PRESS UPDATE : VOGUE ... MAY 2023 ..

 

Friends Of Vogue On The Real King Charles III

Ahead of the Coronation, Dame Joan Collins shares her personal recollections of the new monarch, and their hopes for his reign.

Joan Collins

Joan with Charles and Shirley Bassey

His Majesty King Charles has always been charming, with a wonderful voice and a dry, dry sense of humour. I met him for the first time at the charity ball that Armand Hammer gave in Palm Beach, Miami, in the 1980s, when he was the Prince of Wales and first married to Princess Diana. We had a little dance together, which was very nice. He’s quite a good dancer! And he wrote very flattering words about it in his book.

Another time, in the 2000s, we sat together at the Safeway Picnic concert in aid of The Prince’s Trust, where Diana Ross and Shirley Bassey performed, of whom he’s a great enthusiast. He loves modern music and was jiving along. He said he hoped Ross would sing his favourite song, “Baby Baby”.

I was a teenager during the late Queen’s Coronation. I had a bunch of friends with me and we all went galloping to Oxford Street to catch a glimpse of the Queen’s coach. It was so fabulous because it was bright gold going through the shabby old torn streets of London, only five or six years after the war had ended, with bomb sites everywhere. Those were cold, dark days in Britain still, so it was incredibly exciting. Everybody felt that they were at the dawn of a new, young, renaissance world.

I think King Charles will be a very good leader. He’s learnt great instincts from his wonderful mother. The Queen was supremely loved, so she’s a hard act to follow, as they say in showbiz, but he will be able to climb that mountain, I am sure.