Diva dogs: How pooches of the rich and famous live the high life

Last month, Barbra, 77, took the dogs to visit Samantha’s grave and posted a picture on Instagram. Picture: Instagram

Last month, Barbra, 77, took the dogs to visit Samantha’s grave and posted a picture on Instagram. Picture: Instagram

Published Jul 14, 2019

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London - They were paraded before an adoring crowd of 65 000 at London’s Hyde Park on Sunday night in a bespoke buggy, with "Mum" telling the audience that they’re "not much into showbusiness".

After the concert, film stars Helen Mirren, Antonia Banderas, Richard E. Grant and Daisy Ridley came by to pay court to the elegantly groomed trio, who were attended by a team of staff.

Yes, life for Barbra Streisand’s fluffy white pooches, Miss Scarlet, Miss Violet and Fanny, which belong to the rare Coton de Tulear breed, is sweet indeed.

Celebrities jostle to have selfies taken with them, they travel with their owner by private jet, and during Streisand’s brief sojourn in London last week, they were provided with a small set of bespoke stairs to enable them to hop onto her hotel bed. (On her balcony there was, reportedly, a large tray of turf for their sanitary needs.)

And backstage, it was access all areas for the pets.

"No expense was spared," according to one source. "They had free roam of her dressing room and a dedicated member of staff to push them in the buggy or walk them round at their free will. Barbra adores them all and would never travel without them."

Even more extraordinarily, two of the dogs - Miss Scarlet and Miss Violet - are £40 000 (about R700 000) clones of Barbra’s original Coton, Samantha, which died in 2017.

The third, "cousin" Fanny, was bought from Samantha’s breeder.

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Chilling in the SUV with my human mother’s driver, Dan. The set is so stressful. I can never get high enough to see what’s going on except when I’m on my chair, but then everyone’s just sitting around gabbing or doing a jigsaw puzzle, when I need to get on the phone and connect with my office. You may think I’m sleeping, but I’m brewing up plots that have decent roles for someone other than a mutt! Us purebreds are usually cast as snobs or bad guys or clueless idiots. Some of us deserve it because they are happy to be type cast, but others of us need to develop as artists with a brain that doesn’t want to be wasted. #havaneseofinstagram #havaneselovers #havaneselife #havanesemoments #havaneseoftheworld #havanesedogs #hillbillyelegy

A post shared by The Real Glenn Close(@glennclose) on Jul 9, 2019 at 10:07am PDT

Last month, Barbra, 77, took the dogs to visit Samantha’s grave and posted a picture on Instagram captioned: "The twins Scarlet and Violet honoring their mom (with cousin Fanny in the center!)." 

She explained: "I couldn’t bear losing [Samantha] - I think any pet lover will really understand this - I had to continue her DNA.

This pedigree breed is the pooch of choice for many other showbiz ladies of a certain age, who seem to be equally bowled over by these extraordinary bundles of fluff.

Catherine Zeta-Jones is devoted to Figaro (known as Figgy). He would watch her adoringly from his own special spot in the wings when she performed in A Little Night Music on Broadway in 2010.

Figgy was a gift from her husband, Michael Douglas, the Oscar-winning actor and also master of the ‘poop-scoop duty’, according to Zeta-Jones.

Actress Jane Fonda, 80, is another Coton fanatic, and her pooch, called Tulea, even accompanies her to interviews. She recently took Tulea along to dinner at the Sunset Tower Hotel’s Tower Bar in West Hollywood and to the Wallis Annenberg Theatre in Beverly Hills.

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Late night here on set. #ReadingWithTulea #GraceAndFrankie

A post shared by Jane Fonda(@janefonda) on May 9, 2018 at 8:28pm PDT

Both venues have a strict no pets policy (unless you are La Fonda, of course!). "When I am without her, I ache for her," Fonda has said. "It’s a physical thing. I feel a pang in my body."

Glenn Close also has a Coton, while the late Debbie Reynolds, would regularly babysit for her daughter Carrie Fisher’s Coton, Digby, and later adopted him.

British actress Keeley Hawes has a Coton, called Nana, and complains fondly that the animal is "really stupid and totally beautiful".

Daily Mail

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