Rivals stars Danny Dyer and Victoria Smurfit have led the cast paying tribute to author Dame Jilly Cooper, following her death at the age of 88.
The novelist, whose book of the same name inspired the hit Disney+ series, died after a fall, her family announced on Monday.
Danny, who plays Freddie Jones in the show, shared a post from Happy Prince TV paying tribute to Dame Jilly following her death.
Victoria, who played Maud O’Hara, also shared a snap of Dame Jilly on Instagram, calling her a ‘divine Queen’ in a sweet social media tribute.
She captioned the post: ‘Our divine Queen has gone to the sky. Her words will live forever but the way she made you feel, when in her company was human sunshine. Jilly was everything that was good about being a person.
‘Paddington bear with a naughty twinkle. All love to her beautiful and loving family and friends. #jilly #rivals #rip Will miss that Dame so much.’
Rivals stars Danny Dyer (pictured right) and Victoria Smurfit have led the cast paying tribute to author Dame Jilly Cooper, following her death at the age of 88
Danny, who played Freddie Jones in the show, shared a post from Happy Prince TV paying tribute to Dame Jilly following her death
Rufus Jones, who plays Paul Stratton, wrote on Instagram: ‘We are almost exactly halfway through filming Series 2 of Rivals, and have just heard that Dame Jilly has left us. What an extraordinary woman.
‘Just last month we were all together at her famous summer garden party, still giddy at being in the realm of this fantastic person. Hilarious, twinkingly outrageous and kind, we loved being in her company.
‘I remember having lunch on set with her two summers ago, and the stories poured out of her. An incredible one about interviewing Thatcher which- like so much of her master storytelling- was surprising, subverting and deeply human.
‘My love and thoughts with Jilly’s friends and family, and the Rivals company. Back to filming a show that was always Hers, but utterly moreso now. Xx.’
After production company Happy Prince TV shared the news of Dame Jilly’s death, stars of the show also shared their tributes in the comments.
Gary Lamont, who played Charles Fairburn, commented: ‘There is nothing like a Dame. A privilege to have been in her orbit.’
Other stars also paid tribute to Jilly on X, with Piers Morgan writing: ‘RIP Jilly Cooper, 88. Such a fabulously fun, mischievous, warm-heated lady. If she was in a room, everyone would feel instantly cheerier. Very sad news.’
Kay Burley said: ‘RIP the fabulous Jilly Cooper. She was 88 Rupert Campbell Black had quite the influence on my early 20s.’
Victoria, who played Maud O’Hara, also shared a snap of Dame Jilly on Instagram, calling her a ‘divine Queen’ in a sweet social media tribute
On her Stories, Victoria also shared a snap of herself and Dame Jilly while promoting Rivals’ first series last year
Branded the ‘Queen of the bonkbuster’, Dame Jilly was famed for her raunchy romance novels, selling more than 12million books in her career
Her children Felix and Emily said her death on Sunday morning has come as a ‘complete shock’ (pictured in 1978)
Gyles Brandreth posted: ‘Simply adorable. Brilliant, beautiful, funny (so funny), sexy (so sexy!), the best company, the most generous & thoughtful & kind-hearted friend.
‘Jilly Cooper brought sunshine & laughter into the world. And she could write a sizzler of a story. What a lady! What a life! RIP.’
Kirstie Allstopp tweeted: ‘And now Jilly Cooper has died, she always seemed so young and vibrant, I know 88 is a good age but this is very sad news.
‘A British institution, funny, enthusiastic and self deprecating, we don’t see enough of it these days. Bless you Dame Jilly, Rest in Peace.’
Branded the ‘Queen of the bonkbuster’, Dame Jilly was famed for her raunchy romance novels, selling more than 12million books in her career.
Her children Felix and Emily said her death on Sunday morning has come as a ‘complete shock’.
They said in a statement: ‘Mum was the shining light in all of our lives.
‘Her love for all of her family and friends knew no bounds. Her unexpected death has come as a complete shock.
‘We are so proud of everything she achieved in her life and can’t begin to imagine life without her infectious smile and laughter all around us.’
Dame Jilly Cooper’s agent Felicity Blunt issued a similarly warm tribute, saying the author ‘defined culture, writing and conversation’ throughout her career.
The author was best known for her books in The Rutshire Chronicles, featuring the showjumping lothario Rupert Campbell-Black.
Rivals, perhaps the most famous of the series, was recently adapted for television by Disney+.
