The Princess and Prince of Wales

The beginning ... Diana, Princess of Wales, and Prince Charles. Photo: AP

James Whitaker was considered the doyen of Fleet Street's royal correspondents during a 40-year career on UK tabloid newspapers. His best years coincided with those in which Diana, Princess of Wales, became the most famous woman in the world, and he chronicled her story from beginning to end.

A florid, irrepressible character who exuded bonhomie, Whitaker took seriously the notion of the ''gentleman of the press''. His upper-class vowels boomed above the hubbub of the bar, and an Australian newspaper once declared that he sounded like "a retired brigadier addressing a pair of deaf daughters".

When following the Princess of Wales on her annual skiing holiday in the Alps, he would often clothe his portly frame in a bright red ski suit, prompting the Princess to christen him ''the Big Red Tomato''. She certainly had some affection for Whitaker, whom she had first met at a wedding when she was 16.

James Whitaker

James Whitaker … irrepressible character who exuded bonhomie.

Whitaker had excellent contacts in the royal household, and while courtiers at Buckingham Palace were often exasperated by the stories which Whitaker published, they respected him for the straightforward manner in which he operated.

Inevitably, as incessant stories of scandal affected the monarchy's popularity, there was a certain adversarial side to the relationship between royal reporter and royal family. Among the scoops that Whitaker secured was the news that Princess Anne and Captain Mark Phillips were to divorce; he was also responsible for obtaining for the Mirror the pictures of the Duchess of York cavorting topless with John Bryan in the South of France, and told the world about the Princess of Wales and Dodi Fayed.

James Edward Anthony Whitaker was born at Cheltenham on October 1, 1940. He was educated at Cheltenham College, then, at the insistence of his businessman father, worked for three years training to be an accountant. He hated it, and without telling his father found himself a job with a local west London newspaper. In 1968 he was taken on by the Daily Mail, where he rose to deputy features editor.

In 1975 Whitaker was recruited by The Sun, and in 1979 joined the recently launched Daily Star to specialise in royal coverage, and was noted there for his habit of writing with a plate of smoked salmon sandwiches and a bottle of champagne on his desk.

He moved to the Mirror in 1983 where he contributed a regular column, the purpose of which was to enrage the readers and generate a large postbag. It worked: Whitaker would complain about irritants such as the outrageous price of Krug and the difficulty of finding decent servants.

His status was somewhat threatened by Andrew Morton, who in 1992 published Diana: Her True Story; but Whitaker responded the following year, bringing out his own book, Diana v. Charles, which was a bestseller around the world.

James Whitaker is survived by his wife, Iwona (nee Milde), whom he married in 1965, and by their two sons and one daughter.

Telegraph, London