As Rivals returns to the screen for the second half of Disney’s big-budget adaptation of Jilly Cooper’s bestselling novel, attention falls again on her long-time fictional leading man, Rupert Campbell-Black.
We first met RCB in the first of Cooper’s Rutshire novels, Riders. A first-class polo player who seduced other men’s wives between chukkas, he would seem to represent all that is dastardly and self-entitled about the upper classes.
Throughout the series of 11 books that sold millions from their launch in 1985 and are being enjoyed again due to the success of the show, Campbell-Black remained entitled and charming, but also finally tamed by the love of a good woman, his Rivals colleague Declan O’Hara’s shy, beautiful daughter Taggie.
It was all as Jilly Cooper explained to Radio Times during production of the first series: “People do behave badly. They certainly did in the 80s. Rupert has good qualities. He’s lovely to his dogs, he’s a good MP and he adores his wife. They fell madly in love with each other. Lots of men are frightfully promiscuous until they find their true love.”
If Campbell-Black served as a naughty-but-nice totem for all that men want to be, and women just want, throughout the books, he was also, very specifically, blonde. So much so that Cooper, given casting approval of all the lead characters, was initially not impressed with the idea of Alex Hessell in the role.
The charming author, who died in October 2025, told RT: “I thought Alex wouldn’t be right, he wasn’t blonde, but then I met him and… he is very attractive.”
More tantalisingly, she revealed who had been her real-life inspiration for such an irresistible character. In fact, it wasn’t one person – that would have been quite a lot to carry even for a real-life Rupert’s wide shoulders – but three different men who had made quite the impression on her when she made her home in the Cotswolds in 1982 and started mixing with its horsey set.
Cooper recalled: “I’d just moved to the country and met these heavenly men, they became great friends and I was able to study how an upper-class man would behave in the country.” Do her friends mind appearing in her novels? “Oh no, they love it.”
Who are the three?
Rupert Lycett Green
A baronet’s grandson, RLC was educated at Eton and went on to become an influential fashion designer in the 1960s, when his clothes shop Blades drew customers including Mick Jagger.
He was described by one observer as “tall and skinny, quick with a quote and well equipped with enemies”.
The Earl of Suffolk
The son of the 20th Earl and ballet dancer Mimi Forde-Pigott, Michael Howard was educated at Winchester, married three times and lived in stately pile Charlton Park until his death in 2022.
Andrew Parker-Bowles
Reluctantly made famous by the British press as “the man who laid down his wife for England” following revelations of his then-spouse Camilla’s affair with the then-Prince Charles, Parker-Bowles was in fact never a stay-at-home hubby waiting to be cuckolded, but a dashing, impeccably turned out, well-connected, former military officer, who had served as a page at Queen Elizabeth’s Coronation. He even played on Prince Charles’s polo team as a young man.
As history shows, there were other women in his life before, during and after his marriage to Camilla, and the pair have remained great friends into their eighties, with Parker-Bowles even stepping up to support his ex-wife at public events, now she is queen.
Cooper was full of smiling approval for such an outcome; it’s the real-life happy ending she tried to give everyone in her books.
She approved too of her long-time friend Camilla’s evolution into an elegant monarch, telling RT: “I adore her and I think she’s going to be a wonderful queen. She looks beautiful at the moment, she’s become very glamorous.”
From Jilly Cooper, there could be no higher praise.
Rivals is available to stream on Disney+. Season 2 premieres on Friday 15 May 2026. Sign-up to Disney+ from £5.99 a month.
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