Ahead of her appearance on the red carpet at Cannes next week, Deadline journalist Baz Bamigboye interviews Dame Joan Collins and reveals some exclusive new imagery from My Duchess.
After a career that has spanned 75 years from post-war Rank Organisation starlet to Dynasty diva, this self-described “jobbing actor” has a hunger, ambition and energy that thespians half her age, younger even, would envy. For the Cannes Film Festival, the legendary dame, who doesn’t care much for walking, is taking dancing lessons to enable her to glide with gusto into the Palais de Festival for the opening night gala on May 12.
French actor Laurent Lafitte (The Count of Monte-Cristo, Elle) will be joining her on the red carpet as he plays a key role opposite Dame Joan in My Duchess, directed by Mike Newell from a script by Louise Fennell. It reveals the tortured final years of Wallis Simpson, the Duchess of Windsor, the American divorcee who found herself thrust between king and country when Edward VIII renounced the British throne to be with “the woman I love,” as he famously put it in his abdication speech.
Read more at Deadline.
Joan Collins as the Duchess of Windsor in My Duchess. Photos © Rory Mulvey / John Gore Studios