By E. Graydon Carter

In the modern Grimm idiom, all storybook romances make hot story properties. So, well ahead of a real-life heir, a script has been conceived and delivered, and filming has begun, on Charles and Diana: A Royal Romance, a two-hour movie to be aired by CBS later this year. Since most of the authentic locales for the tale (places like Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle) are currently occupied and unavailable for film production, the movie is being shot in the mansions of Long Island, Connecticut and upstate New York. Prince Charles is portrayed by Christopher Baines, a British stage actor, and Diana is played by Model Catherine Oxenberg, 20. Though Romance marks Oxenberg's acting debut, she is not unfamiliar with the privileges of the privileged classes. Related to both Charles and Prince Philip, Catherine is the daughter of Princess Elizabeth of Yugoslavia, the grandniece of the late Princess Marina of Greece (who later became the Duchess of Kent), and a cousin of Queen Sofia of Spain. How's that for precision Di casting?

Dating back through 227 years of impeccably correct regimental rites, Trooping the Color is the celebration of the British monarch's official birthday. This year's ceremony fell victim to an even older tradition: that ineffable rite of a British spring, stormy weather. As Queen Elizabeth II, now 56, prepared to take the salute from the Brigade of Guards--their numbers depleted in service to Her Majesty in the South Atlantic--the skies opened up. The Queen's rain was mercifully short, and while it fell, Elizabeth valiantly attempted to maintain a regal posture. But as the downpour quickened, she dropped--just for a moment, mind you--her traditionally unflappable composure. Her grimace bespoke the self-evident plea: a brolly! A brolly! My kingdom for a brolly!

Our story begins in Boston, nearly 60 years ago, with a high school girl. "I took all sorts of jobs to earn money," she remembers. "I was asked to pose for a statue of Spring, for a fountain." The lass obliged, in the buff. "It was lovely, beautiful. I had the perfect figure for it," she says. The leaves of the calendar tumble to reveal the present. The young lady, now at the other end of life, is Bette Davis, 74, and she is playing Alice Vanderbilt, the imperious matriarch of that gilded clan in Little Gloria . . . Happy at Last, an NBC mini-series for next season. In an interview with Playboy magazine, the actress recalls the result of her long ago stint as statuary inspiration: "I've heard it's still up there in a park some place, though I've never seen it since." The scene now shifts back to Boston, where Davis' comments spark a two-week, citywide search for the statue. Finally, Cornelius Vermeule, curator of classical art at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, pieces together the available clues and concludes that the lost relic is in a seldom-trod corner in the museum's basement. The subject of the fuss, a 92-in. bronze statue titled Young Diana, is a rendering of a somewhat androgynous-looking nymph. Vermeule's professional opinion: "There is indeed a strong resemblance--her profile, the contours of her face, and her eyes." The votes as to the statue's authenticity roll in. There are those who gallantly doubt that this slip of a girl could be she, but so far it seems that the Bette Davis ayes have it.

--By E. Graydon Carter

On the Record

Muhammad Ali, 40, on Elizabeth Taylor, 50: "She's even more famous than me. But then she's been at it much, much longer."

William Jovanovich, 62, on moving his publishing company to Florida from Manhattan: "It will simply mean that more Americans are hired rather than more New Yorkers."

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