It helps, of course, that Lumley looks great in anything. “Joanna is the most gorgeous person. Having been a model before she became an actor, she really knows how to wear clothes, which isn’t always the case with actors,” notes the costume designer Jacky Levy, who wardrobed Lumley for the TV show Fool Me Once (2024).
Her experience as a model (she attended the Lucie Clayton Finishing School in London and started modelling in the Sixties, appearing in Vogue and for Jean Muir shot by the leading photographers of the day) lent her a poise and sophistication that have served her well, and led easily to acting roles (her first was as a Bond Girl in the 1969 film On Her Majesty’s Secret Service). Long before “The Rachel” there was “The Purdey”, as women rushed to emulate the sleek, short hairstyle of her character in The New Avengers (1976 -77).
But while she’s always been a style icon, you sense it’s more by accident than design. It’s this that makes her so endearing, particularly to the British, a nation that can’t abide divas. Lumley wears her fame and beauty lightly, and is as happy to send it up as bask in it. “She’s a great comedic actress, a hard worker and a realist,” says Hale. “She appreciates honesty, and gives it in return.”
Her bouffant might be sky high, but Lumley’s feet are always on the ground. “We weren’t longing for stardom,” she told The Radio Times in July. “We’re jobbing actors and we’re no different, really, from painters and decorators. It’s a precarious profession at the best of times and I’ve just done anything to keep my head above water.” Long may the Joannaissance reign.
