A Shill in the House of Windsor

It was Queen Victoria--royally pained in 1900 by a courtier’s impersonation of her prim voice and puffy cheeks--who noted that we were not amused.

With such aloof precedence, we must presume today’s royals are unamusedly bashing their heads against Buckingham Palace at word that Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York, will appear in TV commercials and throw her rank around for Weight Watchers.

Nor will they be mollified by knowing Fergie’s appearances will be restricted to a former colony where money is said to buy everybody, and blind reverence for queen mums and mother country departed America with Cornwallis.

In Britain, you see, royalty is not for sale. Queen Elizabeth will not guest on “Absolutely Fabulous.” There was never a line of Margaret Thatcher girdles. Commercial exploitation of one’s inherited title or elected position simply isn’t done.

Not that Britain is opposed to its foremost family lending an imperial cachet to retail enterprises.

Royalty buys toys at Hamley’s on Regent Street; marmalade at Fortnum & Mason; silver at Mappin & Webb; shirts at Turnbull & Asser; and motor cars from Rolls & Royce. Anointed companies may nail the royal coat of arms over their front doors and print “By Appointment to [fill in the blank royal] . . . “ on advertisements, even press releases.

(By all the double standards of decency and decadence, the British public will never know who, by appointment, supplies the royal family’s underwear, toilet paper, condoms and similar intimacies.)

Now, after centuries of unapproachability that has evolved into royal privilege, a defrocked duchess will huckster for Weight Watchers International and Ocean Spray Inc. And a duchess more of Duke Street by being fresh from a divorce, tanning topless in front of the children and having toes sucked by her financial advisor--an anomaly even to American tastes.

Telephone calls to Britain indicate that several years of national dismay at Ferguson’s peccadilloes have erased real indignation at something as decent, even as honorable as being on the telly.

“Fergie has become a sort of national joke,” said one British celebrity who begged anonymity. “She has gone from a position where people dislike her to a position where she is regarded as a wonderful clown.

“She has been so humiliated in public that there’s really nothing left that Fergie can do that would bring her lower esteem. . . . Fergie is money obsessed, food obsessed, bonking [sex] obsessed, and running around America trading on her royal warrantage. . . .

“Nobody thinks she is bringing the royal family into disrepute, because she is so disreputable.”

Blimey!

On this side of the Atlantic, in-house at Weight Watchers and Ocean Spray, outside in the suburbs, there was approval bordering on delight. Many seem smug at yanking a British landmark to America, in the way we crowed about buying London Bridge for a song--at least a nursery rhyme--and moving it to Arizona. Others believe even a once-was duchess adds depth to America’s relatively callow history.

And Jenny Craig, the fierce but honorable opposition, applauds Fergie’s future: “The Duchess of York has been candid about the physical and emotional pain she’s suffered because of her excess weight. By sharing her experience . . . we hope she inspires others who are struggling with the consequences of being overweight.”

The U.S. is a nation that spares a dime, gives suckers even breaks and, from the Windsors to Mike Romanoff, has always kept a light in the window for fallen royalty.

“We’ve certainly been exposed to enough politicians and sports figures who have been less than perfect, and Fergie is no better, no worse,” says Nancy Reynolds of Encino, a Weight Watchers member and marketing consultant. “From what I have seen on talk shows, she represents honesty, doesn’t play victim, takes responsibility for her own behavior, and Americans look up to her for that.

“The royal thing just adds another stamp of approval.”

Ferguson’s road to her reported $1.7 million Weight Watchers contract was a short stroll.

Howard Rubenstein, New York image enhancer for George Steinbrenner, Rupert Murdoch and Danielle Steel, has been Weight Watchers’ publicist for 30 years.

Last year, he signed Ferguson.

This year, he arranged a dinner for her with Albert Lippert, co-founder of Weight Watchers.

Remembers Rubenstein: “I sat her between Lippert and Diane Sawyer. The duchess was charming, gracious, intelligent. After dinner [Lippert] said to me and the duchess: ‘I agree with Howard. I think you should represent Weight Watchers.’ ”

Ocean Spray, relates David Murphy, vice president of marketing for the Massachusetts fruit drink firm, was more calculated. It began with a meeting of minds in search of “the Ocean Spray experience.”

“The word that kept coming up was: ‘zing,’ ” Murphy says. “Then we closed in on defining ‘zing’ through intelligent people in life . . . fun, welcoming, people you just naturally want to be around.

“The duchess came on our radar screen because of her book tour. We took a flier and asked her agent.”

The first Ocean Spray commercial will be on Los Angeles television Wednesday night. It is relatively true to life. Ferguson is besieged in a hotel room by salivating paparazzi. She opens a window, dumps an ice bucket on the photographers, looks down and says: “Cheers!”

Britain’s government, wisely, is observing the silence of the royal family concerning the former royal daughter who may not have gone Hollywood, but certainly seems to have been reborn as the Duchess of New York.

“Yet one certainly has to imagine what might be next,” mused an embassy official. “American Express presents the changing of the guard?”