Helena Bonham Carter’s Princess Margaret gets her rock-star close-up in The Crown’s season-three episode “Margaretology”—which shows the royal and her husband, Lord Snowdon (Ben Daniels) embarking on a three-week visit to America. The trip has Hollywood stars and epic hangovers! A long-simmering sibling rivalry played out across the Atlantic. And a presidential visit in which Margaret’s rogue diplomatic tactics—dancing, hard drinking, and dirty limericks—bail Britain out of a potential fiscal crisis. But just how accurate was The Crown’s depiction of Margaret’s 1965 trip to the U.S.? And what were Margaret’s wildest high jinks abroad?

For more on Princes Margaret, including an interview with her official biographer, listen to this episode of Still Watching:

The Actual Ultraglam Details

In November 1965, Margaret embarked on her first trip to the U.S.—a visit so anticipated and expectedly glamorous that the Associated Press breathlessly reported about the mystery of Margaret’s fashion choices the day before she arrived. “She’s trying to keep them a big secret,” an anonymous source told the outlet. “It’s a bit like a bride with her wedding dress. She doesn’t want anyone to know all about it till the wedding.”

Princess Margaret biographer Theo Aronson wrote that the visit—with stops in Tucson, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and New York—was “undoubtedly [her] most important tour to date.” (Originally a chance to visit Margaret’s friend, the American socialite Sharman Douglas, the trip also coincided with the U.S. publication of Lord Snowdon’s book Private View.) The couple traveled with an entourage of eight—including the princess’s private secretary, lady-in-waiting, maid, and hairdresser, plus a Scotland Yard investigator—and 50 pieces of luggage on a plane outfitted with a blue-green lounge chair for the princess. In an act of extravagance that would likely never be allowed today, the plane actually looped back to make double trips on the “short hops”—because the aircraft was not large enough to fit both the entourage and the royals’ luggage. Hotels were called ahead of time to be alerted of what the princess and her husband would and would not indulge in. (The “would” list: fresh fruit and tea for breakfast; Chesterfield and Gauloises cigarettes. The “would not” list: Champagne and oysters.) Once on American soil, the couple was transported by either Rolls-Royce or Cadillac.

While the visit was heavy on extravagance, it was light on traditional diplomacy. “The princess has made arrival speeches in each of the cities she has visited,” reported the New York Times. “None is more than two or three sentences long.”

Princess Margaret Hits Hollywood

“Princess Margaret was especially intrigued by her encounters with various film stars while in Hollywood,” wrote Aronson in his biography. Margaret and Lord Snowdon met Paul Newman, Julie Andrews, and Alfred Hitchcock on the set of Torn Curtain. The highest-wattage event of the trip, however, according to the PBS documentary Margaret: The Rebel Princess, was a dinner party hosted by Sharman Douglas at the Bistro Restaurant in Beverly Hills. The party’s elite guest list included Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Judy Garland, Gregory Peck, Fred Astaire, Natalie Wood, Dorothy McGuire, Jimmy Stewart, Frank Sinatra, and Mia Farrow. But when Taylor and Burton arrived, they were infuriated to discover that they had not been seated at the primary table with Margaret and Lord Snowdon. Even worse: They were seated next to the kitchen. “So they up and left...before the princess got there,” a friend of Margaret’s said in the documentary. ”And they didn’t come back.” (The next morning, feeling regretful, Burton sent the princess an apology, blaming the early exit on the duo’s call time for Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Margaret did eventually meet the couple later in life.)

Upon arriving, Margaret managed to offend two members of Hollywood royalty. She reportedly outraged Garland by having an aide ask whether the Wizard of Oz legend would perform that night. “The singer was appalled,” wrote Aronson, “both by this trivializing of her talent and by the princess’s lordly tone. ‘Go and tell that nasty, rude little princess that we’ve known each other for long enough...that she should skip the ho-hum royal routine and just pop over here and ask me herself,’ said Garland. ‘Tell her I’ll sing if she christens a ship first.’”

