elizabeth was 10 and Princess Margaret was six, this book came out. A publicity triumph meant to soften a PR disaster for the royal family. The abdication of King Edward VIII to marry American divorcee, Wallace Simpson. I think it's important when we talk about the dogs as publicity, never to forget that at the same time that they were very consciously being used as props, it doesn't discount the fact that these were very real and very deep relationships. What did the public see? They got to see her humanity. They got to see her heart without her opening herself up. Her dog Susan was an 18th birthday present. Fourteen generations of the Queen's corgis were bred from her. Susan went along with her on her honeymoon. Really, truly?

That's right, that's right. When she and Philip rode in the carriage to the train station to go up for the honeymoon and the newspaper reporters of the time said that she stole the show. The Queen had more than 30 Pembroke Welsh Corgis over her lifetime, plus a number of Dorgis.

Corgis crossed with Dachshunds. She was known to breed her dogs in bad times when she needed puppies to cheer her up. Her horses were all about good times.

And racing is tremendously exciting, especially when it's a win. Journalist Julian Muscat has written extensively about the Queen's love of horses. The horse is inextricably linked with the royal household and has been for centuries.

The Queen is generally acknowledged to be the most knowledgeable of all the British monarchs we've ever had. She was practically born on a horse. For decades, she marked many ceremonial occasions on horseback. Her breeding and racing operation was no passive hobby. It was a multi-million dollar business she paid for out of her own pocket. Her last winner, two days before she died, a horse named Love Affairs. How many winners do you think she may have had?

More than 1,800. Wow. Wow. And you saw whenever she went racing to watch her horses run, the joy she took from that experience. And it was a pleasure to behold her pleasure. A pleasure she allowed herself to show. Watch when her horse Estimate, when the Gold Cup Royal Ascot in 2013, A royal win in the Gold Cup.

Estimate has done it. It was a fantastic occasion, an unforgettable day. Everybody was ecstatic.

Look at the delight there, the sheer joy, magnificent scenes. The Queen's face says it all. What was won and now what has been lost. During her reign, the Queen met with every sitting president, but Lyndon Johnson. Rita Braver talks with one of those presidents who has never forgotten the experience. It was wise not to underestimate her. She was a smart person. She knew what she was doing. And she believed that the life she had devoted to preserving the British monarchy was not a wasted life.

Former President Bill Clinton, like almost every other president since Dwight Eisenhower, Thank you very much for coming to us. made it a point to see and be seen with Queen Elizabeth. Why did American presidents time after time carve out time to do this, to meet with someone who really didn't have any actual power?

Someone who really didn't have any actual power. You do it the first time because it's a show of respect to the country. You do it the second or third time, as I did, either because she wants to do it and invites you, or because you got something out of it. And I gained a much keener insight into the whole culture of the country. Mr. Clinton told us that during their very first meetings at a 1994 British state dinner and a ceremony marking the 50th anniversary of D-Day, he was impressed by the Queen's curiosity. What did she want to know about, like policy questions?

She wanted to know about what was going on in America, how we were dealing with the economic travails we'd been through for the last few years. If she hadn't been born into royalty, I think she might have made it on her own as a distinguished politician or diplomat. When you are about to meet with the Queen, is there a whole list of instructions that you get? Yes, you're supposed to say your majesty no matter what. And you're not supposed to have physical contact? No, no, not unless she invites it.

If she sticks her hand out, you're supposed to shake her hand. Over the years, there were some amusing moments. When President Ford danced with the Queen, the Marine Band just happened to play The Lady is a Tramp. She certainly knew how to get a laugh out of Ronald Reagan. President George W. Bush almost aged the Queen by 200 years. You helped our nation celebrate its bicentennial in 1976. But the next day, she came right back. I wondered whether I should stop this toast saying, when I was here in 1776.

But while 13 presidents came and went, the Queen endured. Is there something she said to you that you particularly remember? There's one thing, but I can't really, still, it's inappropriate to reveal.

Oh, come on. Let's just say this, if she trusted you, not to say what she said, she would occasionally say something to remind you that she was all business. When I said something that I meant to be supportive, but she may have thought was a tad patronizing, and it was the effect of what she said, it was the effect of what she said. But she may have thought was a tad patronizing, and it was the effect of what she said was, yes, I quite understand that.

That's why I'm doing what I'm doing the way I'm doing it. And I loved it. I just loved it. I thought she was a very special person. I think a lot of Americans have just almost seen her as a cutout figure. You're saying she was a heck of a woman. She was an amazing woman. When her own marriage had problems, she felt pain. When her children were troubled, it bothered her as a mother and as the representative of the country in terms of what it would do to the crown. I'm telling you, she knew that her job was to keep the United Kingdom united, to keep the United Kingdom on track with America. There's something to be said for someone who wants to keep the show on the road, and Queen Elizabeth did, and by and large, she succeeded, often against all the odds. Thank you for listening.

Please join us when our trumpet sounds again next Sunday morning. The United States put our mind to something we can usually figure it out. What people are saying and what we kind of know analytically and empirically is our strategic situation, our military situation is not being matched up with what we're doing.