JOAN SIMS 1930 - 2001

A couple of bloggers, having seen the iconic portrait of me by society blogographer Kim Ayres, have remarked on a resemblance to the late comedienne Joan Sims. It is a little known fact that Joan and I used to tread the boards (and in my case, splinter them) at the Folies Bergere in Paris back in the day. Here is Joan in one of her rather saucier outfits. She was an early exponent of Funny Women on Stage, of which perhaps only she, Joyce Grenfell and Lucille Ball were successful at that time. She had the dubious honour of turning down a proposal of marriage from Kenneth Williams.

LUCILLE BALL

"I love Lucy" was one of my favourite TV programmes as a child. The brash, red-headed (you could tell even in black and white), mouthy, funny woman was one of my early role models, although you would never guess it when you meet the shy, retiring, shrinking violet that I am now. In 1960 funny women also had to be glamorous, and Lucille Ball was gorgeous. The photograph shows that, like me, she also did a spell as an exotic dancer.

JESSICA FLETCHER

Angela Lansbury as Jessica Fletcher in "Murder, she wrote" (oddly entitled "Arabesque" in France) and I have many things in common. Widowhood in our early 50's, a lot of friends, and an obsession with getting to the bottom of things. But it's Jessica's impeccable dress sense that I admire the most. So like my own. A tweed two-piece and a single strand of pearls can see you through most situations.

MARGARITA PRACATAN

The bubbly Latino bombshell that Clive James unleashed on our screens in the 1980s is a woman after my own heart, in the tradition of Carmen Miranda but without the fruit - or the talent. But she makes up in exhuberance what she lacks in teeth, and her unique take on classic hits almost managed to eclipse their originators - as we see here with Liza Minnelli. This blows Rita Moreno's "I like to be in America" straight out of the water.