Star says she looks forward to playing the last days of ‘this iconic woman’ for whom Edward VIII abdicated the throne

Joan Collins is to play Wallis Simpson in a new biopic focusing on the US socialite’s final years.

The film, currently titled The Bitter End (and previously known as In Bed with the Duchess), will be directed by Four Weddings and a Funeral’s Mike Newell and depict the last years of Simpson, who died in Paris in 1986, aged 89.

The actor’s nephew has described his aunt’s determined efforts to flee her Los Angeles home during this month’s devastating wildfires

The actor Meryl Streep made a dramatic escape from the fires which killed 28 people and destroyed more than 16,000 structures across Los Angeles earlier this month, her nephew has reported.

In an article for New York magazine, Abe Streep cited his aunt as an exemplar of the determination and resilience exhibited by so many LA residents.