PRESS UPDATE : TIME & LEISURE MAGAZINE .. SEPTEMBER 2023 ..

To promote her appearance at The Rose Theatre Kingston on October 8th, Joan features on the cover of the latest Kingston, Surbiton & Teddington issue of Time & Leisure with the following two page interview inside!

 

FLASHBACK : KATY A FIGHT FOR LIFE .. GOLLANZ ... 1982 ..

 

Joan's third book was not one that she had planned or would have envisaged writing and even today it is a book which is most important to her. 'Katy A Fight For Life' was published in 1982 just as Joan had hit the big time in America with her role on 'Dynasty' and it was written to give hope and inspiration to the many parents who were dealing with the trauma of a child suffering with brain injury.

 Whilst preparing for her role in the play 'The Last Of Mrs Cheyney', Joan and then husband Ron Kass had to travel to Paris to meet with legendary costumier Erte who was designing the costumes for Joan's role as Fay Cheyney. Whilst away Joan's daughter Katy was staying with friends near Ascot and was run down by a car which caused severe injuries and she ended up in a coma. Joan and Ron rushed back to England to be at their daughters beside where they remained for weeks until she finally came out of her coma.

Acton Gazette 1980

Joan's sincere message

 During that time and the weeks after Joan was constantly asked about Katy's progress and of how she felt and Joan decided to document her experience in the hope it would give help and some
comfort to others. As this book was deeply personal for Joan and the fact she was now living in America due to her success on 'Dynasty' there was little public appearances for the book. 

There was a few print interviews and a Woman's Own feature, some of you can see below.. It would be 1984 before Joan would go on the book tour circuit with the re-release of her autobiography 'Past Imperfect' in the USA. 

Copies of the book can still be found on Amazon, you can buy at the following link!

KATY A FIGHT FOR LIFE - BUY ON AMAZON!

FLASHBACK : THE JOAN COLLINS BEAUTY BOOK .. MACMILLAN .. 1980 ..

 

The one question Joan is often asked is how she looks so wonderful and what are her beauty secrets and in 1980 after the successs of her autobiography 'Past Imperfect' she published another big seller 'The Joan Collins Beauty Book' from Macmillan. Along with the book you could also buy a companion lp record of exercise routines and advice narrated by Joan. 1980 was the advent of home video and a video special was also released and it proved very popular. The video was hosted by the late Michael Parkinson and it followed Joan as she had lunch with friends

including Viviane Ventura, filmed the Cinzano ads and she did her exercise routines and did a makeup tutorial. The video was the first of its kind, way before the craze for fitness video took off a couple of years later folowing the worldwide success of Jane Fonda's Workout series of videos. The book was Joan's second publication and she would return to revealing her beauty secrets in later books, more of which in future posts...

The Joan Collins Beauty & Exercise Record insert chart

Although the book is out of publication you can still buy copies from Amazon...

BUY THE JOAN COLLINS BEAUTY BOOK HERE!

Original Ad Announcing Video release..

PRESS UPDATE : THE SYDNEY HERALD .. AUGUST 20TH 2023 ..

 

Why Joan Collins is working as hard as ever!

ByAndrew Billen

August 20, 2023

Joan Collins reputation precedes her and I am ready to greet it. Were the real Collins not to prove something of a diva, I’d be disappointed. In fact, she uses the word while innocently praising her fifth and current husband, Percy Gibson, whom she married 21 years ago.

“He’s been a company manager since he was 19,” she says. “So he’s used to dealing with actors and producers and directors and divas.“

So he knows how to handle her?

“Now, what do you mean by that?”

I don’t mean anything.

“Oh yes you do. Come on!”

It is a joke, I plead, explaining that I think people confuse her with the villains she has played so vividly. No one, I add, assumed that Larry Hagman, the antihero of Dynasty’s rival soap, Dallas, was a JR in real life.

“I know,” she says, “because he’s a man”. 

