PRESS UPDATE : THE SPECTATOR ... MAY 23RD 2026 ..

Joan Collins

23 May 2026

No one recog­nised me on the red car­pet!

‘We are tak­ing the pic­ture to Cannes,’ said John Gore, the pro­du­cer and fin­an­cier of My Duch­ess, my new film about the Duch­ess of Wind­sor. ‘How excit­ing!’ I said. Then, a minute later, I thought, ‘Oh God! What am I going to wear on the red car­pet?’ The fol­low­ing day I told my artist friend David Down­ton about my dilemma while lunch­ing at Clar­idge’s. ‘Let’s call Stéphane Rolland,’ he said. ‘Won­der­ful idea!’ I said. ‘He’s great! He made the red dress I wore for the Heart Truth Red Dress gala in New York a few years ago, and it was spec­tac­u­lar.’

David called Stéphane as we had cof­fee, and the tal­en­ted cou­tur­ier sketched a ter­rific draw­ing of a beau­ti­ful white dress with ruffles while they chat­ted, and texted it to David. ‘Amaz­ing!’ I exclaimed. It was per­fect – exactly what I would have wanted. He must have read my mind, and it took all of five minutes. Three weeks later, Stéphane and his long-time col­lab­or­ator Phil­ippe Delessard arrived at my apart­ment with a massive suit­case con­tain­ing a gor­geous dress that fit­ted me per­fectly.

My dresser, Chrissy, and I went through my entire ward­robe try­ing to find suit­able out­fits for the three days we were to spend in Cannes. I had to pre­pare for two din­ners that were sup­posedly cas­ual (dif­fi­cult as I can only do cas­ual when I exer­cise) and a lunch with press fol­lowed by a photo shoot with Isa­bella Ros­sellini, and finally another out­fit to appear on stage to intro­duce the screen­ing. It took Chrissy and me all day to col­late the right out­fits, shoes, bags, jew­ellery, etc. I don’t have a styl­ist on speed dial, but luck­ily I have lots of clothes. I prac­tised dance steps and bal­ance with my friend the cho­reo­grapher Paul Robin­son. God for­bid I should slip on the red car­pet steps. I watched some reels of act­resses at pre­vi­ous Cannes red car­pets and all I could say is: I had bet­ter watch out.

Joan with MY DUCHESS director Mike Newell at Cannes Luncheon at Carlton Beach

We arrived in Cannes on the Monday. The streets were clogged with people; I wondered if they were all cinephiles or just there to gawk at the celebrit­ies. We stayed at the Majestic hotel, where many beau­ti­ful young girls con­greg­ated in the lobby, some with attend­ants car­ry­ing all man­ner of light­ing and video equip­ment while the girls pranced around pos­ing pret­tily. ‘They’re influ­en­cers,’ said Alyn, my makeup and hair guru.

Cannes was boil­ing hot but there was a very high wind, so in pre­par­ing for the red car­pet and walk­ing up the stairs at the Pal­ais des Fest­ivals I was wor­ried my hair would blow all over my face. Sev­eral star­lets had been papped on the Crois­ette with their long exten­sions envel­op­ing their faces, so we decided to scrape my hair back and put it up in a chignon. Then, primped and powdered and hair sprayed like carved mahogany, off I went. My white dress, although gor­geous, was quite uncom­fort­able and I wor­ried that my high heels would catch on the cobble­stones, even though they were covered in car­pet. But none of these fears – hair, dress, shoes – mater­i­al­ised. What actu­ally occurred was far more embar­rass­ing. I got in the car with Laurent Lafitte, my co-star and one of France’s biggest movie stars, and Alyn, armed with a massive can of Elnett hair spray. In another car were Percy and John Gore, who were sup­posed to arrive ahead of us so that they and Laurent could escort me. However, a super-dili­gent gen­darme sent their car the long way round and ours the short way, so we arrived before them. As soon as my car stopped, Laurent dis­ap­peared, engulfed by fans wav­ing auto­graph pho­tos and tak­ing selfies. I des­cen­ded from my voit­ure to find myself alone and ignored on the red car­pet… Bambi in the middle of a flam­ing fire. No sign of Percy or John, while Laurent swam in a sea of scream­ing fans. An offi­cious, head­set­ted young woman came up to me and yelled: ‘Vite, vite, get in line. You can’t just stand here!’An actor’s night­mare. To my great relief, within what was prob­ably a minute dur­ing which guests looked at me blankly, though it felt like an etern­ity, John, Percy and Laurent all appeared at once and, to screams of ‘Joan! Joan!’, we star­ted walk­ing up the red car­pet while the snap­pers barked orders: ‘Over your shoulder!’ ‘Look left!’ ‘With Laurent!’ ‘By your­self!’

Joan and Isabella Rossellini in My Duchess

Imust admit it was ‘adren­alinely’ exhil­ar­at­ing, if I might coin a term, to be sur­roun­ded by so many people, all intent on cap­tur­ing magic moments. Sev­eral other luminar­ies walked behind us, includ­ing Jane Fonda, whom I’ve known since our early days in Hol­ly­wood. Although I’ve atten­ded the Cannes Film Fest­ival many times dur­ing my career, this was the most excit­ing occa­sion. The next day the media gave Stéphane’s white ‘orchid’ dress and me the most won­der­ful plaudits, so it was all worth it in the end.