Dame Joan and a far from flattering fictional portrait

DAME Joan Collins and Best Exotic Marigold Hotel actress Celia Imrie have made three films together.

But has Imrie drawn on Dame Joan as inspiration for her new novel, Sail Away? Suzy Marshall, the protagonist of Imrie’s tome, ‘had played the principal role in the multi-awardwinning mid-1980s TV drama series Dahlias’, which doesn’t sound all that removed from Dynasty in which Collins starred as Alexis Carrington. Suzy ends up resorting to working on a cruise ship; Dame Joan is godmother of cruise ship SS Joie de Vivre. Imrie unkindly notes that ‘although at the time Dahlias had been a worldwide hit, now, more than 30 years later, everyone had forgotten both the series and Suzy’.

Let’s hope she thinks more highly of Dame Joan in real life.