And Collins is all woman. Her face seems to be made of exquisitely carved marshmallow – carved, I hasten to add, by its cheekbones rather than a scalpel, and preserved by her own-brand foundation and a vampiric avoidance of sunlight.

The Joan Collins story is a survivor’s tale, of course, but also a repeat-loop saga of its heroine being chiselled out of money by studios, producers and publishers. Collins keeps a flat in London, an apartment in Los Angeles and a villa in the south of France, but I think she is entitled to our sympathies and certainly her residences, which she has only because she still earns.In October, for example, she begins a months-long stage tour in the UK which will mine her extensive anecdotal seams. The tour follows the publication of her latest memoir and shares its name, Behind the Shoulder Pads.

Does she keep working because she thinks she will die if she stops? “I work,” she explains, as if to a simpleton, “because I have to make a living”.

Dynasty faced ratings death before Collins joined the cast. It recovered immediately and was soon out-trashing Dallas, yet producers and cast were loath to credit her with the recovery. They increased her pay but cut down her appearances.

Linda Evans, who played the second Mrs Carrington, wasn’t just cool towards Collins but, Collins claims, “accidentally” socked her for real during a fight scene in a lily pond. Even 20 years later, when the pair toured in a play, the animosity had not faded. Entries in Collins’ recent My Unapologetic Diaries include, “She gives me an almighty shove that sends me flying onto my knees,” and, “My finger is in agony because Linda kicked it last night.” Evans’ spokesperson denied the allegations and Evans said in a recent interview, “Well, it isn’t me or how I am. But that’s okay. I’ve learnt that everyone gets to have their own perception of how life is”.

Yet Collins is not short of women friends. The great villains in her life have been men, and even some of her heroes took liberties. Filming the 1986 miniseries Sins, Gene Kelly weaponised a love scene in order, she writes, to “thrust his tongue deep into my mouth”.

Collins’ agelessness makes it easy to forget she hails from a time when misogyny was unremarkable because it was tolerated. Her father was a misogynist, she says, but “all men” born at the beginning of the 20th century were. And he was unfaithful, but, “All men were during the war, apparently”.

That does not mean women did not get hurt. She wrote in her 1978 memoir, Past Imperfect, that after her sister Jackie’s birth, when Collins was four, her father withdrew his affection. Her early infatuations with older men were attempts to compensate. Does she still think that? “No. I think that was something I did to pad out the book.”

No one admits to such things, I say. “I’m not a very analytical person, Andrew,” she replies. “They used to call me the ostrich. I might get upset for an hour, or even a day, but then I bury my head in the sand and I get on with my life. That might make me sound frivolous or shallow, but life is not a bowl of cherries. Life is a bowl of cherry pips and I’ve had quite a few, particularly in the husband department.”

Oh yes, Joan Collins’ husband department – actually a department store famed for its damaged goods. Her first purchase was Maxwell Reed, a matinee idol 14 years her senior. When they met, it was date rape. He picked her up in his Bentley at Bayswater Tube station; she thought they were going to a club. He drove her to his flat, where he proffered a Scotch and Coke laced with something narcotic while he bathed. When she awoke, she threw up and realised sex had occurred. “Did you like it?” he asked. Reader, she married him.

The marriage lasted seven months, ending when Reed suggested she augment his savings by sleeping with a rich sheikh he had lined up. When they divorced, he demanded alimony on the rubbish grounds that he had “discovered” her. “They all got money out of me, actually,” she says of her ex-husbands. The exception was her third, when “there was no money left”.

But he was later. After Reed, she counted among her boyfriends the youthfully spotty Warren Beatty, by whom she became pregnant. He duly arranged an abortion. When Shirley MacLaine later asked what her brother, the famous lothario, was like in bed, Collins replied: “Overrated”.

