Her Majesty in Mellowland

By KURT ANDERSEN

Fanfare, floating feasts and Hollywood galas greet the Queen

The trim, perfect vessel, 412 ft. long, glided into overcast San Diego Bay a bit ahead of schedule after a five-day sail up from Mexico, and the regiment of photographers onshore nudged into position. Cannons roared from the escort frigate Diomede, and a U.S. battery returned the 21-gun salute. After Her Majesty's Yacht Britannia steered toward the freshly painted yellow moorings of the Broadway Pier, her Royal Marine band played, then a U.S. Navy band. Suddenly the craning crowd of 6,000 broke into unbuttoned cheers, while several hundred reporters looked on. There were even scattered choruses of The White Cliffs of Dover and There'll Always Be an England. Queen Elizabeth II had arrived.

She was in a navy-blue silk suit and white hat. Her simple presence was grand. As she stepped off Britannia's red-carpeted gangway and set foot for the first time in the Western U.S., she waved primly to the crowd, all the while wearing her chairman-of-the-board face.

The well-to-do had paid $99 for harborside hotel rooms, and the hoi polloi jammed the sidewalks. It seemed none of them (save the Queen) could help smiling and clapping or waving their $3 Union Jacks. Hundreds of overnight campers stood on lounge chairs or watched the spectacle on portable TVs. Nora de la Cruz brought her portrait of the Queen trimmed with cotton. Said she: "Too bad we could have no block parties for her."

That was about the only celebration not planned for the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh during their ten-day visit to the West Coast. After lunch aboard U.S.S. Ranger (where a sailor, Devon Rowlands, said it had been "a bigger deal when Suzanne Somers visited in 1981"), they were off to the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (where they were given photos of sea slugs) and the San Diego Zoo (where the animals' lunch was delayed so they would be friskier).

Le tout Southern California had been sprucing up for weeks. Sunday morning the royals went to St. Paul's Episcopal Church in San Diego. "We've completely redone the courtyard," said the Rev. James Carroll, "even though they'll just see it for a moment." Marc Valeric, a Beverly Hills milliner, sold 125 bespoke hats in two weeks to women desperate to dress properly for royal receptions. At Neiman-Marcus, there was a run on $150 over-the-elbow white kid gloves.

Not everyone, of course, was giddy. In San Diego, fewer than 100 people marched and chanted in favor of Northern Irish independence from Britain.

There were also the inevitable social contretemps. Publisher Walter Annenberg, former U.S. Ambassador to the Court of St. James's, asked seven Americans, including Gerald and Betty Ford, to lunch with the royals at Sunnylands, his zillion-dollar spread near Palm Springs. "For every two friends you invite," Annenberg said, "you make 50 enemies." Hundreds of Southern California somebodies were upset about not being invited to Sunday night's 500-person bash on a Los Angeles movie sound stage. Nancy Reagan was hostess, and the President's pal Frank Sinatra rounded up the entertainment (Ed McMahon, Perry Como). So Ol' Blue Eyes blew up, understandably but in vain, about his exclusion from the Queen's smallish (50 or so) dinners aboard Britannia.

The Britons had asked to be served typical California food onshore. That explains, for instance, the ultrahip luncheon salad planned at the Los Angeles Music Center: red lettuce leaves crammed with pieces of pink grape fruit, strawberries, avocado and exquisite Enoki mushrooms. Explained Caterer Nicole Cottrell: "We couldn't serve a tiny bird because it could shoot across her plate and end up on her lap."

That risk did not stop Ron and Nancy from inviting Liz and Phil over for a barbecue at the ranch near Santa Barbara. Indeed, if the Reagans and the royals were not already intimate, the week should force them into friendship. Nancy Reagan will spend a day and two nights on Britannia steaming up to San Francisco, arriving well ahead of Thursday's state dinner. On Friday, the Reagans were to celebrate their 31st wedding anniversary aboard Britannia.

The Queen and Prince Philip are experienced at playing themselves in public, but rarely has the royal whirl been so fatiguingly scheduled. Even the ordinarily laid-back colonials in Mellowland, Fleet Street's sobriquet for California, are stepping lively. -- By Kurt Andersen. Reported by Mary Cronin with the Queen and Alessandra Stanley/ San Diego

With reporting by Mary Cronin, Alessandra Stanley This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.