The same evening, Margaret greeted Grace Kelly by telling her, “You don’t look like a movie star.” Wrote Aronson, “The normally composed former actress was said to ‘flush red with anger’ whenever she repeated this story.’” Another uncomfortable situation featured Steve McQueen’s wife Neile Adams, who attempted to socialize with Margaret in the restroom, not realizing that royal protocol called for the princess to have complete ladies’ room privacy.

Though Margaret may have ruffled the feathers of some Hollywood stars, Margaret’s own movie-star appeal endeared her to the rest of America during the tour. “The princess’s charm, when she chose to exercise it, could be prodigious, and there can be no doubt that on occasions during this visit to the United States, she revealed her slightly ‘actressy’ quality to the full,” wrote Aronson. “‘I’ll tell you what it is,’ decided one observer, on seeing her at a ball at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York. ‘It’s a put-on; campy; tongue-in-cheek camp. She’s doing an impersonation of herself.’”

All Hail the Leisure Queen

Today, British royals’ tours abroad are famous for being jam-packed with engagements. But in 1965, Princess Margaret—God love her—knew the importance of work-life balance. A November 11 dispatch from the New York Times was titled, straightforwardly, “Princess Margaret and Husband Rest at Lewis Douglas Farm in Tucson Following Reception at Inn.” The article reported that the royal couple slept until almost noon (!) and quoted the couple’s Tucson host, Lewis W. Douglas, as boldly saying of the day’s itinerary, “We have no plans—no plans at all. We will do as much or as little as they want to do.” In fairness to the couple, the Tucson stay was a private leg of the trip—and the sleep-in followed a raucous reception the previous evening at the flamingo pink Arizona Inn, which preceded a performance from comedian Danny Kaye. Setting the somewhat hilarious tenor for the rest of the trip, Margaret’s lady-in-waiting was quoted lamenting to reporters, “I think being on time is the hardest thing. I’m always late.”

On November 22, the New York Times ran another awe-inspiring report, titled “Princess Margaret Cancels Lunch to Rest.” On one of Margaret’s last days in America, the royal suddenly halted her Phantom V Rolls-Royce en route to Connecticut—where she was supposed to be the guest of honor at a private luncheon—and went back to the 500-acre Long Island estate where she was staying to relax. Her next day’s itinerary included stops in Manhattan at Bergdorf Goodman, Saks Fifth Avenue, and Lord & Taylor department stores.

Margaret’s White House Visit

In The Crown’s “Margaretology,” Queen Elizabeth asks Margaret to be on her best behavior when meeting President Lyndon Johnson at the White House—to help secure U.S. backing for a bailout. Unable to rein in her rock-star charisma, however, Margaret instead insults the late John F. Kennedy mid-dinner (“I was left distinctly underwhelmed”), refers to herself as “vice queen,” and challenges the president to drinking and dirty limerick contests. (Her winning submission: “There was a young lady from Dallas who used a dynamite stick in her phallus. They found her vagina in North Carolina and her asshole in Buckingham Palace.”) But did any of that actually happen?

“Well, it’s certainly not something I’d ever heard of,” Princess Margaret’s official biographer, Christopher Warwick, told Vanity Fair. “This was an official visit to the White House...I mean, she was a fun person, and she loved singing around the piano after dinner at Kensington Palace or with friends...But we have to remember, no matter how friendly, she was there for an official dinner at the White House and a dance. This took place on Wednesday, the 17 of November 1965, by the way...So while it’s possible they had fun...I don’t see it. It comes back to The Crown being chiefly entertainment. It’s certainly not based on fact.”

