Queen Elizabeth II died today at the age of 96. She was the longest-serving British monarch,

and she was undeniably a major figure in pop culture as well. Her image on television

in series like The Crown and in movies like The Queen never seemed to quite capture who

she was, and yet people kept trying and trying. I'm Linda Holmes, and today we're looking

back at the life and legacy of Queen Elizabeth II on pop culture happy hour from NPR, so don't go away.

Elizabeth was born in 1926. She became queen when she was 25. She had her coronation

several months later, and it was widely considered one of the first really big televised news events.

She eventually had four children with her husband, Prince Philip, Charles, Anne, Andrew, and Edward.

As the oldest, Charles is now king. What we're going to try to do is wrap our heads around the

pop culture understanding of Elizabeth and how it played out in movies both comedic and dramatic,

and on television and even at the Olympics. We're not going to touch on the larger history of the

monarchy or British colonization, not because they're not important, but because that's not our

expertise. But I encourage you to seek out the people who are writing about those things as part

of their reflections on her death because they are a big part of the story. We're also not going to

cover all the family gossip because we assume you already know exactly as much about all of that

as you want to. The royal family is a complicated institution that has fans and detractors and a

whole lot of people who don't care about it. We're going to try to dive a little bit into how it's

played out on television and in movies. We talked with our pal Kristen Meinser about Queen Elizabeth. She's

a royal watcher and the co-host of the podcast when Megan Met Harry. You watched this queen for many

years. Yes. What opinion of her did you develop? She's an icon. She's almost like not human. She's

like superhuman. She has been around for 14 US presidents. She's on money. Her popularity and

her visibility have lasted longer than any other human I can think of. And not just in my lifetime

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