Remember Joan Collins, who played the scheming Alexis Harrington on the
prime-time soap opera Dynasty back in the 1980s?
I was having one of those whatever-happened-to moments about her the other day, fully expecting to pull up an obit about her online.
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Well, it turns
out that Dame Joan is not only alive and well at 91 but still quite active. A couple of weeks ago her latest work appeared—an ad for UK-based online travel agency and tour operator First Choice Holidays that promotes the company’s flexible
cancellation policy.
The ad opens with Dame Joan, not looking a day over 75 and who has been known to use some salty language now and then, cussing out someone on the
other end of a phone conversation as she tries to cancel a planned vacation. The cusses are bleeped but you get the idea she is not thrilled with the rep on the other end of the line.
She then goes
on to chide younger viewers for being “afraid to say no,” while happy “to share every opinion you have on social media.”
Maybe you just “need a week to lie
horizontally,” she states, instead of “trudging around Crete with your best friend’s housemate.”
The problem is, Dame Joan adds, most companies “won’t take no for
an answer. And no one wants to go full Karen just to cancel a holiday.”
While nimbly demonstrating on her mobile, the actress explains the relative ease of canceling plans made through First
Choice.
At the end of the spot, for seemingly no other reason than exhibiting her salty side, she lets loose with a long, bleeped expletive. “Now
cancel that,” she exclaims.
Okay, Dame Joan, if it makes you feel better, go for it.