On The Crown, the White House dinner is a late-breaking addition to Margaret’s schedule, insisted upon by Queen Elizabeth (Olivia Colman). The actual White House visit, however, was planned well before Princess Margaret set foot in America. And it seems somewhat unlikely Margaret would have insulted Kennedy—given the fact that the late president’s sister-in-law, Mrs. Edward M. Kennedy, had hosted a tea for the princess earlier that day. (She was also seated at the dinner.) While there is no record of a dirty limerick contest either, Margaret did indeed seem to charm the socks off President Johnson. Speaking to the 140 dinner guests assembled in the State Dining Room that evening, the president referred to Margaret as an angel. “You have claimed our heart, and we are very proud to give it to you,” he added. “But you have done more. Lord Nelson once said, ‘England expects every man to do his duty.’ And I say tonight, every woman, too. And you have done your duty while in America. You have represented well the people that you serve with dignity and grace and spirit and joy.”

Princess Margaret responded in her customarily brief manner, thanking the president for his hospitality. Then the party moved to the East Room for dancing, which lasted a full three hours until 1:40 a.m. The Newcastle Evening Chronicle reported that Princess Margaret and the president “shared an enthusiastic foxtrot to ‘Everything’s Coming Up Roses.’” Later, “The tempo warmed up as the younger set including the President’s daughters Lucy and Lynda and their escorts launched into a new dance to the tune ‘Downtown.’” White House records report that the president “had a good time...looked well, and danced with almost every woman there.”

Aronson wrote in his biography of the princess: “In a shimmering evening dress and jacket of pink and silver, Princess Margaret looked suitably radiant; more than once, Lady Bird Johnson was caught gazing in admiration at this assured and vivacious little figure.”

So Long, Farewell

The night before Margaret and Lord Snowdon departed America, they were fêted with a goodbye supper and dance at the Four Seasons that lasted well into the early morning. The Associated Press reported that “at 3 a.m., when about 20 guests were left, the princess ordered her supper of Canadian bacon, scrambled eggs, coffee, and sour bread toast.” Later that day, refreshed and revived from sleep, the princess arrived at Kennedy International Airport in a mink coat and gold-and-black feather hat—trailed by her husband, her entourage, and her considerable luggage—for a farewell ceremony. “Goodbye. Goodbye—so sad,” Margaret told the press before delivering a short statement from a typewritten page. “We have seen so many exciting and worthwhile things. It would be impossible to say what we enjoyed or what impressed us most,” the princess said. “I would just like to say we have seldom, if ever, experienced such a wonderful three weeks—and we hope we can come back again soon.”

Later, Margaret would say that she enjoyed the tour “enormously.” And even though Lord Snowdon did not like playing second fiddle to his wife, biographer Aronson wrote that the photographer must “have been gratified by the fact that, after the tour, he was voted the man with whom most American women would like to be marooned on a desert island.”

The cost of the trip, however—£30,000, equivalent to £350,000 in 2003, according to the Telegraph—and the criticism around Margaret’s extracurricular high jinks were enough to get the princess barred from making a follow-up trip to America in the early 1970s. According to official documents released in 2003, Lord Cromer, the ambassador to Washington in the early 1970s, was reportedly “not at all keen on having the princess in the United States, possibly for some time to come.” Sir Patrick Dean, the British ambassador to America at the time, wrote in a report that Margaret and Lord Snowdon “worked and played hard.” Dean, however, was careful to place more blame on the royals’ hosts than the royals themselves. “It was a mistake that so much of their time was spent with and organized by Miss Sharman Douglas, though she did her best, after her own fashion, to make sure the visitors had a gay and amusing time.”

— Margaret and Lord Snowdon’s doomed romance

— When the Queen met Jackie and JFK

— Prince Philip’s rumored affair with a Russian ballerina

— The scandal that rocked Philip and Elizabeth’s marriage

— Take a look at the “less sexy, more studied” season ahead

— From the Archive: Why happily ever after was never in the cards for Princess Margaret

— From the Archive: How Charles and Camilla got together at last

Looking for more? Sign up for our daily Hollywood newsletter and never miss a story.