BETWEEN THE COVERS : JOAN SURVIVES HOLLYWOOD'S 7 DEADLY SINS!

This weeks exerpt comes from a 1957 book '7 Deadly Sins Of Hollywood', published by Oldbourne Press and written by The Evening Standard's showbusiness columnist Thomas Wiseman, who spent a few weeks in Hollywood to see it all at first hand.. Meeting all the stars of the time, now legends, he also spent some time with Joan, thus the following edited exerpt's. But first what are the 7 deadly sins of Hollywood?
1- Snobbery ... Glamour girls are the peasantry of Hollywood and however far they get, they are always treated with thinly veiled contempt by those who have made the grade in a more socially acceptable way. Money snobbery is very pronounced.. If you should fail to order Caviar one evening, or if you cut your staff of gardners from five to four, it is a certain sign that you are on the skids.. Consequently nobody can afford to economise...
2- Gossip ... It is a town full of frustrated story-tellers. You can start a rumour here in the morning and have it retold to you as an absolute fact in the afternoon. You would boggle at the number of contradictory stories told with absolute authority about the activities of any major star. One comes to the conclusion that Hollywood is either full of schizophrenics or liars. To gossip is a condition of survival in Hollywood..
3- Sycophancy ... There are many people here of vague, undefined talents who occupy positions of power. Usually they owe their positions to their innate talent for flattery. This is a real and necessary talent here. Every person entrusted with the task of making decisions has to have someone to tell them that their decision was the right one. Self confidence has to be bought.. Trust in your own judgment comes only from the knowledge that a dozen other people trust it too!
4- Shop talk .. Whenever people switch off their TV sets and indulge in the luxury of conversation they talk about films. There is no other topic of conversation. The outside world might not exist. When people mention the President they are usually referring to the chief executive of MGM, not of the United States.
5- Egomania .. Hollywood is a democracy, which means that everyone, however humble, has the right to be an egomaniac. Since this is a place where you can go from dishwashing to stardom on the strength of an attractive dimple, everone is entitled to an ego. If you cannot convince yourself that you are the greatest thing that has happened to the town since talkies, you won't convince anyone else.
6- Salesmanship .. In Hollywood everybody has something to sell- a smile, a look, a startling shape, a voice. Sex appeal is sold by the bucket, charm by the pint, masculinity by the foot, femininity by the square inch, cuteness by the ounce. Therfore some sex-queens are undersexed and why many of the sweetest little things on the screen are little toughies at home.
7- Parochialism .. The business of making films involves an enormous wastage of time. A star who makes two films a year is working hard and yet would be left with about six months free time. Of course the time is not completely free, they might have to confer with agents, wrangle over contracts, attend to personal publicity, read scripts, cope with income tax demands. While doing all this, they have no real work to do, so they will do the rounds of Hollywood parties, make the same wisecracks in a dozen different sittingrooms. And though they will try hard to persuade themselves that they are having a wonderful time, they will be a very bored star!

In Hollywood everyone was talking about 'those beautiful English girls of yours'.. They are the vogue today, as dates, as actresses, as cover girls, as party goers. Understandably, Hollywood ranted about Joan Collins, London had scarcely raised its voice about her. I remembered Miss Collins as a sort of coffee bar Jezebel, in sweater and jeans, who liked to jive and to read about herself in fan magazines. She was married to an actor, Maxwell Reed and they lived in a pseudo-Spanish top floor flat in Mayfair above a lot of offices. The aura she carried around with her in those days was of cellar jazz clubs, not of stardom. Now look at Miss Collins today after appearing in 'The Virgin Queen' with Bette Davis and 'The Girl In The Red Velvet Swing' with Ray Milland. Her physique is wrapped in a £5,000 mink coat. Underneath it she wears a body moulding black jersey dress. On her finger a topaz ring. On her wrists an assortment of gold bangles. Her hat looks like a very contemporary lampshade. Her fingernails, grown the length of talons, are painted silver. Next time I see her she is wearing a topless gown, her hair style has become positively futuristic. Her face is almost a work of art, revealing the lavish use of eye pencil, eye shadow, mascara, the lot! Her talk and walk are in bebop language, her figure is pronounced, wherever it should be. Miss Collins talks about her arrival in Hollywood with an American accent... "Oh sure, there were wolves around. Some are kinda fast workers. One wealthy playboy rang me up before he'd even met me and gave me the spiel. He got to be a real pest. Followed me to New York. I managed to give him the brush off though. My studio wanted to arrange a publicity romance for me with Robert Wagner. They had a whole schedule of dates fixed. But I wouldn't play. I didn't think it was right. For one thing, I'm still married. And another, I can arrange my own dates. Miss Collins's present standing as a star, the result of playing some far from innocent roles, is high. She has considerable assets of one kind or another. She has a Thunderbird convertible. She possesses a mink coat, a white mink stole and a blue mink stole and a box full of jewellry.

JOAN WITH ARTHUR LOEW JR AND ERROL FLYNN

  I met Joan at a party with Arthur Loew Jr, son of the boss of MGM. Miss Collins is usually with Loew Jr these days. I notice she has given up costume jewellry and is now wearing the genuine stuff. "Just a few trinkets Arthur gave me for Christmas" she explains. Trinkets include a dazzling diamond ring and a star sapphire. " I don't wear costume jewellry anymore. I keep it stored. Now I only wear the real stuff. Some of it I bought myself, some of it I had given to me." Obviously Miss Collins has no cause to be dissatisfied with Hollywood. What she wants happens to be precisely what Hollywood can give her plenty of!
(c) 1957 Thomas Wiseman..