Twenty years ago, a tall young woman with a shy smile flubbed her lines before millions of people and became a superstar.

On July 29, 1981, Lady Diana Spencer married Prince Charles and became the Princess of Wales - and an international superstar.[AP]

On July 29, 1981, Lady Diana Spencer took "Philip Charles Arthur George" - she mangled the order of Prince Charles' names during her vows - as her lawful wedded husband and entered a family hidebound by practices no outsider could fathom.

It turned out to be much more than she bargained for. It also turned out to be much more than they bargained for. But for the media, it was a golden bonanza.

The Media Maelstrom

"The media changed dramatically in that decade of the 1980s," says Bob Houston, publisher of Royalty Monthly magazine.

"Diana was the spearhead of the American invasion of Britain, the celebrity culture," says Houston.

"The British media is changing. It is becoming much more celebrity-driven. And we had this No. 1 celebrity."

Diana, with her photogenic good looks, her sympathetic gestures and an air of vulnerability, seemed much more relaxed than the other royals, and much more accessible. She instantly clicked with the public, who couldn't get enough of her.

"From the time she entered public life, Diana conveyed her vulnerability with her eyes, her gestures, her speech, and her touch," Sally Bedell Smith wrote in her book Diana in Search of Herself. "Alongside her beauty, this evident fragility made her a star."

Newspaper editors found the public was eager to lap up articles about Diana, her clothes, her style, her public engagements, how she was raising her two young sons. The '80s, says Houston, were "the Decade of Diana."

Fairy Princess and Everywoman

Then, in June 1992, the carefully constructed fa?ade imploded with the publication of Andrew Morton's Diana: Her True Story. The book - written with Diana's cooperation - exposed the princess's battles with bulimia and depression, and reviled Charles as an unfaithful husband.

The revelations of Charles' relationship with a married woman, Camilla Parker Bowles, sent the Prince of Wales' popularity plummeting. But the revelations of Diana's problems did not decrease the public's affection for her. It only increased their appetite to know more.

"Once the breadth and depth of her emotional struggle became known," wrote Smith, "she struck an even deeper chord: She became the fairy-princess version of the troubled everywoman."

The tabloid fodder kept coming: There was the royal separation, the two camps' attempts to woo the public, the televised admissions by both Charles and Diana of adultery. After the divorce became final, in 1996, the media continued to follow Diana's every move. And then, on Aug. 31, 1997, came the car crash in a Paris tunnel that claimed her life.

The massive outpouring of public grief made the Windsors sit up and take notice. "The amazing eruption of emotion over her death got through to them that their world has had to change," says Houston.

Charles Gets the Message

The person who really got the message was Prince Charles, who witnessed not only the public reaction but the grief of his own sons, William and Harry.

"One of the great discussions, especially since Diana's death, is, How does the House of Windsor modernize itself?" says Houston. "They certainly learned the lessons from the decade of Diana in terms of accessibility, shedding some of the more pompous aspects of formality."

He says, "One of the greatest challenges the royal family faces is to overcome the apathy, however, the future looks bright for the royals. I think they've got a trump card in William."

(Agencies)