Actress and author Joan Collins joins Michael Brandon for memoir release

By Casey Cooper-Fiske, PA Entertainment Reporter

Actress and author Dame Joan Collins has joined Dempsey And Makepeace star Michael Brandon for the release of his memoir.

The 92-year-old former Dynasty star joined US actor Brandon, 80, who played detective James Dempsey in the 1980s ITV crime drama, at Waterstones in London’s King’s Road, where he was releasing his book That’s All I’m Sayin’.

Dame Joan wore white trousers and a white top, with her outfit completed with a white jacket featuring flamingos and palm trees, while Brandon, who is married to Glynis Barber, 69, who played his onscreen wife Harriet Makepeace in Dempsey And Makepeace, wore a blue shirt and brown trousers.

Barber was also in attendance at the event, where she wore white pinstriped trousers and a black top, actress Cherie Lunghi, who competed in the 2008 series of Strictly Come Dancing, was at the launch too, where she wore a green dress.

Former Rolling Stones bass player Bill Wyman also joined Brandon at the event wearing an England cricket jacket, striped shirt and grey trousers.

At the Waterstones launch, Brandon signed copies of his book and met with fans, who queued across the store to see him.

Running from January 1985 to November 1986, Dempsey And Makepeace saw Harriet, an elegant British noblewoman, and James, a working-class New York detective, pair up to fight crime as part of an elite armed unit of the Metropolitan Police in London.

Brandon and South African-born star Barber married in 1989, three years after the show’s conclusion, despite their characters never getting together, although Harriet implies that she is in love with James in the show’s final episode, which was directed by Brandon himself.