Royal Wedding Anniversary: A 1996 Profile of Princess Margarita of Romania and Her Future Husband Radu Duda

Princess Margarita of Romania and her fiancé Radu Duda. July 1996 Bucharest, Romania (Associated Press) - They make an unlikely couple. Solemn and dark-eyed, he's a bit of a recluse. She opens up readily, her green eyes sparkling with friendliness. He prefers to speak Romanian; she has trouble with it. He's a heavy smoker; she lights up rarely. And there's that other difference. He's an actor from the province. She's a princess from an ancient lineage. But when love is in the air, two can agree to differ. In two months. the couple - actor Radu Duda and Princess Margaret of Hohenzollern - will be married in what promises to be one of the Romanian social events of the year. They would have preferred the wedding to be in Romania rather than Lausanne, Switzerland, but they don't want politics to get in the way. The government is uneasy about the presence of the bride's father, King Michael, whom the Communists forced out of Romania in 1947. Exiled in Switzerland, he has never clearly renounced his claim to the throne - an omission that rankles the government. After the fall of communist rule, Michael visited Romania in 1992 and was greeted by hundreds of thousands of curious onlookers. Margaret, 47, has received a taste of that curiosity - tinged with adoration - since her upcoming wedding made news last month. On a recent trip around the country, thousands of villagers and townsfolk turned out to cheer the couple. Margaret, who first visited Romania a few months after the 1989 anti-Communist revolt, took time to warm up to a nation that expelled her father and was scarred by one of Eastern Europe's harshest communist dictatorships. Now she says she loves the country. "It was like I had a thick pair of glasses and then I took them off and began to see all the colours," Margaret said, gently taking the hand of her fiancé as they sat on a plump tray sofa. The couple met two years ago at a charity event. On their first date - a dinner shared with her mother Queen Anne - they talked until 2 a.m. Duda also is being hit by the glare of the public spotlight. Solid and serious, the thirty-six year-old actor has frustrated the tabloids in their search for scandal in his background. They've come up with nothing more exciting than an earlier marriage that ended in divorce.  Though his father is a member of the governing Social Democracy Party, known for its anti-monarchist stance, Duda said that his parents "are happy for their child." _________________________________ Princess Margarita of Romania and Radu Duda were married on 21 September 1996 at Lausanne, Switzerland. This year the couple celebrate twenty-four years of marriage! _________________________________ According to certain Romanian press reports, Radu Duda was allegedly married to and divorced from Olga Tudorache (11 October 1929 - 18 October 2017) prior to his union with Princess Margarita of Romania. However, the identity of Mr. Duda's alleged first wife has never been definitively confirmed. Radu Duda and Olga Tudorache.
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