Cinzano of the vermouth market in Europe was measured in the low single digits, sales that placed it a distant second to Martini. As a result of a 1997 merger, Grand Metropolitan became Diageo; two years later, Diageo sold Cinzano to the privately held Gruppo Campari. The Cinzano bicycling team had a central role in the film "Breaking Away". Cinzano was well known in Britain for its humorous television advertisements featuring Leonard Rossiter and Joan Collins. One of these featured the pair on a plane journey, with Rossiter accidentally hitting the "recline" switch on Collins chair, causing her to spill a
Joan Collins hit British television series "Footballer's Wives" for a limited run. She also guest-starred in the BBC series "Hotel Babylon" in 2006 as a lonely aristocrat desperate for romance. Collins appeared in "They Do It with Mirrors," a two-hour episode of the murder-mystery drama "Marple" in 2009, as Ruth Van Rydock, a friend of detective Miss Jane Marple. On 24 January 2010, it was announced that Collins was joining the German soap opera "Verbotene Liebe" ("Forbidden Love") for a short run. She played an aristocratic British woman, Lady Joan, who takes a young prince, portrayed by German actor Stephan Kaefer (Stephan