She is already known as the crane driver’s daughter who became Queen Elizabeth’s confidante and dresser. Now Angela Kelly’s remarkable rise to power seems set for a global audience.
The Mail on Sunday understands Ms Kelly, 68, has agreed to cooperate with a film about her life story which saw her wield almost unparalleled influence in the Royal Household.
Known as ‘gatekeeper’ to the late Queen, what the feisty Liverpudlian chooses to reveal on camera could prove a matter of serious concern to the King and senior courtiers.
The ‘scripted documentary’ will, it is believed, combine interviews, archive footage and potentially some dramatic reconstruction. Producers are said to be working with Bafta-winning screenwriter Jeremy Brock MBE, who wrote Mrs Brown, the Queen Victoria film starring Judi Dench and Billy Connolly.
‘The royals will be worried, and they are right to be worried,’ said an insider.
From her views on Brexit to King Charles himself, the late Queen’s private thoughts remain a matter of keen speculation.
So close were the two women – the Queen said they could have been ‘sisters’ – Ms Kelly was trusted to ‘wear in’ her employer’s new shoes, arrange her hair and even massage her feet. She was among a select group at Balmoral when the monarch died four years ago.
Ms Kelly has signed a confidentiality agreement which makes it hard to cash in on her three decades with the Royal Household; it is even said to include a ban on using the words ‘King’ and ‘Palace’ for commercial purposes.
But in telling her story, Ms Kelly might be protected by a letter from one of the Queen’s private secretaries granting express permission to publish three books, only two of which have so far appeared.
‘She knows everything you ever wanted to know, including the Queen’s real views on Meghan,’ said a royal observer. ‘I don’t think the Palace has a leg to stand on if she wants to tell her story. If Harry and Meghan can break all the rules, why can’t she?
Queen Elizabeth’s ‘gatekeeper’ Angela Kelly has agreed to cooperate with a film about her life story (Pictured: Ms Kelly receiving the Royal Victoria Order Investitures at Buckingham Palace)
Ms Kelly (far right) is pictured at London Fashion Week in 2018 with the late Queen Elizabeth II and Anna Wintour
‘Angela has often spoken about wanting to spend time in the US, and she could do just that. There’s nothing they could do to her there.’
Ms Kelly, who has acquired an agent, would be in high demand on the American chatshow circuit.
But Ms Kelly was not admired by all her fellow courtiers. Willing to ruffle feathers and possessed of a fearsome temper, some Palace staff nicknamed her AK47, a play on her initials and the Soviet-era assault rifle.
She is known to feel bruised by the speed at which she was asked to leave the Household and vacate her cottage on the Windsor estate, although friends insist she does not blame the senior royals.
The locks to the Queen’s private apartments at Windsor were changed within days of her death and Ms Kelly’s Palace-issue mobile phone was cut off.
In one Instagram post, Ms Kelly wrote: ‘I am too old to worry about who likes me and who dislikes me! …. If you love me – I love you! If you hate me – I don’t care!’
There will be some who fear a settling of scores. She is said to have crossed swords with both Camilla – when she was Duchess of Cornwall – and, famously, Prince Harry.
In his memoir Spare, Harry accused the dresser of obstructing Meghan’s attempts to practise wearing her tiara with a hairdresser before their 2018 wedding. The Mail on Sunday has been told the new film is controlled by 53 Degrees Global, a major London production company, in collaboration with Walt Disney.
It is believed the ‘scripted documentary’ will combine interviews, archive footage and potentially some dramatic reconstruction. (Pictured: Ms Kelly leaves a Christmas lunch hosted by the late Queen in 2018)
The company promotes itself as ‘trusted by royalty’ and makes documentaries under the True Royalty Originals brand. It is closely associated with the True Royalty TV streaming service, described as Netflix for royal fans.
It is a particular sign of the late Queen’s warm regard for Ms Kelly that she was given unprecedented ‘permission and blessing’ to publish two books while still a member of the Royal Household: Dressing The Queen: The Jubilee Wardrobe in 2012 and The Other Side of The Coin – The Queen, The Dresser and The Wardrobe in 2019.
Although packed with colourful vignettes – including an episode in which the Queen and Ms Kelly went star-gazing – the books remained comparatively discreet. Although King Charles was said to dismayed by a photo in the second book which showed his mother, shoeless, her feet up on a divan.
Ms Kelly, who lives near Sheffield in a home bought for her by the King, certainly has a remarkable story to tell. Born to a dockyard crane operator, she worked as a lorry driver for the Women’s Royal Army Corps before landing a post as housekeeper to Sir Christopher Mallaby, British ambassador to Germany.
When the Queen and Prince Philip came to stay during an official visit to Berlin in 1992 they met Ms Kelly, and soon afterwards she was offered a job as a dresser at the Palace. She eventually became personal assistant, adviser and curator to Her Majesty, and in 2023 was created a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order.
During the monarch’s last months, she moved into a room on the same floor of the Queen’s private apartments in Windsor Castle – later telling friends she was effectively the Queen’s carer – and was one of only a handful of people in an adjoining chamber to the bedroom where she died at Balmoral.
A source at Disney last night said the Angela Kelly project would be lapped up by a US audience.
‘The market is flooded with royal stories but this one is unique,’ he said. ‘This is a person with access to the Queen, a woman who never voiced her opinions publicly.’
Buckingham Palace, Ms Kelly and 53 Degrees Global were all approached for comment.
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