Actor Colin Firth in The King's Speech. (Supplied photo)

SAN DIEGO, Calif. -- This southern California city has a link to the new movie, The King's Speech, (opening Dec. 10 in Toronto and around Christmas elsewhere after winning the 2010 People's Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival).

The film tells how a speech therapist treated King George VI -- father of the present Queen -- for a troublesome stammer before, during and after Britain's constitutional crisis of 1936.

The crisis was sparked when George's brother -- King Edward VIII -- abdicated the throne after deciding to marry a divorced "commoner," American Wallis Simpson.

The story is relevant, too, now that a future heir to the throne, Prince William (George's great-grandson)) is to marry Kate Middleton, a commoner (but not a divorcee).

In the film, Colin Firth plays George. Guy Pearce plays Edward and Eve Best is Simpson, the woman he gave up the throne for. After they were married they became the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.

In the grounds of the upscale Del Coronado Hotel, on the Coronado Peninsula, across a bridge from San Diego, there's a cabin called The Duchess of Windsor Cottage and guides who conduct walking tours of the property outline the local connection to one of the great love stories of the 20th century.

They tell how Edward, as Prince of Wales, stayed at "the Del" in 1920. Wallis' husband was at that time the commander of the Coronado naval base. He stayed in the hotel, she in the cottage off the beach.

The story goes that she set her cap for the prince, confiding to a friend: "Somebody has to be queen and it might as well be me."

Later, as everyone knows, she began an affair with Edward, who planned to marry her when he became king. But Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin thwarted his plan and Edward was forced to abdicate. Brother George, already trying hard to overcome his stammer, took the throne.

The Duchess's cottage is now a clubhouse for the Beach Village, the posh condos that are part of a recent Del expansion.

To be fair, some historians doubt Wallis met Edward during that 1920 visit, and say the monarch was more interested in visiting the gambling joints over the Mexican border in Tijuana, just 30 km away, than in romantic dalliances.

The Del, which opened in 1888, is a red-roofed architectural symphony in turrets and cupolas, verandas, gingerbread balconies, widow walks and sculptured gardens. It has always been a lure for VIPs. The corridors in the basement are lined with glass cases with photos of presidents -- 14 U.S. leaders have stayed there (but not, so far, Barack Obama) -- other world leaders, and movie stars from silent days (the likes of Mary Pickford and Charlie Chaplin), through the Golden Age (Errol Flynn, Lana Turner, Marilyn Monroe et al), to the present (Brad Pitt, Ellen DeGeneres, George Clooney).

DETAILS

-- More information is available at hoteldel.com. For area information, see coronadovisitorcenter.com and sandiego.org.