A n actor’s life is either feast or famine. For 90
per cent of us too often it’s famine, as our thespian business is vastly overpopulated and competition is fierce. In the past months I’ve had more than five jobs, including a two-week stint on Footballers’ Wives, which, after almost a year of famine, felt like drinking nectar. Talk about glitzy camp! It was a hoot as the girls (and boys) are fully made up, coiffed, manicured and exquisitely dressed to kill, or kick, in the height of chav fashion. Luckily, I played a magazine mogul with stunning wardrobe so I was able to stay away from Burberry ‘Andy caps’ and sequined jeans. Zoe Lucker, who plays the chief bitch Tanya, has to wear twoand-a-half-inch nails for the whole season. ‘How on earth do you wash your hair?’ I asked her. ‘Very carefully,’ she replied.
When Prince Charles and his new bride descended upon NY, good manners went awol at the Museum of Modern Art drinks party given for them by the British consulate. Major movers and shakers pushed, jostled and elbowed each other out of the way to have a moment to bask in the royal glory. One famous 80-year-old Broadway star thumped Prince Charles on the back and was sternly admonished, ‘Please don’t poke the Prince, Madam.’ Both royals were extremely charming. Prince Charles amused me by his opening remark, ‘My wife tells me she’s stolen your hairdresser,’ since Hugh has now decided that Highgrove is more conducive to coiffure than my flat in Belgravia. Elsewhere, though, I was rather appalled by a window display at Barneys department store. It featured a Prince Charles dummy naked in the bath except for a crown and socks, reading a tabloid; Prince William on the loo, holding a roll of bathroom tissue inscribed ‘The Heir’; Prince Harry holding one inscribed ‘The Spare’; and an extremely unflattering and toothy mannequin of Camilla. If Selfridges or Harrods had done something similar to the Bush family, we’d never have heard the end of it, but I suppose Bush does enough to ridicule himself publicly to make a window display redundant.
I’ve finally received my green card, making me an American resident. Although I’d had one since I was 20, I gave it up years ago when I was planning to live full-time in the UK. When I received my first one from my bosses at 20th Century-Fox, all that was required was a few phone calls to some government officials, a copy of my birth certificate and bingo — I was a resident alien. How times have changed. This time I had to pro vide them not only with an original copy of my birth certificate, but an original copy of each of my marriage licences and divorce certificates. A battery of lawyers was hired. Add to this details of every time I’ve entered and exited the United States since birth, a list of all my movies, TV shows and stage appearances and I had half the legal manpower in the United States working for me. But it was worth it. Now, I sail blithely through US customs and immigration without having to be fingerprinted, photographed, generally interrogated, scrutinised, suspected, held for 90 days and flown to Guantanamo Bay.
Too many young American actresses now look like concentration-camp survivors. ‘Oh, I eat healthy and I don’t, like, own a scale and I never, like, check my weight,’ bleated one skeletal TV star on the Today show. Another famous actress, weighing about 95lbs, was photographed huffing and sweating in the park with weights on her ankles and wrists as she declared, ‘I don’t have an eating disorder, and I eat whatever I want!’ So likely. Just as the obese deny that they overeat, so do these life-dieters pretend that they’re naturally needle-thin. It’s a sad message propagated by magazines and fashionistas who insist their models have the lean bodies of adolescent boys. Hurrah for Catherine Zeta-Jones, who looks like a woman and is proud of her curves.
Iconsider myself an aficionado of hotels so, having recently enjoyed the quietly elegant delights of a weekend at Cliveden and the unassuming finesse of the Hotel Cipriani, I found it quite a culture shock to stay at a highend hotel in Palm Beach. A few weeks ago we had a wonderful weekend at Cipriani’s in Venice for Michael Winner’s birthday. The service and the staff were impeccable and the suite comfort par excellence. The whole experience was one of luxury and relaxation, as was Cliveden the week before, with its expansive stately gardens and superb ambience. In Hotel Babylon, another TV show I recently shot, it is impressed upon the check-in staff the importance of making the guests’ stay delightful. At Cliveden and Cipriani they were more than charming and solicitous without brown-nosing, but when we checked in at the Palm Beach hotel I felt about as welcome as Hitler on the Champs-Elysées. The unkempt clerk was surly and unhelpful, referring to me as ‘John Collins’. Neither the air-conditioning nor the telephone in our suite worked, and when we departed that night for a party, leaving the ‘Please make up the room’ sign on the door, we returned to find that nada had been done. When we informed the desk clerk she snapped coldly, ‘You must’ve put the sign on backwards.’ Hey, lady, we can read, y’know. We ordered a continental breakfast and waited an hour for a slouching waiter to show up, notice the two of us and in an accusatory tone exclaim, ‘Nobody tol’ me this breakfast was for two!’ Percy and I shared a croissant and the single cup of coffee and decided to hit the pool, which was at least wet — though we had to put up with the stench of frying onions wafting from the restaurant and an ancient and noisy lawnmower eating the grass next to our loungers.
‘Gina Lollobrigida? Who’s she?’ inquired the young PA of some friends who were organising a party for us. ‘Don’t you know who she is?’ I asked, amazed, just as a friend had been when pitching a biopic of Rita Hayworth to a top studio executive. ‘Never heard of her,’ the 28-year-old exec stated flatly. Fame is fleeting, we are told, many people only get 15 minutes, so I wonder how long it will be before the Beyoncés and Paris Hiltons of the celeb world are forgotten too?
We flew on the new airline JetBlue from JFK to Palm Beach for Donald Trump Jr.’s wedding. At $150 one-way it was an absolute bargain compared with American Airlines’ $800. We weren’t expecting much but we were more than pleasantly surprised. The ground staff were solicitous and caring, the plane spacious and each seat featured TV sets with a vast selection of classic and new movies. There were no screaming kids or yelling babies. When we landed the flight attendant asked, ‘Will everyone not needing a wheelchair please disembark?’ Percy and I rose, and then realised we were the only passengers in the first six rows to do so. On leaving the plane, we passed a flotilla of wheelchairs. God’s waiting-room now has boarding passes.
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