20 Things You Didn’t Know About The Living Daylights (1987)
10. “Something We’re Making For The Americans: It’s Called A Ghetto Blaster!”
The Prince and Princess of Wales, Charles and Diana’s visit to the set of The Living Daylights on 11th December 1986 at Pinewood Studios was immortalised with a photograph of Princess Diana smashing a sugar glass bottle over Charles’s head at the suggestion of Jeroen Krabbé.
However, the humorous incident arose because stunt supervisor, Paul Weston encouraged the Prince to break a sugar glass bottle over his head to demonstrate its safety. Images of the event were published in newspapers across the world the following day.
However, Prince Charles also contributed to a sequence that appears in the finished film. John Richardson introduced Charles to the controls for firing the missile concealed in Q’s (Desmond Llewelyn’s) latest gadget - a ghetto blaster - offscreen, which the Prince was invited to activate himself. When Charles pressed the relevant button, the missile flew along a wire and an explosive charge was set off inside a mannequin at the other end of Pinewood’s L Stage with the Prince not even flinching.
The film’s Royal World Premiere was held on 29th June 1987 at the Odeon Leicester Square in London in aid of The Prince’s Trust.