Commemorating the Queen on Screen

As Britain bids farewell to its longest-serving monarch, Cinema Paradiso looks back on how Queen Elizabeth II has been portrayed in films and on television.

Princess Elizabeth Alexandra Mary of York was born in London on 21 April 1926. Some of the newsreels that captured her childhood can be found on the BFI collection, A Royal Occasion: From Queen Victoria to Elizabeth II (2012). As she was not expecting to become queen, Lilibet, as she was known within the Royal Family enjoyed a cosy childhood with her parents and sister, Princess Margaret Rose.

Home movies from this period have recently been included in such Platinum Jubilee documentaries as Simon Finch's The Unseen Queen and Roger Michell's Elizabeth: A Portrait in Part (s) (both 2022). But the young princess suddenly found herself in line to the throne during the Abdication Crisis of 1936.

A Queen in Waiting

Following the death of her grandfather, George V, Elizabeth's uncle ascended the throne as Edward VIII. However, his love for American divorcée, Wallis Simpson, prompted him to renounce the crown in December 1936 and Elizabeth's father became King George VI and her mother became Queen Elizabeth. Naomi Martin and Elisabeth Dermot Walsh played Princess Elizabeth in Giles Foster's Bertie and Elizabeth (2002), although she isn't seen in either David Moore's Wallis and Edward (2005) or Madonna's W.E. (2011), which also examine the crown's gravest crisis in modern times.

The events leading up to George VI's coronation in 1937 are outlined in Tom Hooper's The King's Speech (2010), which earned Colin Firth an Oscar and Helena Bonham Carter a Best Supporting nomination and a BAFTA for their performances. Freya Wilson and Ramona Marquez shared scenes as Elizabeth and Margaret in this fine film. But Sarah Gadon and Bel Powley were much more in the forefront of Julian Jarrold's A Royal Night Out (2015), as the teenage princesses seek to persuade their parents (Rupert Everett and Emily Watson) to allow them to celebrate VE Day at the end of the Second World War with the crowds around Buckingham Palace.

By May 1945, Elizabeth had already fallen in love with dashing naval officer, Philip Mountbatten. Their marriage in November 1947 relieved the gloom of the postwar period of austerity and it retains its lustre in

Castleton Knight's The Royal Wedding in Colour (1947). Knight would also be entrusted with filming events at Westminster Abbey in June 1953, after the 25 year-old Princess Elizabeth had unexpectedly succeeded her father in February 1952. Laurence Olivier narrated A Queen Is Crowned (1953), which provided a ravishing record of what many in the country had witnessed on tiny black-and-white television sets.

Knight's Technicolor footage is available in The Queen's Coronation: Behind Closed Doors (2008) and The Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II (2012). These are just some of the documentaries available from Cinema Paradiso that chronicle the Queen's reign, along with Our Queen (2013), Prince Philip: The Plot to Make a King (2015), Elizabeth At 90: A Family Tribute (2016), The Royal House of Windsor (2017), and Elizabeth and Margaret: Love and Loyalty (2020).

In Person and Impersonated

Such was the respect shown for the young queen that she wasn't depicted on screen for the first 19 years of her reign. By then, she was the mother of four children, who had all appeared with their parents in the groundbreaking BBC documentary, Royal Family (1969), which was directed by Antony Jay, who would go on to co-write Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister (1980-88).

Some were concerned that this look behind the scenes had diminished the mystique of the monarchy, even though the Queen largely kept her counsel outside of her annual Christmas broadcasts for much of the next 53 years. In the interim, however, Elizabeth II was portrayed in over 100 films and TV programmes. Amusingly, the first person to play her on screen was Steven Walden, who dragged up for Milton Miron's Tricia's Wedding (1971), an X-rated Cockettes spoof about the nuptials of President Richard Nixon's elder daughter.

Next in line was French actress Huguette Funfrock, who co-starred with Les Charlots and Mickey Rooney in Yvan Chiffe's James Bond lampoon, From Hong Kong With Love (1975), as well as appearing in Claude Vital's Les Temps des vacances (1979), Christian Gion's The Heartbreaker (1983) and Tsui Hark's Aces Go Places 3 (1984). Canadian Carolyn Enid Sadowska has also taken the role on four occasions, with a pair of canine comedies - Philip Spink's The Duke (1999) and Robert Vince's Space Buddies (2009) - coming between Steven Hilliard Stern's The Women of Windsor (1992) and Rohit Jugraj's comedy Sardaarji (2015), which became the biggest hit in Punjabi screen history.

The actress who has played Queen Elizabeth on the most occasions, however, is Jeannette Charles, who was born in Bedfordshire 18 months after her dopplegänger. Spike Milligan was the first to use her, in eight episodes (between 1975-80) of his BBC series, Q. (1969-82). But Charles didn't get off to an auspicious cinematic start, as Alan Vydra's Born Erect, Morton Lewis's Secrets of a Superstud and Frank Agrama's Queen Kong (all 1976) were all softcore comedies.