Back in London she fell under the spell of Anthony Newley, a gifted writer and singer. In 1963, they married. They had two children: Tara, a writer and producer, and Alexander, a painter. He was not faithful to her, but in 1969 decided to work out his issues through an X-rated art movie in which Collins played the protagonist’s wife while a blonde Playboy model was the object of his deepest lust. The film was as bad as their marriage had become.

Her next marriage, in 1972, was to Ron Kass, an American music executive. In a career lull, she chose to experiment with being what was called a housewife. At their semi-detached house in north London, her children were soon joined by a new sister, Katyana. Collins has called the years from 1970 to 1975 “almost perfect” – she even cooked “spaghetti bolognese or stews”. No longer well known, she could travel into town without being bothered.

So she has known normal life? “It’s still normal life,” she says. “I am only occasionally stopped. Then I just say, ‘No, I’m not doing any autographs.’ I wear a baseball cap and glasses.”

Kass, however, lost his London job and they all moved to Hollywood, where his company ran up debts. “Ron, unfortunately, became the victim of drugs and that’s why I was so anti-drug,” she says. “But I won’t go any further than that because we have a daughter.” Katyana is a mother herself and has escaped press attention.

Collins reserves the strongest vitriol in her memoirs for husband number four, Peter Holm, a handsome one-hit wonder Swedish pop singer she writes off as an “obdurate dullard and calculating sociopath” who gaslit her and played the tyrant. Wed in a “tacky” Las Vegas chapel in 1985, they divorced two years later.

There followed Robin Hurlstone, a tall, blond, green-eyed actor – and another major disappointment. Hurlstone did not “take to” her sister or her older daughter and, to their relief, Collins never married him.

Given her experience of rotters, I wonder whether she can explain what women see in Boris Johnson. Did he charm her? “It takes a lot to charm me.” Theatre producer Percy Gibson, who met Collins while toiling on a play she was touring in America, did. His devotion has not wavered from the day in 2000 when he offered to run out to a shop in San Diego to buy her eyeliner and returned with a mascara wand instead. Collins exclaimed, with what reads like relief: “I guess you are not gay.” He was 36 then, 58 now. “Love has no limits,” she says.

So much has been written about Collins, and so much of it by her, I need to inquire whether the new book and stage show have anything left to reveal. “I’ll give you one hint,” she says. “I think the chapter is called ‘Who Is It?’ and it’s about when my sister was born and how angry I was and how I hated her, how I tried to kill her.”

As adults, the novelist and the actor (although Joan writes novels, too) also had their differences, but by the time of Jackie’s death from breast cancer in 2015 they were close. Had Jackie told her she was dying? “I knew, but even if you know, it’s still tragic. My baby sister dies, and from something that she didn’t have to die from. It’s not like she got knocked down by a bus.

“Our mother died of breast cancer, so you go and you have tests every year, which is what I do. And she didn’t. She felt a lump and she didn’t do anything about it, which really is a lesson to all women. For god’s sake, if you find something, do something about it. When she finally went, it was too late.”
Collins’ own health is good. There was a back problem, but physiotherapy worked. She’s had COVID-19 twice. The second time it was “like a cold”, but first time round it was bad. Was she scared of dying? “No.”

Does she ever wake up and feel she can’t be bothered to be the great Joan Collins that day? She looks puzzled. “I work because I love it. It’s the roar of the greasepaint, the smell of the crowd,” she says. “I love acting and I’m really looking forward to the tour because that, in a way, is acting too. I’m putting on my best persona so that you’ll write nice things about me.”

PRESS UPDATE : CHARLES HUTCH PRESS .. AUGUST 16TH 2023 ..

 CHARLESHUTCHPRESS

The art beat of YORKshire

AUGUST 16, 2023 BY CHARLES HUTCHINSON

Dame Joan Collins goes Behind The Shoulder Pads in new book and autumn tour, heading to Grand Opera House, York...

