Richard Todd

Joan Collins: ‘When this is over I’m going to squeeze every last drop of joy out of life’

• When Dame Joan Collins was 21, she was chased off the 20th Century Fox lot by the older, married actor Richard Todd. Her co-star on the 1955 historical drama The Virgin Queen ‘didn’t take kindly to rejection. He followed me at high speed in his car, screaming at me to wind my window down, and when I did, do you know what he said? “By the time you’re 23, you’ll be a washed-up old bag!’’’ The 87-year-old actress is laughing at the baseness of male desire. She’s laughing at the notion that she should be designated a plot and handed a shovel at the age of 23. But mostly it’s the amusement of knowing that, after a career that has spanned three-quarters of a century, from Hollywood’s second Golden Age to Dynasty and the hit US TV show American Horror Story, Collins was still touring the country in her one-woman show until Covid hit, still fronting fashion campaigns for the likes of Valentino and Kurt Geiger, and is about to grace both the big screen – in Vincent Woods’ festive drama The Loss Adjuster – and the small screen in José Luis Moreno’s forthcoming period TV drama series Glow & Darkness. Not bad for a washed-up old bag.