Tender Tributes for Queen Mum

How could they ever forget those pastel dresses, white gloves and feathered hats? A few had been on the receiving end of her impeccable manners, that charming smile. The lucky ones will forever treasure that one moment when they shook her white-gloved hand.

But most of all, these British expatriates half a world away in Los Angeles reflected Saturday on the enduring strength of their “Queen Mum,” who died in her sleep at age 101.

“I thought she would just go forever,” said actress Jean Simmons, who recalled what she meant to the nation in World War II. “She was my queen during the war, a queen who talked to the people who had been bombed.... It’s very hard for Americans to understand, but one feels very deeply about her.”

From the Hollywood elite to the common folks at a Santa Monica pub, her subjects in America honored the queen mother’s memory by lowering their British flags to half-staff, raising a toast and offering effusive recollections of the one royal whom even the feisty British press treated with gentleness.

Those who lived in Britain during the Nazi bombings were resolute in their admiration for the queen, who walked through the ruins of London’s East End in high heels.

“I remember well when we were bombed out in London and the queen and her family were out speaking to the people,” said Josephine Green, who has lived in Beverly Hills since the 1970s. Her husband, Guy Green, is a noted British cinematographer. “I thought if the queen and king are around, the Germans aren’t going to get them and we will all be OK.”

Brian Clewer, who was 12 when the war started, said that as soon as the sirens would air the all-clear sound, Queen Elizabeth and King George VI would visit bomb shelters to boost morale.

“It would have been so easy for them to have left the country,” said Clewer, 74, who owns the British-themed Continental Shop in Santa Monica and once worked for England’s famed J. Arthur Rank studios and for about 20 years starred in a British radio comedy called “Cynics Choice.” “The fact that the royal family stayed, that was a reassurance to us.”

Guy Green, 87, who won an Academy Award in 1947 for his work on the film “Great Expectations,” remembers how her royal presence gripped the set of the British war film “In Which We Serve” the day she and the king visited.

“Production stopped for the day,” he said. “And I stayed behind the camera all day because everyone wanted to be photographed with her.” The director of that same film, Ronald Neame, 91, remembers “she had a beautiful smile, and you knew it was a genuine smile.”

British Consul-General Peter Hunt, speaking from his Hancock Park residence, called her “a singular symbol of the spirit of the nation.... She’s been at the heart of the nation for such a long period.”

At the Tudor House tea and gift shop in Santa Monica, owner Stephen Dulley wrote “Queen Mother In Loving Memory” beneath a photo he placed on the counter.

“It’s like the end of an era,” said Dulley, 54, who has been living in Los Angeles since 1974.

Across the street, Ye Olde King’s Head pub manager John Gordon lowered the British flag to half-staff. Recalling her gin drinking and horse race betting, Gordon said she was a royal you could relate to. “It was no secret that she used to drink a little bit,” he said. “And she loved racehorses.”

Angus Macdonald Proctor, 66, a retired engineer from Britain, believed she was the one who kept the royal family together.

“She was the keystone of the family,” he said. “That old lady was a gem. There will never be another one like her.”

Actress Jane Seymour learned firsthand of the queen mother’s disdain for the twice-divorced Wallis Simpson, whom she apparently never forgave for damaging the monarchy. Edward VIII abdicated the throne to marry Simpson, leading to the crowning of King George VI in 1936.

Seymour portrayed Simpson in a movie several years ago and said the queen mother was “quite disturbed” about the film and refused to watch it.

“Various members of the royal family told me she still had tremendous animosity for ‘that woman,’ that’s what she called her,” Seymour said.

Others recalled her love for theater and a good laugh. Comedian Barry Humphries said he will never forget how the queen mother agreed to allow his outrageous comedic character “Dame Edna” to take her box seat in the theater as part of a skit.

“She took huge pleasure in participating,” Humphries recalled Saturday.

But what Humphries and others said they remember most was the awesome feeling of simply being in her presence.

“She was so charming and made such a deep impression,” said actress Anna Lee, 89, of Beverly Hills, who met the queen mother while heading a British charitable organization. Since the 1970s they had exchanged Christmas cards.

Others, like Caroline Graham, who was formally presented to Queen Elizabeth II in the 1960s and is now a contributing editor to Architectural Digest, wondered what will happen to the monarchy without the strength of the queen mother’s popularity.

“You have to wonder about today’s Brits and who will bring that kind of strength again,” Graham, of Santa Monica, said. “Who else will ever be like that?”

Times staff writers Daren Briscoe and Kevin Thomas and former Times film critic Charles Champlin contributed to this report.