Joan Collins

Joan Collins: why I love London taxi drivers

Percy and I have seen quite a few movies recently and enjoyed many of them, which is rare. But the most enjoyable was Judy, for the performance of its star, Renée Zellweger. I met Judy Garland many times when I had just arrived in Hollywood as a young starlet and I can tell you that Renée resembles her uncannily, both physically and emotionally. Judy was fragile and birdlike, but her voice was strong and magical. I watched her sing at a party given by the legendary songwriter Sammy Cahn, who accompanied her on the piano. Apart from Miss Garland’s brilliant voice, it was fascinating to watch the audience. People who were great stars in their own right — Frank Sinatra, Rosalind Russell and Billy Wilder — were entranced by her performance. I last saw Judy perform at the Hollywood Bowl, an open-air amphitheatre. She was doing superbly, delivering a rousing rendition of ‘The Trolley Song’, when a moth flew into her mouth and she applied the emergency brake.

At tea with friends and their 15-year-old daughter, I was astonished to learn that at her school none of the girls are allowed to wear trousers. Not only that, but however cold it is, they can’t even wear above-the-knee socks, for fear of exciting the boys. The boys, meanwhile, are apparently allowed to wear exactly what they like — skirts, kilts, shorts or trousers. What on earth has happened to women’s rights? It’s the same as it ever was: anything goes for the male sex. Just think of the whole silly bathroom fiasco. So many loos have been converted into gender-neutral facilities (or unisex as we used to call it) that girls are suffering from urine infections (I’ve read). The girls would rather hold it in than be trapped and taunted by the boys in an unsupervised, and therefore potentially frightening, place.

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