Show-biz is a very competitive profession and usually you
need oodles of talent to progress to the top. Now and then an artiste with less
talent but plenty personality dominates the stage by somehow arriving in the
public eye at the right moment and projecting her well-crafted persona to a global audience. Such an
artiste is Joan Collins, for years a run-of-the-mill starlet, who left it late
before exploding on-screen as the manipulative dominatrix Alexis Colby in Dynasty, the nightmare of respectable
married women and the secret fantasy of all red-blooded males.
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| Sultry Joan Collins |
Joan Collins
(1933- ) is now a venerable 83. She was
born in Paddington and was brought up in Maida Vale, West London, the daughter
of Joe, a theatrical agent and Elsa, an erstwhile nightclub hostess turned
dancing teacher. Her father was a Jewish South African and her mother was
Anglican. She had a younger brother Bill, a property agent, and sister Jackie
(1937-2015) who found fame as the authoress of raunchy “bonk-buster” novels.
Her ambitious parents managed to send Joan to RADA and she
was only 17 in 1950 when she was talent-spotted by the Rank Organisation,
becoming a starlet under contract to the studio. She was certainly pretty and
inherited her parents’ work-ethic, though the publicist’s description of her as
“Britain’s Elizabeth Taylor” was over-the-top. She appeared in minor roles in a
succession of unmemorable films and did little better with a 1955 Fox Hollywood
contract. The only dimly remembered The
Girl on the Red Velvet Swing with Ray Milland and Land of the Pharaohs with
Jack Hawkins, where she had
star-billing, were both box-office flops.
Joan’s private life began its eventful progress. Deflowered
by actor Laurence Harvey aged 18, she wed in 1952, her first (of 5) husbands,
actor Maxwell Reed. He allegedly drugged and raped her and they were divorced
by 1956. In Hollywood she was befriended by Nicky Hilton of the hotel dynasty
who boasted constantly about the size of his own, his father’s and his
brother’s manhood. In the early 1960s Joan had a fling with handsome
actor/singer Harry Belafonte on set in the Caribbean and later took up with
toothsome 22-year old Warren Beatty. Our Joan was no bashful wall-flower!
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| Joan emotes as The Girl on the Red Velvet Swing |
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| Joan the princess in Land of the Pharaohs |
Joan dropped out of the film world in the early 1960s as she
had married successful actor/songwriter Anthony Newley in 1963 and wanted to
start a family. They had a son and a daughter but Newley was described by Joan
as “pathologically unfaithful” and they were divorced by 1971.
Returning to tread the boards, Joan’s career did not prosper
– some obscure sit-coms and dud films. However she returned to the spotlight in
the late 1970s by featuring in the soft-porn epics The Stud (Joan cast inevitably as a nymphomaniac) and The Bitch, both adapted from novels by
her sister Jackie. Both films were decidedly tacky but made lots of money for
the producers (not Joan). But at least people were talking about her again.
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| Joan vamps it up as The Bitch |
Meanwhile Joan married record producer Ronnie Kass in 1972
and they had a daughter but her 3rd marriage ended in divorce in
1983 (his substance abuse and financial mismanagement blamed). Husband No 4 only
lasted 1985-7: he was Swedish singer Peter Holm, a druggie, claimed Joan – her
choice of mates has certainly been questionable. Other admirers (there is said
to be a cast of at least 3 dozen) included US property tycoon “Bungalow” Bill
Wiggins, so called because, says Joan, he had nothing much on top!
The 1980s were to be Joan’s heyday. In 1981 she landed the
role of Alexis Colby in the struggling US TV soap opera Dynasty. Joan as Alexis was the erstwhile wife of Denver oil multi-millionaire Blake Carrington (John Forsythe)
who had remarried the earnest and naïve Krystle (Linda Evans). The advent of
Alexis moved the series towards the various machinations of the two wives with
belittling and humiliation for Krystle and bitchy triumphs for Alexis. With her
exaggerated shoulder-pads, flattering wigs and cut-glass accent Alexis was a
Wow embodying assertive womanhood in all its glory. By 1985 Dynasty was the most-viewed of all
soaps, deposing Dallas for a year but
the increasing absurdity of the plots tired its audience and its ratings had
fallen sharply by the time it was cancelled in 1989. But Joan had made her
fortune.
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| Alexis, Blake and Krystle from Dynasty |
Joan has lived a regal life ever since but she has been far
from idle. She acted creditably in the West End in Noel Coward classics and
became very familiar in British Airways and Cinzano commercials. She has taken
to writing and apart from 3 volumes of (scandalous) memoirs, she has written 10
(sic!) novels and at least a dozen books about beauty – she admits to one Botox
session bur asserts that she has never had cosmetic surgery. She contributes an
occasional sharply witty Diary column to the eminent Spectator magazine.
Joan appears to be happily married since 2002 to
half-Peruvian theatrical producer Percy Gibson, 35 years her junior. She has
apartments in London, New York and Los Angeles and a stunning pink villa in
Saint Tropez. Her views are refreshingly Conservative, supporting Brexit and
causing apoplexy among Corbynistas, Remoaners and the bleeding hearts in the
green rooms of self-regarding Theatreland. She had the honour of being one of
the few celebrities invited to Maggie Thatcher’s funeral. Joan is of course a
monarchist and was immensely pleased to be awarded the DBE in 2015 for her
services to charity. The NSPCC and the Shooting Star Chase Children’s’ Hospice
are her main sponsorships.
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| Joan receives her DBE in 2015 |
Dame Joan Collins makes no pretence at scaling the peaks of
her profession and the celebrity life can often seem vacuous. But she has
definitely been a great entertainer.
Joan, you are a grand old trouper – well done!
SMD
27.02.17
Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2017
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