Fat Mary?

"Fat Mary" was the nickname of Princess Mary Adelaide, Duchess of Teck, the first cousin of Queen Victoria since she was also a male-line granddaughter of King George III. She was the mother of Queen Mary, and thus Johnnie's grandmother. She was in Queen Mary's flashback to her youth. Here, Queen Mary remembered her mother's continual tardiness and the embarrassing fact that Mary Adelaide once attended her daughter's dance class by sitting on two chairs instead of one due to her bulk.

However, Mary Adelaide did die in October 1897, seven years before Johnnie's birth in 1905. Mary Adelaide actually is referenced several times in this film for some reason. Johnnie made a drawing of her, and Lalla told Georgie that it was funny he drew her correctly even though he never knew her. Also, in the scene after Johnnie dies, after Lalla knocked a plate on the floor, Queen Mary remarked that her mother often broke things too and Lalla replied, "I remember."

The references to Mary Adelaide are admittingly rather inexplicable, just like the large amount of scenes devoted to the Russian Royal Family, for they likely never affected the real Johnnie in any way.

In any case, it is a wonderful film, and naturally if it merely documented the real Johnnie's existence away from outside events, the film would perhaps not have been nearly so interesting.

"My care is like my shadow in the sun, follows me flying, flies when I pursue it..."