The Queen’s stirring address to the nation has stiffened our resolve, but now it’s the turn of another royal to take centre stage in this time of crisis — home-grown Hollywood royalty, that is.
For the inimitable Dame Joan Collins, forever revered as Alexis in the Eighties super-soap Dynasty, is putting herself up for auction as part of an appeal to raise £100 million to support the health and wellbeing of those in the NHS frontline.
The auction — being conducted online and by phone — continues until April 29, when auctioneers Bonhams will alert the lucky winning bidder.
Dame Joan Collins is putting herself up for auction as part of an appeal to raise £100 million to support the health and wellbeing of NHS workers on the front line
He, or perhaps she, will not, however, be able to take Dame Joan home with him for ever, but will instead enjoy the irresistible treat of having lunch with her at Claridge’s, her favourite London hotel, where she married her fifth husband, Percy Gibson, in 2002. Percy will join them at lunch, as will panto dame Christopher Biggins.
It promises to be a feast of the finest dining and dazzling anecdotage. Dame Joan and Percy spend four months each year at St Tropez, where, in less inhibited days, lions and tigers would be brought to parties and where, as Dame Joan has put it, ‘naked girls would jump into swimming pools wearing just sequins’.
Posting on Instagram with a note reading ‘#ThankYouNHS #OurNHSPeople’ and another picture with her husband Percy Gibson saying: ‘The BLUE Auction in aid of NHS Charities Covid-19 URGENT APPEAL is now live until 29 April’
But Dame Joan assures me that she derives greatest pleasure from more intimate occasions. She recalls, in particular, a lunch with the late Sir David Tang.
‘My best lunch was with Percy and David Tang in his cottage in the middle of Hyde Park,’ she tells me. ‘All we had to eat was a massive one kilo tin of beluga caviar — with blinis.
‘The worst one was a lunch with our best friends the Bricusses at La Colombe d’Or during France’s hottest heatwave. As the lunch came to a sweaty end, [songwriter] Leslie Bricusse said, “We could have stayed at home by the pool”. We could have used that suggestion at the beginning!
‘There was also a picnic in the South of France when we were attacked by a swarm of wasps and had to lock ourselves in our house and leave the lunch to the wasps!’
The winning bidder would do well to make a note of two dietary details — an acute allergy to shellfish and, contrary to the impression given by her role as Alexis Carrington, a profound distaste for champagne.
Caviar and sauvignon blanc will, by contrast, do very nicely. Bon appetit!
Colin Firth wasn’t always the dashing dandy we’ve come to know and love. ‘I went through a bit of a grungy phase in the Seventies,’ admits the Bridget Jones star. ‘I had three piercings; I was tempted at one stage to get one in my nose as well but, thankfully, never went through with it.’ Punk and prejudice, perhaps?
Rocker Rossi sees red over green Greta
OH here we are and here we are . . . Status Quo’s Francis Rossi has been rockin’ all over the world for five decades and is not happy being lectured by teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg.
‘Remember in the late Seventies, they said, “Prepare for an ice age”. Now they’re telling us it’s the other way round,’ he says.
‘That young girl . . . if she really thinks my generation and the generation that are now 40 got on this planet and said, “Let’s mess it up, everyone” . . . We didn’t. We thought we were doing well. We thought we were going to do the right things. We thought we were going to make it better.
‘And if she thinks her generation are going to get to 50 and 60 and go, “We didn’t make any mistakes,” she’s mistaken. That’s how it goes.’ And I li-li-li-like it.
Flapper Liz dresses to kill for home whodunit
Elizabeth Hurley has been putting her acting skills to good use during quarantine, and has been filming a home-made murder mystery at her home in Hertfordshire
Elizabeth Hurley has been putting her acting skills to good use while in quarantine.
The Royals star has been filming a 1920s murder mystery at home in Hertfordshire.
‘Amusing ourselves and filming a murder mystery at home,’ she captions the selfie.
The bikini designer says she feels ‘incredibly lucky to live in the countryside and have lots of outside space.’ Liz is cohabiting with her son Damian, 18, and a number of friends and family.
‘I have seven other people living with me including my 79-year-old mother and her sister — also in her late 70s — and one of my best friends who is in the highest risk group with severe respiratory problems,’ she says. ‘Keeping everyone as safe as possible — and fed — is a full-time job.’
TV chef Nigella Lawson is finding it hard to deal with the new reality
‘I don’t know about you, but my concentration is shot to pieces at the moment,’ trills the Domestic Goddess. ‘I mean, I’m at my desk every day, but everything is taking six times as long. I’m slightly stunned by the idea — widely kicked around — that this time could usefully be spent reading the great books you never got round to, or starting that magnum opus of your own.’ Join the club.
Demelza’s diary lays Poldark’s secrets bare
Poldark star Eleanor Tomlinson has said that she kept a diary while filming the hit BBC show
Poldark star Eleanor Tomlinson reveals she kept a diary on the hit BBC show.
‘It’s got everything from auditioning for Poldark to meeting Aidan [Turner] for the first time,’ says the 27-year-old, who played Ross’s wife Demelza (pictured).
‘It documents everything so I should dig it out and share it. I’m sure one day I could publish a book on all those stories — it would be called “Poldark’s secrets”,’ she jokes. Ooh arr…
Jeremy Vine says his teenage daughter has returned to the piano having given up lessons aged 11. ‘This week I heard a melody drift from the front room. Who was playing ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’? The very same daughter, now 13, had decided to use ‘lockdown’ to learn Queen’s most famous song. Released from lessons, she’d turned back to the piano out of sheer love. And Freddie Mercury knocks spots off poor old Freddie Chopin.’
Andrew’s ex isn’t getting the hump under lockdown
Prince Andrew’s Ex Caroline Stanbury looks like she’s having a ball on her inflatable camel, floating in her swimming pool at her home in Dubai
Who says you can’t have fun on lockdown? Prince Andrew’s former flame, Caroline Stanbury, whom he dated in 2000, looks like she’s having a ball. The Ladies of London reality TV star is staying at her home in Dubai.
‘I’m enjoying the extra sleep and time but obviously it’s scary because I don’t know what the world looks like on the other side,’ she says. The mother-of-three is finding home schooling a challenge. ‘I can’t do maths and I definitely can’t do science, and now the kids know how stupid I am,’ she laments.
Feisty northern lass Steph McGovern is the host of Channel 4’s new programme The Steph Show, but admits she is embarrassed by the eponymous title. ‘I have an agreement with my friends and family that we call it The Daily Show and not The Steph Show, so I don’t get too big-headed,’ she says. ‘It’s really surreal. If someone had said to me when I was a kid, one day [you’d have] your own TV show, with your name on, I’d never have believed it. It’s brilliant but equally if it’s a bit rubbish, it will be like, “Oh yeah, that was Steph’s show”. So it cuts both ways.’
