A successful portrait photographer pretty much has to be a serial seducercharming each successive client into the belief that he (or she) only has eyes for them. But not all portrait photographers, one hopes, follow through quite so energetically as Antony Armstrong-Jones, cynosure of Swinging Sixties London and a byword among his friends for sexual appetite “If it moves he’ll have it” was one of the comments recalled in Snowdon and Margaret Inside a Royal Marriagean intriguingly candid account of the ill starred marriage between the Queen’s younger sister and the socialite photographer. Snowdon, the film made it clear, had top class credentials as a lover, charisma, looks, glamour and a sense of sexual adventure, but was hopelessly ill qualified to last the course as a husband. And, rather oddly, although it was almost entirely constructed from the memories of his friends and relatives, this film tilted the historical record back in Princess Margaret’s favour, suggesting (in contrast to most of the coverage at the time) that she was more the injured party than him. Since Snowdon’s friends must have consulted him before taking part, one takes it that he approved of a more truthful account emerging. It seems that he’s putting his affairs in order.