Monty Python alumnus Eric Idle cast Charles as 'Her Dummy Royal Highness' in Gary Weis's Beatles spoof, The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash (1978), while she graced the Royal Command Performance episode of Not the Nine O'Clock News (1980), which was co-scripted by Richard Curtis. Further big-screen cameos followed in Amy Heckerling's National Lampoon's European Vacation (1985) and Jay Roach's Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002). But her most memorable outing came in David Zucker's The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988), when she was saved from a potential assassin in the most undignified manner by Detective Frank Drebin (Leslie Nielsen).

Not every film-maker wanted a comic lookalike, however, especially when they were making teleplays about the marriages of two of Her Majesty's sons. Dana Wynter took the role in The Royal Romance of Charles and Diana (1982), which co-starred Olivia De Havilland as the Queen Mother. Margaret Tyzack took over for James Goldstone's Charles & Diana: A Royal Love Story (1982), which featured Christopher Lee as Prince Philip, before she was succeeded by Amanda Walker in John Power's Charles and Diana: Unhappily Ever After (1992), Anne Stallybrass in Kevin Connor's Diana: Her True Story (1993), and Stella McCusker in David Blair's Whatever Love Means (2005).

Iris Russell inherited the part for Michael Switzer's Fergie & Andrew: Behind the Palace Doors (1992) before the focus moved on a generation and Jane Alexander contributed an assured turn to Linda Yellen and Christopher Momenee's William & Catherine: A Royal Romance (2011). This was followed by Maggie Sullivan playing the monarch in Menhaj Huda's trilogy, Harry & Meghan: A Royal Romance (2018), Harry & Meghan: Becoming Royal (2019), and Harry & Meghan: Escaping the Palace (2021).

No one came close to Helen Mirren, however, who won the Academy Award and the BAFTA for Best Actress for her insightful performance in Stephen Frears's The Queen (2006). She reprised the role in Peter Morgan's National Theatre play, The Audience (2013), which focussed on the weekly meetings between the sovereign and her prime ministers and earned Mirren an Olivier, a Tony, and a Drama Desk award before Kristin Scott Thomas stepped in for the 2015 revival.

Several pretenders to the throne emerged in the Channel 4 docudrama, The Queen, which was transmitted over five consecutive nights in November 2009. Emilia Fox ('Margaret'), Samantha Bond ('Us and Them'), Susan Jameson ('The Rivals'), Barbara Flynn ('The Enemy Within'), and Diana Quick ('How Do You Solve a Problem Like Camilla?') played Queen Elizabeth at five turning points in her reign and set a clear example for a certain Netflix series to come.

Queen of All She Surveys

While the Queen has been centre stage in several of the films made during her reign, she has also had to be content with the odd bit part. Given her status, these cameos often come as a surprise, as is the case with the appearances of Alison McGuire in David S. Ward's King Ralph (1991) and Peter Howitt's Johnny English (2003), Margaret Eggleton-Kaye in Alex Zamm's The Pooch and the Pauper (1999), Rachel Wallis in Mark J. Gordon's Her Majesty (2001), Jeanette Vane in Mark Mylod's Ali G Indahouse: The Movie (2002), and Elizabeth Richard in Buzz Feitshans's IV's Never Say Never Mind: The Swedish Bikini Team (2001), Roland Emmerich's 2012 (2009), and Dennie Gordon's What a Girl Wants (2003).

The latter is particularly intriguing, as the father of the American teenager (Amanda Bynes) intent on meeting the Queen is none other than Colin Firth, who would find his way back to Buckingham Palace a few years later. This royal residence also has a key role to play in the animated and live-action versions of an enduringly popular Roald Dahl tale. Angela Thorne voices the monarch welcoming Sophie (Amanda Root) and the Big Friendly Giant (David Jason) in Brian Cosgrove's The BFG (1989), while Penelope Wilton did the honours for Ruby Barnhilll and Mark Rylance in Steven Spielberg's The BFG (2016).

While these are firm family favourites, Elizabeth II has bestowed her presence on more obscure titles, such as Stuart M. Pepper's Royal Faceoff (2006), in which an American girl vows to remove the likeness of the Queen (Lesley Staples) from the world's banknotes, and Tigran Keosayan's Rabbit Over the Void (2006), which sees Her Majesty (Elena Safonova) attend a wedding on the Russian steppe. All of which makes Neve Campbell's antics in Peter Richardson's Churchill: The Hollywood Years (2004) all the more plausible. Or Not. And the same goes for Samantha Bond's plight in Dan Zeff's The Queen and I (2018), an adaptation of Sue Townsend's 1992 novel that dispatches the Royal Family to a council house on Hellebore Close after they are ousted by the People's Republican Party.

