The British Broadcasting Corporation spent two days in Page last Friday and Saturday while filming a documentary about the life of Princess Margaret.
Princess Margaret visited Page with her husband Lord Snowden in Nov. 1965 during a tour of the United States. The royal couple’s main stops during their U.S. tour were New York, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, Calif., and Page, Ariz.

Princess Margaret’s stop in Page was very quick. They stayed at the Lake Powell Motel and took a boat tour of Lake Powell. The film crew spent most of their time in Page interviewing three Page residents – Betty Jo Roundtree, Dora Knight and Jon Schoppmann – who were living in Page in 1965 and remember the Princess’s visit.

Roundtree is part of the Green family, who were the owners of the Lake Powell Motel, and played host to the royals in 1965.

“The princess came [to Page] because of them,” said Roundtree, who was 25 years old at the time the royals visited Page. “[The BBC] was mainly interested in what we remembered from Princess Margaret’s 1965 visit.

“I remember the community being excited for the visit because it brought a lot of attention to Lake Powell, which was great. We were such a new town back then.”

The BBC was originally going to film Roundtree, Schoppmann and Knight, sitting on Roundtree’s porch.

“They don’t have porches in the U.K.,” said Roundtree. “I think they were intrigued with the American-ness of a front porch.”

The film crew spent some time filming Roundtree and Knight at Roundtree’s house on Friday, then filmed Roundtree, Knight and Schoppmann together on Saturday at Denny’s to give the interview a “diner” look.

Schoppmann, who was a teenager working at the Lake Powell Motel in 1965, also escorted the BBC film crew around Page, the marina and the spot where the Lake Powell Motel used to be located.

Knight now lives in an assisted living facility in St. George, but made the trip to Page to take part in the documentary.

Knight and her husband Royce Knight were the official greeters of the royal couple when they landed at the Page Airport, said Knight.

 “It was very exciting,” said Knight, who is now 91. “Princess Margaret and Lord Snowdown were very, very gracious. I thoroughly enjoyed their visit. Our time with them was one of the highlights of our life.”

The BBC also spent about two hours filming in the office of the Lake Powell Chronicle. The Chronicle wrote three articles about Princess Margaret’s visit, which are still held in its archives. The BBC was interested primarily in getting footage of those old archives. The Chronicle was first published in August 1965, just three months prior to the Princess’s visit.

The purpose of the documentary is to showcase the changing role of British royalty through the twentieth century, said Berryman.

“British society and British Royalty were undergoing a lot of changes during that period,” said Berryman, “and Princess Margaret’s life spanned, and in a lot of ways mirrored, those changes. We are able to tell the larger story of those changes and transitions of royal and British life in general, by telling Princess Margaret’s story.”

The BBC film crew was comprised of just two people: Hannah Berryman, the film’s director/producer/soundman and Patrick Smith, the videographer.  After filming in Page the crew traveled to Los Angeles to film locations where Princess Margaret visited in 1965.

The documentary about Princess Margaret is expected to appear in late 2018 on BBC and simultaneously in America on PBS. It will be a two-hour documentary shown in two, one-hour shows.