CELEBRATING 70 YEARS! : FALLEN ANGELS .. ANGLIA TELEVISION .. UK 1974 ..

 ANGLIA TELEVISION
Presents

FALLEN ANGELS

Starring
JOAN COLLINS as Jane Banbury

SUSANNAH YORK as Julia Sterroll 
SACHA DISTEL as Maurice Ducios 
MICHAEL ALDRIDGE as Fred Sterroll 
RONALD FRASER as Willoughby Banbury 
LALLY BOWERS as Saunders 

Produced by John Jacobs & Ron Kass 
Adapted for television by William Fairchild 
From the play by Noel Coward 
Costumes by Beatrice Dawson 
Directed by Donald Mc Whinnie

When Jane informs her friend Julia that an old flame, they both have secret feelings for is coming to town, the girls become frantic and with their husbands out of the way, how will they deal with the situation. Only heaven above can help those Fallen Angels!

In 1972 Joan was still married to Ron Kass and he managed to secure the rights to some of Noel Coward plays in order to produce them for television. Joan had hoped he could secure her favourite play "Private Lives", but no luck with that. But she did love "Fallen Angels", a play that first was staged in New York in 1927 starring Tallulah Bankhead and Edna Best. With Ron producing, Joan was given the task of casting the production and she immediately knew Susannah York was perfect for the role of Julia.

Susannah loved working on the production and instantly took a liking to Joan and they became the best of friends. I spoke to Susannah some years ago and she had only praise for Joan.

" Joan is a superb light comedienne, it is a pity that through her career producers tend to think of her as a sultry sex symbol." 

Susannah also mentioned she remembered in the 80's testing for the role of Sable Colby on "The Colby's" and Joan been very supportive.

Joan & Susannah with Sacha Distel

 Joan also wanted the perfect man to play Maurice as she recalled..

" I thought Sacha would be perfect for the role, as usually in the past the part was played by a lesser known actor..I felt it extremely important to the plot as Susannah and I pend most of the play extolling the virtues of this divine Frenchman, with whom we both loved, by time the audience see him, he had to be to die for!"

Joan and the gang in rehearsals

 Screened over Christmas and was a big success. Joan was delighted that a good friend Beatrice Dawson was doing the costumes as Bea was one of the theatres best designers and had been a good friend to Joan's favourite actress Vivien Leigh. She scoured the antique shops looking for authentic twenties frocks and came up with some beautiful items..I watched the programme recently and it is a sparkling production and both ladies are excellent. Joan returned to Coward in the 90's with the BBC series "Tonight at 8.30''.

Lord Lichfield contact sheet to promote show

''Fallen Angels'' has not been screened on tv for many years, except for a recent screening at the BFI for a series of Noel Coward productions.. I have a copy and watched it again most recently and it is still a sparkling production with Joan and Susannah on top form.. Hopefully a company like Network or the BFI may release ito n dvd at some stage.

Rare promo shot for the show.