National treasures Joanna Lumley and Jennifer Saunders respectively have a bit of crown trouble in Matt Lipsey's Gangsta Granny (2013) and Kyle Balda and Pierre Coffin's Minions (2015). In the former, the Queen comes to the White Tower to pardon Ben (Reece Buttery) and Granny (Julia McKenzie) for trying to steal the Crown Jewels, while the latter sees the sovereign surrender the crown after Bob pulls Excalibur from a stone after she had prevented Stuart from stealing it during a breakneck carriage chase. Speaking of unwanted intrusions, Michael Fagan (Eddie Marsan) is gently shown the error of his ways in Jeremy Brock's Walking the Dogs (2012), a Sky Arts short about an infamous 1982 breach of Palace security that left Queen Elizabeth (Emma Thompson) alone in her bedroom with an interloper. However, she keeps calm and not only carries on, but also reminds her late-night guest that 'We are all unique, but we're all part of something bigger.'

There's more animated mayhem in Ben Stassen and Vincent Kesteloot's The Queen's Corgi (2009), a Belgian CGI saga in which Elizabeth II (respectively voiced in the UK and US versions by Julie Walters and Mari Devon) loses her favourite pet, Rex (Jack Whitehall), during a visit by Donald and Melania Trump. Cartoon Queens also found their way into six episodes of The Simpsons (1989-) and 'Family Guy Viewer Mail #2', a Season 10 episode of Family Guy (1999-) that boasts Cate Blanchett as the voice of the Queen. Unlike these long-running shows, The Prince (2021) was cancelled after a single season on HBO Max, even though Frances de la Tour amused as the great-grandmother keeping a watchful eye on the rebellious Prince George.

While they savaged just about everyone else in the kingdom (and beyond), the satirists and puppeteers behind Spitting Image (1984-96; 2020-21) went easy (ish) on Queen Elizabeth, who was voiced in 92 episodes by Kate Robbins and in a further 27 by Jan Ravens. The monarch and her consort were conspicuous by their absence, however, from The Windsors (2017-20).

Australian audiences would also have been familiar with Gerry Connolly, who has been uncanny impersonating Her Majesty since 1988, even reaching the semi-finals of Britain's Got Talent in 2019. Connolly's creditable display contrasts starkly with that of a Broadway's grande dame in one of the most misjudged musicals of recent times. Judy Kaye might have won two Tonys in her career, but they couldn't save her from the ignominy of garnering the Golden Raspberry for Worst Supporting Actress for her turn as Queen Elizabeth in Christopher Ashley's filmed record of the critically mauled stage show, Diana (2021).

Starting in the eleventh year of the Second Elizabethan Age, Doctor Who (1963-) has twice found room for guest appearances by the reigning monarch. An uncredited Mary Reynolds can be seen walking her corgis in Windsor Castle while the Seventh Doctor (Sylvester McCoy) takes a break from combatting Nazis and Cybermen in 'Silver Nemesis', a 1988 two-parter designed to mark the show's Silver Jubilee. In the guise of Jessica Martin, the Queen would also encounter the Tenth Doctor (David Tennant) in the 2007 storyline, 'Voyage of the Damned', which sees the Time Lord stop the spaceship 'Titanic' from crash-landing on Buckingham Palace.

The Queen's Gallery provides the setting for John Schlesinger's A Question of Attribution (1991), which is available to rent from Cinema Paradiso as part of the 2009 Alan Bennett At the BBC collection. Prunella Scales excels as Her Majesty giving art expert Sir Anthony Blunt (James Fox) a lesson in dealing with fakes and Rosemary Leach is equally astute in James Kent's Margaret (2009), as the Queen gives Margaret Thatcher (Lindsay Duncan) the benefit of her advice in a BBC drama that prompted a response from the Palace to the suggestion that the prime minister had been encouraged to resign during an audience. 'We never discuss anything,' a statement read, 'regarding meetings that the Queen has with any of her prime ministers.'

According to Matt Smith, the Queen watched The Crown (2016-), while the Duke of Edinburgh (whom he played) most certainly did not.

Claire Foy essayed the young Elizabeth II in the first two seasons of the Netflix series devised by Peter Morgan before handing over the reins to Olivia Colman. Sadly, the late monarch won't get to see Imelda Staunton's interpretation in the final two seasons. But Her Majesty may well have seen both Staunton and Colman play her mother in Tim Fywell's Cambridge Spies (2003) and Roger Michell's Hyde Park on Hudson (2012).

The last actress to play the Queen during her lifetime was Stella Gonet in Pablo Larraín's Spencer (2021). However, most will agree that the nation's two favourite Windsor whimsies proved so memorable because the Queen played herself. Having greeted James Bond (Daniel Craig) at Buckingham Palace, she required a little help from skydiving stunt double Gary Connery) to make her stunning entrance in the 'Happy and Glorious' segment of Danny Boyle's 2012 Opening Ceremony, which can be found on both the BBC's London 2012 Olympic Games and Caroline Rowland's First: The Official Film of the London 2012 Olympics.

Yet every future memorial documentary will include a moment that touched the nation even more deeply. Produced for the Platinum Jubilee and (like the 007 sketch) co-written by Frank Cottrell-Boyce, the teaspoon-tapping teatime tryst with Paddington Bear (voiced by Ben Whishaw) will forever be remembered for Elizabeth II reaching into her handbag to reveal the marmalade sandwich she is keeping 'for later'. We can only echo the words of this adorable Peruvian immigrant: 'Thank you, Ma'am. For everything,'