"It was just a terrible tragedy (when King Edward VIII abdicated to marry Mrs. Wallis Simpson) … we all loved the Prince of Wales and we thought he was going to be a wonderful king. It was a dreadful blow to his brother because they were great friends. Edward VIII must have been bemused with love, I suppose. You couldn’t reason with him, nobody could. The only good thing is, I think, he was quite happy with her."

So confides the late Queen Mother about a time when she and her husband (George VI to be) had to ascend the British throne back in 1936. This is from the Queen’s own recently revealed diaries and letters.

However, now we know that her younger daughter, the late Princess Margaret, destroyed a lot of her mother’s correspondence and diaries in an effort to cover up the scandals created by Charles and Diana.

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More hot talk out of the recent Toronto Film Festival: It’s all about a movie on Charles Darwin called "Creation." Although it has been taken up by countries from Australia to Scandinavia, "Creation" hasn’t found an American distributor because the theory of evolution is considered "too controversial" for these United States. Or should I say these disunited states!

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The Indian government has halted filming by Oscar-winner Cate Blanchett and the popular Hugh Grant of a film called "Indian Summer." It was to be directed by Joe Wright of "Pride and Prejudice" and "Atonement."

More than 60 years since Indian independence, descendents of the Nehru-Gandhi family still jealously guard the reputation of the first Indian Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. They fear the coming movie will portray the rumored love affair between Lady Edwina Mountbatten and Prime Minister Nehru. It supposedly took place in the late ’40s when the Raj was ending in India, and right under the nose of Edwina’s husband, Lord Mountbatten, who was a member of the British Royal Family and was acting as India’s last Viceroy.

Some people describe the Edwina/Nehru connection as "platonic but intense." Nehru himself described the strength of their feelings for one another: "Suddenly I realized, and perhaps you also did, that there was a deeper attachment between us, some uncontrollable force."

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Rebecca Hall, nominated for a Golden Globe after she performed for Woody Allen in "Vicky Cristina Barcelona," is the pick for a comedy called "Liars." Herein she would play a girl ditched by a rock star who goes on to be involved in the recent election, visiting old beaus on the way to President Obama’s inauguration.

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Brava to a favorite actress, Julianna Margulies, who is back bigger than life playing the jilted Mrs. in the new CBS effort "The Good Wife." (She stands by her offending man, Chris Noth, before slapping him and then letting the beat and the story go on. It’s compelling stuff.) I have known this actress since she was a waiter downtown in Greenwich Village. Julianna went on to become the highest-paid woman on TV before she waltzed off independently from "E.R." She deserves another hit show.

My pal Christine Baranski is also in this drama and says it’s her dream come true. "It shoots in Brooklyn. I have a serious role with chic suits where I play a high-powered attorney."

Ms. Baranski recently traveled the world making "Mamma Mia!" working in England and Greece, so she is happy these days to be able to get to northwestern Connecticut on weekends.

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Bono is ready for his second close-up with a pope. He met Pope John Paul II and memorably convinced his Holiness to try on a pair of wraparound sunglasses with cameras rolling. Now he is set to meet Pope Benedict XVI, but this time there’ll be 499 others artists with him at the Sistine Chapel on November 21.