Prince Charles pinned a CBE on Catherine Zeta-Jones’s lapel with the minimum of blushes.
For the actress it was undoubtedly a symbol of how far she had come since her humble beginnings in the Welsh valleys and the picture taken showed her beaming with delight.
However, when she was recently shown the image again she finally told the truth.
Appearing on the David Letterman show in New York, she told her host: ‘Look at his hands.
‘Check out his hands, I dunno. I love the Royal family but he is being a little saucy.’
Mr Letterman asks Miss Zeta-Jones: ‘Is that to do with the award?’
To which she replies: ‘I just think that it’s my breast actually.’
Miss Zeta-Jones, 43, continued with the tongue-in-cheek theme to tell the television host that her award meant she could expect him to ‘get on his knees every time I stand’.
‘I am a Commander of the British Empire,’ she said, ‘and basically that entitles me to David Letterman getting on his knees every time I stand.’
She was accompanied at the royal presentation by her husband, U.S. actor Michael Douglas, 68, and their two children, Dylan, 12, and Carys, nine.
Now a fully-fledged member of Hollywood royalty through her marriage to actor Michael Douglas, Miss Zeta-Jones also revealed she is proud of her Welsh roots and that her children are eager to watch their father in Basic Instinct.
Mr Douglas,68, co-starred with Sharon Stone in the erotic thriller which was popular in the 1990’s.
She said: ‘My kids are not interested in plots of films but they are desperate to see Sharon Stone and my husband…They are desperate. All the kids talk about my movies and their dad’s movies. One day the curtain will go up though.’
Miss Zeta-Jones also touched upon her failed attempts at skiing: ‘I am like an old age pensioner slowly coming down. I look cute in my ski outfit though. That is all I can do.’
Miss Zeta-Jones’ latest film is Broken City, in which she is cast the wife of the ‘corrupt beyond belief’ New York Mayor, played by Russell Crowe.
‘We had Thanksgiving dinner with Mayor Bloomberg. We went to Bermuda and he asked me about the part,’ she said.
‘I said I am married to the Mayor of New York. This was over turkey and cranberry sauce.
‘I told him Russell’s character was corrupt beyond belief, and he wants to kill me and the Mayor turns to me and says “That would work”.’
by Lorelle Heath
