Dame Joan Collins has had an illustrious Hollywood career, and has lifted the lid on her showbiz life in her new book, Behind the Shoulder Pads: Tales I Tell My Friends...
By Marc Baker ..
There’s an old-school glamour about Dame Joan Collins that today’s Gen Z actors can only hope to match.
Looking every inch like movie royalty, Joan meets with S Express to give an update on her new book and tour, where she will reminisce about her extraordinary career and days as one of Hollywood’s brightest starlets.
As frank and funny as ever, Joan admits she is not sure the younger generation will experience Tinseltown in the same way she did – and that she wouldn’t necessarily recommend an actor’s life.
“I would not advise anyone to start this unless they are made of steel,” she says when we meet at the Kite Festival in Kirtlington, Oxfordshire.
“You have to face so much rejection and hard times, and it is very hard today to be an actress.”
Joan is here to talk about her new autobiography, Behind The Shoulder Pads, due to be published in September. She’s also looking forward to embarking on a tour in the autumn, with her husband, theatrical manager Percy Gibson by her side.
“He is the light of my life,” she smiles. “We are going to show lots of clips. I have pictures of me eight months pregnant doing the twist, and home movies and lots of films with famous people like Sammy Davis Jr and Diana Dors.
"We’ll just talk, and for the second half people get to ask me questions – whatever they like. The favourite questions are like, ‘Who was your favourite kisser on screen?’ And I would always answer Paul Newman.”
But these days Percy is the only man for the star, who is straight-talking about her exes as well as the love she feels for her husband of 21 years.
“Percy is my rock. We are joined at the hip,” she says. “Hopefully, we will be forever.”
“We became great friends before we started our romance. In the book, I talk about it for the first time as it is very special. He has got everything right.”
The marital bliss Joan has today is a far cry from life after her first walk down the aisle. Talking about her first husband, actor Maxwell Reed, she says, “He was 32 and I was 18. I was a big starlet and he tried to demean me and he was rough and hit me a few times. We had what is called an abusive relationship that lasted a year.
“Percy is a spectacularly special man and that is something that does not happen very often. I am sure there are many, but I just did not happen to marry them before.”
Although it’s clear her confidence has bloomed over the years, as a youngster, Joan remembers disliking her body as she hit puberty.
“I would dress, look and act like a boy. I went to football games with my father, wearing corduroy and brogues and sweaters to hide my body. That only lasted for six months, I am happy to say!” she says.
Despite any childhood struggles, Joan, who tells us she was “a feminist before we knew what a feminist was”, was determined to follow her passions.
“I always wanted to be an actress, and even though I loved movie stars I wanted to be on the stage,” she says.
Joan was discovered at 15, while at drama school RADA, and by 20 she was in Hollywood. She recalls feeling on top of the world when she arrived.
“I got offered $1,000 a week but I wanted $2,500. My agent said I was insane and said I should stay in England and learn my craft. But they gave me the money and I got to play top roles. I was very lucky,” she says.
A long way from home, life may not have been easy for Joan, who negotiated her way through Hollywood well before the #MeToo movement shone a spotlight on predatory types in the movie business.
Thankfully, she’d been given solid advice by her dad, Joseph, who was also in showbiz, about how to deal with unwanted advances.
“There were no stars I dreaded sitting next to, certain producers but not stars. The stars were all gentlemen then,” she tells us.
“But he was concerned about me being a young and pretty girl – he was right as that did happen. As an agent, he saw what young girls were put through.
“He had a very good way of dealing with that and said, ‘Just kick them in the nether region, darling.’”
With a list of handsome co-stars such as Richard Burton, Robert Mitchum and Gregory Peck, Joan certainly encountered some of Hollywood’s biggest heartthrobs, but which one remains in her memory most?
“Roger Moore,” she says, without hesitation. “I met him when I was 14 – my father was his agent. He was the best-looking man I had ever seen. He came over and said, ‘Hello, I am Roger Moore’ and I was like, ‘Of course you are.’”
Joan adds, “I don’t spend too much time in Hollywood now. Back then we were invited to all the top parties and it was magical. But I took it all for granted as I was so young.
“The parties I go to now are kind of dull. They are like red carpet things in which everybody behaves themselves. If you don’t behave now you are going to get outed and cancelled, or whatever it is they call it.”
Still most famous for her portrayal of Alexis in glossy primetime soap Dynasty, Joan explains that, even in the 80s, being a star was very much about toeing the line for legendary TV producer, Aaron Spelling.
She laughs, “During Covid, Percy and I watched a box set. I thought, ‘Why did they put me in those terrible hats?’ They were appalling. When Aaron Spelling first saw me, he said, ‘We have got to put a lot of hats on that gal,’ so I either had terrible hats or terrible wigs.”
Explaining how both she and Dynasty co-star Linda Evans were also expected to look “really thin”, she reveals that any actresses on set were certainly not encouraged to tuck into the on-set catering.
“They had all this food like doughnuts, pies, bacon butties, chips and sweets on one side and on the other it was carrots, lettuce and celery and that is where we had to eat,” she remembers.
Now, she contemplates how body-positive stars are changing how bodies are seen in real life as well as on screen.
“That feels like progress to me,“ she smiles. “I don’t have to hold my stomach in any more.”
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