EPHRAIM HARDCASTLE: Dame Joan Collins reveals Gene Kelly ‘thrust his tongue deep into my mouth’

Dame Joan Collins at 90 is never short of spicy anecdotes to pique the interest of fawning interviewers. 

She tells the latest one that while filming an episode of the 1986 TV series Sins, her co-star Gene Kelly ‘thrust his tongue deep into my mouth’, adding that Debbie Reynolds told her ‘the old French tongue had been down her throat, too’. 

Sadly the old hoofer (1912-1996) isn’t around to confirm nor deny it.

Dame Joan Collins, 90, (pictured) said her Sins co-star Gene Kelly ‘thrust his tongue deep into my mouth’ 

Apropos the Collins clan, the 40th anniversary of her sister Jackie’s best-selling book Hollywood Wives is marked by Jackie’s daughter Rory Lerman. 

Clearly an adherent of the family’s tell-all tradition, she declares: ‘She once sued a magazine distributed by [pornographer] Larry Flynt because they published a nude picture of a woman and claimed it was her. 

After she died, we found a letter from Mr Flynt which charmingly opened with the line, ‘Get off your high horse you f****** b****’.’

Having fronted the channel’s coverage of last week’s royal ceremony in Edinburgh, Sky News anchor Jayne Secker, pictured, naughtily tweets: ‘Giving myself a special award for saying Crown Jewels repeatedly and not sniggering once.’

President Joe Biden’s fleeting visit to London en route to a G7 summit elsewhere isn’t surprising. 

He’s keener on his family’s Irish roots than their English ones. 

He’s unlikely to boast about becoming the first sitting US president to meet two reigning British monarchs.

Noting that family friend Nigel Havers was present when her comedian son, Jack Whitehall (Nigel’s godson), was born, actress Hilary Whitehall recalls: ‘The only detail I remember is looking up at my feet in the stirrups to see Nigel coming through the door. Which I still haven’t really recovered from.’ 

Gentlemanly Havers says: ‘It’s one of the highlights of my life.’

Perky Times columnist Caitlin Moran, describing her ‘working-class’ West Midlands life in Waitrose magazine (of all places), says: ‘Growing up, I’d read about pizza but we couldn’t afford to order one in. 

‘So I invented the “Wolverhampton Pizza”: Take wholewheat bread, add loads of Cheddar, sliced onion, mushrooms and tomatoes – then put it in the oven for 20 minutes. It’s still my favourite pizza.’ 

She muses: ‘If you manage to get from a council estate to being interviewed by Jeremy Paxman on Newsnight, there’s a huge part of you that’s like: “When are they going to make me go back?”‘

Times columnist Caitlin Moran (pictured) said she invented the ‘Wolverhampton Pizza’

The Royal Household’s annual report maintains the illusion that the King and Queen will move into Buck House when the refurbishment work is completed. 

But Charles has spent twenty years making nearby Clarence House his ideal home. Why should he be in a rush to leave it? 

Nor do anything else to diminish his impressive property portfolio? Besides, moving out would leave Clarence House standing empty, tempting the Prince of Wales to consider housing homeless subjects there.