Joan Collins and Isabella Rossellini Shine with Old Hollywood Elegance at Cannes

A Night of Glamour and Legacy at Cannes

Joan Collins and Isabella Rossellini made a striking appearance at the Cannes Film Festival, where their presence brought a touch of old Hollywood magic to an event that had seemed somewhat lacking in that department. Collins, at 92, was a standout on the red carpet, outshining younger stars with her timeless elegance. Her custom Stéphane Rolland Haute Couture gown, adorned with a sweeping train, black opera gloves, and diamond jewelry, exuded the same iconic style that defined her role as Alexis Carrington in Dynasty.

Collins shared that she had her "glam squad" take care of her hair and makeup for the evening. She declined to elaborate further, saying, “You can read what they wrote.” Now, sitting on the Carlton Beach, she’s more relaxed, wearing a patterned summer dress and oversized sunglasses. Her signature hair is perfectly styled, a testament to her enduring flair.

Next to her, Isabella Rossellini embodies a different kind of elegance—bohemian and effortless. Draped in a loose black-and-white outfit with flashes of bright orange, her pixie cut remains untouched by the extravagance of the festival. Rossellini joined Collins for a discussion about My Duchess, the first collaboration between the two screen icons.

Rossellini skipped the red carpet entirely, calling it “intimidating” and noting how much has changed since her mother, Ingrid Bergman, attended the Oscars. “She wore her own jewelry, maybe something special that my father had bought for her,” she said. Collins added, “I wore my own jewelry last night because I didn’t want a security guard following me around.”

The two women share a natural chemistry, effortlessly switching between topics of fashion, film, and stories from another era. At one point, Collins mentioned that her father and Rossellini’s almost worked together on a 1957 drama, Sea Wife. The director, Roberto Rossellini, had wanted a more provocative storyline, which led to a conflict with the studio. The story ended with the director leaving the project, but Rossellini laughed, “My father really liked you.”

Collins recently posted a photo of herself with Roberto Rossellini on Instagram, commemorating what would have been his 120th birthday. Rossellini joked, “She's very big on Instagram,” to which Collins retorted, “Oh, you have more followers than me.”

A Film About Power and Survival

Collins isn’t just here to reminisce; she’s promoting My Duchess, a film directed by Mike Newell, which tells the story of Wallis Simpson, the Duchess of Windsor. The movie focuses on the final years of her life, when she lived under the control of her exploitative lawyer, Suzanne Blum, played by Rossellini. It picks up after the death of the Duke of Windsor in 1972 and traces the Duchess’ physical and mental decline under Blum’s control.

People thought she had died, but she hadn’t. This lawyer destroyed her. She spent the last eight or nine years of her life blind, deaf, and dying. And no one knows that.

Getting the project made took decades. My Duchess is the first feature from John Gore Studios, the new venture launched by the Broadway impresario behind Hamilton and The Book of Mormon. The film was financed after Collins pitched the idea to him at a King’s Trust dinner in late 2023. Embankment Films is handling sales in Cannes.

Collins has been trying to make her Wallis Simpson film for 30 years. In the early 1990s, she met Mohamed Al-Fayed, who owned the house in France where the Duchess lived. She visited the house, which looked exactly as it does in the film, and was shown around by the former valet, Sydney Johnson.

Collins feels a kinship with Simpson, who was the target of the tabloids of her day. “This film is a bit of me getting back [at the press], because I had a lot of problems in my time,” she said. “They always saw me as the bad girl because of the roles I played. When I was in Dynasty, the press would say: ‘She's just like that,’ and I wasn’t!”

For Collins’ fans, My Duchess is a revelation. As Simpson declines, the actress appears frail, diminished, stripped of poise and makeup. Frighteningly exposed.

A Unique Performance

“Joan has this combination that I have never seen before,” says Rossellini. “She is beautiful, has great beauty, great glamor, but absolutely no vanity whatsoever.”

“No, I am not vain. I have never been vain,” Collins agrees. “I'll answer the door in shorts with no makeup. I don't care.”

That lack of vanity becomes the greatest weapon of My Duchess. The sight of Collins—once one of the defining glamour figures of post-war cinema and television—as she physically withers onscreen is something we have never seen before.

But there is, as Rossellini puts it, one “Joan Collins moment” in the film: when the Duchess finally snaps and lashes out at Blum.

“I say the F-word one time in the film, in that scene,” says Collins with obvious delight. “As I was doing it, I thought: ‘I just told Ingrid Bergman's daughter to F-off!’”

Despite the darkness of the material, there is an unmistakable lightness between the two actresses. Perhaps because both have spent decades navigating the strange collision of celebrity image and artistic ambition. And both have also successfully adjusted to periods out of the spotlight.

A Career Spanning Decades

“I started working in this business when I was 17, and my father told me, ‘If you are lucky, you can work until you're 27,’ ” says Collins. Seventy-five years later, she notes that she’s had probably “had the longest-ever career in show business. I'm certainly the oldest working.”

She says the secret to career longevity, both for her and Rossellini, was surprisingly simple. “We had good families. We never had problems with alcohol or drugs. And we always wanted to work.”

The woman who spent decades playing glamorous monsters is now playing a victim slowly erased from the world. By the end of My Duchess, stripped of makeup, jewelry, and image, there is almost nothing left of the Joan Collins audiences think they know. At 92, after more than seven decades onscreen, Dame Collins may finally have found the one role that destroys the myth she spent a lifetime creating.