LUMLEY'S SHORT CUT TO SUCCESS

IN HER new TV show, Joanna Lumley is exploring the Danube river, from Germany's Black Forest to the Black Sea.

- BY MARC BAKER

It's the latest colourful adventure in a 56-year career that has been packed with iconic roles.

There will be no time for glamour on her travels, but it won't be the first time Joanna has had to do things the hard way.

In her breakthrough role, playing sexy spy Purdey in 70s classic The New Avengers, she had to do her own stunts - and her own hairdo.

"I remember the haircut was unbelievable," she says, of the famous bob. "I said I wanted my hair cut short and they said: 'You have to do it yourself.

"When I began as a model, you had to do all your own make-up and your own hair, eyelashes, your own finger-nails. You had to provide all your own accessories."

And despite being afraid of heights, one episode involved Joanna dangling off the bottom of a helicopter in flight.

She recalls: "They let down a ladder. They told me to step on the first rung and I had to hold this glass of champagne and up we went.

"I hung on and up it goes. I said: 'Where am I going? and they said: 'Across Oxfordshire'.