
Though his short stature often excluded him from being cast in traditional main roles, his talent led to many choreographers and writers creating lead roles specifically for him. Sleep, played by dancer Jay Webb in The Crown, joined the Royal Ballet in 1966 and quickly gained fame both for his immense talent and for his status as the shortest male dancer ever admitted to the U.K.'s prestigious Royal Ballet School. She'd already decided on the music: Billy Joel's 'Uptown Girl.'" Who is Wayne Sleep, Diana's dance partner? My first thought was, 'She's too tall to dance with me, I'll be a laughingstock: I'm 5'2" and she's 5'11".' But I soon realized she had a good sense of humor and that we could have some fun with our height difference. Sleep described his first rehearsal with Diana to The Guardian in 2017: "We met in a rehearsal studio in west London.

Several weeks ahead of the 1985 event, Diana reportedly got the idea to surprise her husband with a dance-as something of a belated birthday surprise for his 37th birthday that November-and reached out to Wayne Sleep, a senior principal dancer of the Royal Ballet, to serve as her partner. The event, held annually to raise money for the Royal Opera and Royal Ballet, often featured funny skits and surprise celebrity appearances indeed, the royal couple had appeared onstage at the previous year's event to perform in character as Romeo and Juliet, with Charles showcasing his singing skills with a rendition of the "Just One Cornetto" ice cream jingle, according to Tina Brown's The Diana Chronicles. Diana and Charles were scheduled to attend the "Friends of Covent Garden" charity event on Dec. Whose idea was it for Princess Diana to dance to Billy Joel?
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Here's the full story behind Princess Di's "Uptown Girl" moment, from how it came into existence to its effect on Charles and Diana's already-strained marriage.

This jaw-dropping moment really did happen, really was a total surprise to the Royal Opera House's entire audience of British VIPs, and really (OK, maybe) left Charles annoyed at what he felt was his wife's lack of decorum and attention-seeking behavior. Case in point: Diana's perfectly choreographed dance to Billy Joel's "Uptown Girl," as depicted by Emma Corrin in "Avalanche," the ninth episode of season four.

But with the Netflix series' latest jump forward in time, heralding the onscreen arrival of the Princess Diana-Prince Charles-Camilla Parker-Bowles love triangle, The Crown has outdone itself in delivering thrilling moments and juicy secrets long buried in royal history. The Crown has always had a knack for revealing stories and scandals of the royal family so scarcely known that they've stumped even the most diligent students of the Mountbatten-Windsors.
