The Crown, though primarily a lavish and at times fictionalized record of the life ofQueen Elizabeth IIfrom the 1940s to modern times, often shifts focus from the main characters in the show to chronicle the life of the royal staff members. King George VI’s equerry, Captain Peter Townsend (played byTimothy Daltonin Season 5), was one of the first non-royal characters to enjoy a rather exclusive time on screen, thanks to his tragic romance with Princess Margaret (played byLesley Manvillein Season 5).
The fifth episode ofThe CrownSeason 5,“Mou Mou,“however, features neither a clandestine liaison nor an ill-fated dalliance; instead, it allows fans to enjoy a rather tender, relatively less racist, and hence surprising storyline devoted to the valet of the late Duke of Windsor, Sydney Johnson.
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When Does Sydney Johnson First Appear in ‘The Crown’?
Before being featured as the central figure of a Season 5 narrative ofThe Crown, Sydney Johnson was given a brief and silent time on screen in Season 3 played byJoshua Kekana. The older version of the young, ambitious man is played byJude Akuwudikein “Mou Mou,” so it’s safe to say that the show creators always planned on devoting some exclusive screentime to the man who served the Duke of Windsor for almost three long decades. Given that diversity, while oft-neglected in real-life, especially in the time the show is set in, was very much needed inThe Crown, giving Sydney Johnson the recognition he so deserved was seemingly more a matter of whenthan if.
Who Was the Man the Duke of Windsor Reportedly “Loved Like a Son”?
Sydney Johnson was born in 1923 on Andros Island in the Bahamas, which was then one of the many British colonies. Like many an unfortunate man in a society that promotes the institutionalization ofracial discrimination, he worked his fingers to the bone at a dead-end job that offered no proverbial ladder to climb. Thanks to his honorable name, or perhaps a lucky stroke of fortune, Johnson was hired by none other than the Duke of Windsor, aka Edward VIII (AlexJennings), who, after his abdication, had been exiled from the soil of Britain. In 1940, Prime Minister Winston Churchill made the Duke of Windsor take on the role of the governor of the Bahamas – a move that would allow Europe at large to ignore his Nazi sympathies.
Johnson, a god-fearing individual, who believed in actually earning a livelihood rather than just getting paid for doing the bare minimum (though the definition of “bare minimum” would undoubtedly cause some heated arguments in a capitalist world), soon bagged a number of much-warranted promotions at the Duke’s Government House residence. Johnson was working as the Windsors' footman when the couple decided to move to Bois de Boulogne Villa (more commonly known as Villa Windsor) in Paris in 1952 and was given the honor of accompanying them.
Johnson became the Duke’s valet somewhere around the 1960s – a position that highlighted the kind of trust and affection the Duke and the Duchess harbored for him. As a valet, Johnson also had the time and money to fall in love and raise four children with the woman of his dreams. Given the kind of bond he shared with the Duke as well as the Duchess, Wallis (Lia Williams), it’s safe to conjecture that the valet was in the heyday of both his professional and private domains.
Death is often tumultuous in more ways than one. Grief is just one aspect of it. For Sydney Johnson, the Duke of Windsor’s death meant not only the loss of his employer but also the job he had held for almost 30 years. Soon after the death of Johnson’s own wife, the Duchess of Windsor asked the valet of the late duke to find a new situation, be it in the form of new employment or the absence of one altogether – after all, the Duke had left him a hefty sum of $30,000 in his will, the estimated equivalent of almost $212,660 in 2022.
When Did Johnson Become Mohamed al-Fayed’s Valet?
After the disheartening dismissal, Johnson ended up taking another dead-end job as a waiter at The Ritz in Paris, but the owner of the enterprise turned out to be none other than Mohamed al-Fayed, played bySalim Dawin Season 5 ofThe Crown. The businessman didn’t exactly harbor a penchant for upholding unbigoted values, but after learning about his past influence, al-Fayed decided to hire Johnson as his personal valet — a move that proved to be incredibly smart on the businessman’s part.
The position of ‘valet’ was, more or less, a fitting guise. Mohamed al-Fayed, being a rich businessman, could have hired anyone as his valet. He need not have gone out of his way to put aside his racial prejudices to accommodate the former employee of the late Duke of Windsor. Johnson, however, hadn’t spent three decades of his life in the royal family for nothing. Not only did he break the barriers preventing al-Fayed from finding influence in the British aristocratic life, but he also helped his employer acquire Villa Windsor in 1986 after the passing of the duchess by hosting meetings between his boss and the Windsors’ lawyer.
After Mohamed al-Fayed bought Villa Windsor, Johnson was tasked with restoring it. Despite the emotional baggage that came with the job, Johnson could not have been more diligent in his endeavors. Three years later, when the restoration finally saw the light of day, the full worth of Johnson’s work was recognized by celebrity figures like Joan Collins. Little over a month after the reopening party, Johnson passed away at the age of 69.
