She survived crazed smugglers and crocodiles opposite Michael Douglas as the heroine of Eighties classic Romancing The Stone, but Hollywood star Kathleen Turner wasn’t prepared to take things lying down when she trod the boards in the West End.
The celebrated actress has made the extraordinary disclosure that a member of the cast sunk his teeth into her neck during a passionate love scene in a stage production of Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?.
The character she refers to was played by fellow American actor David Harbour, who is now married to British pop star Lily Allen.
Harbour, who is now 46, gained worldwide recognition playing amiable police chief Jim Hopper in Netflix smash hit Stranger Things. He married mother-of-two Lily Allen, 35, in a surprise ceremony at the Graceland Chapel in Las Vegas last year
Turner, 66, says she was so enraged by her co-star’s behaviour that she struck him.
‘He deserved it,’ she replies when asked if she had ever hit anyone on stage. ‘It was in Virginia Woolf, a young man playing Nick.
‘He got carried away sort of trying to embrace and he is all over Martha [her character] at some point and he bit me in the neck.
‘And I just went [makes whack sound]. It was reflex.’
In the critically acclaimed 2006 production at London’s Apollo theatre, Turner played the unhappily married housewife, Martha, while Harbour was her secret lover, Nick.
Harbour, who is now 46, gained worldwide recognition playing amiable police chief Jim Hopper in Netflix smash hit Stranger Things.
Turner, 66, says she was so enraged by her co-star’s behaviour that she struck him. ‘He deserved it,’ she replies when asked if she had ever hit anyone on stage. ‘It was in Virginia Woolf, a young man playing Nick
He married mother-of-two Lily Allen, 35, in a surprise ceremony at the Graceland Chapel in Las Vegas last year.
The couple met through celebrity dating app Raya while he was working in London.
Speaking from her home in New York this week, Turner insists the biting incident was not a case of method acting gone too far.
‘Not at all. Absolutely not.
‘It had nothing to do with it,’ she declares.
The play depicts the complex marriage of a middle-aged couple, Martha and George, whose lives become entangled with those of younger couple, Nick and Honey.
A 1966 big-screen adaptation starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton won five Oscars. Harbour could not be reached for comment.
Hollywood actress Minnie Driver finds expensive eateries unpalatable. ‘I get confused in posh restaurants sometimes. I mean, I’ve been undone by a foam on top of a something. God save me from foam,’ says the Good Will Hunting star. ‘It looks like fish spit. I can’t do it.’
Driver is also picky about the way her grub is served. ‘I like a bowl. Those have become fashionable now,’ she says.
‘They’re on a menu, like, ‘Would you like the ancient grain bowl?’
The smart set’s talking about…
Royal jeweller’s sparkling surprise
He runs the Queen’s personal jeweller which is said to have created a £4,350 eternity ring for the Duchess of Sussex, but Josh Collins has now unveiled his most precious gem.
I can disclose that the boss of G. Collins & Sons, which has boasted the title of ‘Her Majesty The Queen’s Jeweller’ for nearly 20 years, has proposed to one of his staff, Julia Marie Maglione.
‘She is a real asset to the family and is creating many of the company’s signature pieces,’ one of her friends tells me.
I can disclose that the boss of G. Collins & Sons, which has boasted the title of ‘Her Majesty The Queen’s Jeweller’ for nearly 20 years, has proposed to one of his staff, Julia Marie Maglione
‘Their rings will be the highlight of the ceremony in Marylebone this summer.’ Maglione shows off her sparkler in this picture, left.
The Queen caused shockwaves when she dropped Garrard of Mayfair as her official Crown jeweller in 2007 after 164 years of royal service and handed the role to Josh’s father, Harry Collins.
He held the position until 2012 but remains HM’s personal jeweller.
Meghan was given the Collins diamond band by Prince Harry to celebrate their first wedding anniversary and she wore it at Trooping The Colour during her first public appearance after the birth of baby Archie.
Lady Louise Windsor, who is thought to have been left Prince Philip’s beloved four-wheeled carriage and his Fell ponies, could inherit much more from her grandfather.
I hear that Prince Edward and Sophie’s daughter is considering taking on some royal duties after she turns 18 in November.
