Goldie Hawn was once told by Elvis Presley that she looked like a chicken that had just been hatched. That was in the '70s when the actress had gone to see him in a red knit jumpsuit.

Now in 2005, with a 35-year career under the belt of her chocolate silk trouser suit, she could present herself to an audience at Hay Festival as a lotus flower. She looked just like she does in her films and dazzled the hundreds of fans as she chatted to a journalist from The Independent about her new memoir.

Called A Lotus Grows in the Mud, Goldie is the spiritual flower part of the title and writes about how she blossoms in life's grime. The explosion of Goldie colour includes everything from her time as a go-go dancer, her production of the $100m blockbuster Private Benjamin, almost losing her son when he was born and becoming a grandmother.

She went into raptures talking about Elvis: "He was so cute. Oh God! When I saw him I had on a red knit 70s jumpsuit. He called me over and said 'Hey Goldie come on over here'. He touched my head and said I looked like a chicken that had just been hatched. I don't know if it was a good or bad thing." Don't know if Elvis would have agreed with the lotus image - perhaps a chicken clucking happily in the mud. AH