The cause was a brain tumor, his son Ben said. Mr. Holden was writing the gossipy “Atticus” column — a frothy mix of politics and celebrity — for The Sunday Times in London when, in 1977, he was sent to cover Prince Charles’s visit to Canada to open the Calgary Stampede, a rodeo. The prince was sort of a dud assignment, but Mr. Holden made the best of it, even though the most interesting thing Prince Charles said to him was: “Married, are you? Fun, is it?”The column Mr. Holden wrote about the royal junket amused both Queen Elizabeth II and her son, now King Charles III, and Mr. Holden soon received a book deal to write a biography of Charles. Though he thought the subject was boring, the advance of 15,000 pounds was too large to turn down.

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Persons: Anthony Holden, Shakespeare, Laurence Olivier, Lorenzo Da Ponte, Mozart’s, Ben, Holden, Atticus, Prince Charles’s, “ Atticus, ”, Brigitte Bardot, Rudolph Nureyev, Margaret Thatcher, Frank Sinatra, Prince Charles, “, Queen Elizabeth II, King Charles III, Charles . Organizations: The Sunday Times, Calgary Stampede Locations: British, London, Canada, China