‘Louise is a very sensible girl and has a great sense of duty,’ a friend of her parents tells me. She could become a patron of some of the 900 charities Philip supported during his lifetime.
Tough enough to deal with brickbats from Prince Harry and Meghan?
Then the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have just the job for you: they’re seeking a spin doctor.
‘This is an exciting opportunity to join the communications team,’ declares the job advertisement on the royal website. Prince William and Kate warn, however, that the ‘ability to handle sensitive information with tact and discretion at all times’ is essential.
Also required are ‘excellent interpersonal skills and the ability to build strong relationships’. Mending fences with the Sussexes would be a bonus.
Elizabeth McGovern, who started work on the second Downton Abbey film this week, admits she gets treated like an aristocrat in real life.
The American actress, who plays the Countess of Grantham, says: ‘People give me a status that I am sometimes surprised by — as though I’m a Lady.’
The university professor’s daughter adds: ‘I suppose that’s inevitable, but for someone whose job it is to create a character, it’s very surprising. Somebody will meet you and have a relationship with you that you don’t with them because they have a projection on a TV screen.’
Surely, there are some perks to being thought posh?
(Very) modern manners
Sir Rod Stewart’s musician daughter Ruby reveals she moved straight in with her new boyfriend, businessman Jake Kalick, after six weeks of ‘talking over the phone every night during the beginning of what felt like the end of the world’
This crisis seems to have done away with the need for dates altogether.
Sir Rod Stewart’s musician daughter Ruby reveals she moved straight in with her new boyfriend, businessman Jake Kalick, after six weeks of ‘talking over the phone every night during the beginning of what felt like the end of the world’.
She admits: ‘We never had a traditional first date. We just went straight into living together, which at first sounded like an absolute nightmare to me.
‘Little did I know he was everything I needed in my life, especially at that time.’
Jake, 35, is co-founder of professional cookware company Made-In, while Ruby, 33, is the daughter of Stewart’s ex-girlfriend, the model Kelly Emberg.
She adds: ‘I lost a lot in 2020, but meeting him made up for it ten-fold.
‘He loved me in a way I didn’t know I needed to be loved.’ Cripes!
British Menu star roasts ‘colonialist’ food experts
Andi Oliver, who replaced Prue Leith as a judge on The Great British Menu, has accused the nation’s food experts of being ‘culturally superior, colonialist, Eurocentric blokes’ who look down on the skills of Caribbean and Asian cookery in favour of classical French or Italian cuisine.
‘It drives me absolutely bonkers,’ declares former rock star Oliver, who grew up in Suffolk to Antiguan parents and now runs a Caribbean-inspired catering service. ‘It’s colonialism – an idea of cultural colonial superiority.
‘To be able to balance a perfect Northern Thai curry takes such skill and training. To make an Antiguan pepper pot takes years to learn, but they are never given that respect — it’s a Eurocentric bloke thing essentially…
‘Those other cuisines aren’t lesser, they’re different — and those differences are exciting.’
Sylvia Plath’s daughter and a poignant piece of poetic history
Poet Frieda, 61, has put her nursery chair hand-painted by Plath up for auction
The daughter of late Poet Laureate Ted Hughes missed out on growing up with her mother, the celebrated writer Sylvia Plath who killed herself when she was two, and now Frieda Hughes is selling a poignant memento of her troubled childhood.
Poet Frieda, 61, has put her nursery chair hand-painted by Plath up for auction.
‘It’s the only thing I have left that my mother painted and I want to find a really good home for it,’ Frieda tells me.
The chair will go under the hammer at Woolley & Wallis auctioneers next month.
‘It was a big part of my childhood,’ Frieda adds. ‘That chair has been loved to death and I’ve sat on it as long as possible.’
Prince Charles is known for his green fingers, but it’s Carole Middleton who’s teaching her royal grandchildren about gardening.
‘If I’m doing planting with my grandchildren, I like to have it all laid out at ‘activity stations’ with their own little trowel and pot so they can get started immediately,’ she says.
‘Growing potatoes is a simple one to start with. We also grow carrots, beetroot and onions.’
The Duchess of Cambridge’s mother encourages them to compete: ‘Why not plant a few sunflower seeds each, and see whose grows the tallest? This works if you live far apart, too — as you can send each other updates and photos by phone.’
