LONDON: Film star Pat Kirkwood, considered Britain's answer to Betty Grable, has died, aged 86. Kirkwood was the most popular musical star of the 1940s and 1950s. The leading lady in musicals by Noel Coward, Cole Porter and Leonard Bernstein, she went on to find fame in Hollywood. Critic Kenneth Tynan hailed her legs as "the eighth wonder of the world" But it was her friendship with the Duke of Edinburgh that kept her name in the public mind long after she had retired. Rumours of an affair - which she always denied - followed her all of her life. Philip was introduced to Kirkwood in October 1948 by the society photographer Baron, whom she was dating. After a backstage visit at the London Hippodrome, the trio went to Les Ambassadeurs restaurant in Mayfair. Kirkwood and Philip were seen dancing in the Milroy nightclub later that night. At the time, the then Princess Elizabeth was eight months' pregnant with Charles. Kirkwood admitted she and Philip breakfasted at dawn.
Kirkwood died on Christmas Day in a nursing home in west Yorkshire, said author and royal biographer Michael Thornton, who is a friend of the family.