The novelist lost her husband, Leo Cooper, to Parkinson’s disease in 2013.
The author had known him since she was nine years old and refused to send him into a care home even when his condition worsened.
Dame Jilly confessed that she only continued to write novels in her later life to pay for her husband’s medical bills.
Ms Blunt said: ‘The privilege of my career has been working with a woman who has defined culture, writing and conversation since she was first published over fifty years ago.
‘Jilly will undoubtedly be best remembered for her chart-topping series The Rutshire Chronicles and its havoc-making and handsome show-jumping hero Rupert Campbell-Black.
‘You wouldn’t expect books categorised as bonkbusters to have so emphatically stood the test of time but Jilly wrote with acuity and insight about all things – class, sex, marriage, rivalry, grief and fertility.
Dame Jilly made a cameo appearance in the Disney+ adaptation of her novel Rivals
Dame Jilly Cooper’s agent Felicity Blunt issued a similarly warm tribute, saying the author ‘defined culture, writing and conversation’ (pictured with Queen Camilla)
The novelist lost her husband, Leo Cooper (pictured), to Parkinson’s disease in 2013
Jilly became known for her racy novels, and was previously called ‘the Queen of the bonkbuster’ (pictured on The Russell Harty Show in 1973)
The author was best known for her books in The Rutshire Chronicles, featuring the showjumping lothario Rupert Campbell-Black
Jilly was made a a Dame Commander of the British Empire by King Charles III during an investiture ceremony at Windsor Castle on May 14, 2024
‘Her plots were both intricate and gutsy, spiked with sharp observations and wicked humour.
‘She regularly mined her own life for inspiration and there was something Austenesque about her dissections of society, its many prejudices and norms.
‘But if you tried to pay her this compliment, or any compliment, she would brush it aside.
‘She wrote, she said, simply ‘to add to the sum of human happiness’. In this regard as a writer she was and remains unbeatable.’
She added: ‘Emotionally intelligent, fantastically generous, sharply observant and utter fun Jilly Cooper will be deeply missed by all at Curtis Brown and on the set of Rivals.
‘I have lost a friend, an ally, a confidante and a mentor. But I know she will live forever in the words she put on the page and on the screen.’
Born in Hornchurch, Essex in 1937, Dame Jilly grew up in Yorkshire and attended the private Godolphin School in Salisbury.
Her father was a brigadier and her family moved to London in the 1950s where she became a reporter on The Middlesex Independent when she was 20.
She has said she moved to public relations and was sacked from 22 jobs before ending up in book publishing.
Her work has been adapted at various points, including an ITV series of The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous with Coronation Street star Stephen Billington and Downton Abbey actor Hugh Bonneville, while Marcus Gilbert starred in a Riders series during the 1990s.
She won the inaugural Comedy Women in Print lifetime achievement award in 2019 and was made a dame for her services to literature and charity in 2024.
A new book by Dame Jilly is due to be published through Transworld in November.
How To Survive Christmas is described as ‘an irreverent and witty guide to surviving the festive season.’
Her publisher Bill Scott-Kerr said: ‘Working with Jilly Cooper over the past thirty years has been one of the great privileges and joys of my publishing life.
‘Beyond her genius as a novelist, she was always a personal heroine of mine for so many other reasons.
‘For her kindness and friendship, for her humour and irrepressible enthusiasm, for her curiosity, for her courage, and for her profound love of animals.
‘Jilly may have worn her influence lightly but she was a true trailblazer.
‘As a journalist she went where others feared to tread and as a novelist she did likewise.
‘With a winning combination of glorious storytelling, wicked social commentary and deft, lacerating characterisation, she dissected the behaviour, bad mostly, of the English upper middle classes with the sharpest of scalpels.
‘It is no exaggeration to say that Riders, her first Rutshire chronicle, changed the course of popular fiction forever.
The author was celebrated across the world
‘Ribald, rollicking and the very definition of good fun, it, and the 10 Rutshire novels which followed it, were to inspire a generation of women, writers and otherwise, to tell it how it was, whilst giving us a cast of characters who would define a generation and beyond.’
He added: ‘A publishing world without a new Jilly Cooper novel on the horizon is a drabber, less gorgeous place and we shall mourn the loss of a ground-breaking talent and a true friend.’
Dame Jilly’s funeral will be private in line with her wishes, according to her agent.
A public service of thanksgiving will be held in the coming months in Southwark Cathedral to celebrate her life, with a separate announcement made in due course.