TO coincide with the release of her memoir Behind The Shoulder Pads, Hollywood legend, author, producer, humanitarian and entrepreneur Dame Joan Collins will embark on a 12-date autumn tour with husband Percy Gibson by her side.

Returning to the Grand Opera House, York, where they presented Unscripted in February 2019, they will field audience questions and tell seldom-told tales and enchanting anecdotes on October 2, accompanied by rare footage from Dame Joan’s seven decades in showbusiness. 

“I’ve had many amazing adventures in my life. Some stories, though, I have only ever shared with my friends…until now!” says Dame Joan, introducing her 19th book, Behind The Shoulder Pads: Tales I Tell My Friends, published in hardback, e-book and audio by Seven Dials/Orion Publishing Co on September 28.

Dame Joan has “always believed one should retain some mystery in life and hide a knowing smile behind one’s shoulder pads”. In the book and on the tour, she will share her most memorable moments in and out of the limelight.

The book charts her journey from her early years as a young star in the golden era of Hollywood to stamping her stilettos in Dynasty; from the glittering heights of Saint Tropez to the busy Oscars season in Los Angeles over the years.

Joan writes movingly of her grief and adventures with her sister, the late author and actress Jackie, delving deeper into the ups and downs of love and relationships and her happiness with husband Percy.

Filled with a cast of household names, such as the late Queen Elizabeth II, Diana, Princess of Wales, Elizabeth Taylor, Michael Caine and Warren Beatty, Behind The Shoulder Pads promises to “delight and shock in equal measures”.

When a sore throat put paid to Dame Joan’s interview by voicemail with Charles Hutchinson, she very kindly answered questions by email instead.

When did you first wear shoulder pads, Dame Joan?

When Nolan Miller and I were collaborating in the early days of Dynasty we were looking at the couture shows from Paris because I said to him, ‘Alexis is a sophisticated global society lady, and she would be at the forefront of fashion’.

“In the Fifties we all wore shoulder pads. They made our hips look slimmer; our waists look trimmer; they were more flattering than an Italian waiter.”

When did you last wear shoulder pads?

“I still wear them. The structured look will never go out of fashion.”

Has York ever featured in your career or indeed in your life beyond the stage and screen?

“York is the seat of England, and I am a patriotic Englishwoman!”

What’s right with the British film industry?

“A lot. The talent is world class. You can see it in the number of awards we get every year.”

What’s wrong with the British film industry?

“What is wrong with the movie industry as a whole, whether in Britain or America. There is so much product that a lot of it is self-indulgent.”

What was the last film you saw and what was your verdict?

“Plane, starring Gerard Butler. Completely unbelievable and thoroughly enjoyable as a result.”

What did you learn about yourself in writing the memoir Behind The Shoulder Pads?

“Which opinions have changed over time, and which haven’t.”

Is glamour still what it used to be or has this age of social media gossip stripped away the air of mystery that once prevailed?

“I don’t know that glamour and social media gossip are necessarily interlaced. I think glamour still exists and social media doesn’t necessarily affect it, but if you’re talking about copycats on social media, there have always been ‘wannabees’ and pale imitations.”

What advice were you given that has stuck with you for life?

“Do it yourself because you’re the only one who will care about you.”

In turn, what advice would you give to a fledgling talent looking to fly high on stage and screen?

“Don’t bother unless you have the hide of a rhinoceros and willing to take rejection at every turn. And if you make it: live simply and stay humble.”

What would you still like to do that you have not done yet as an actress, author, producer, humanitarian and entrepreneur?

“When you put it that way, I guess not much! I like working, so I’ll continue!”

 Where are you most at home: on stage, in front of a camera or at home?

“I’m always at home in every place because I enjoy what I do.”

Please sum up yourself in six words…

“As I wrote in the prologue of my last book, My Unapologetic Diaries: ‘I am a wife, a mother, a grandmother, a sister, an aunt and a loyal friend.”

What did you not talk about on your last York visit that you particularly want to discuss this time?

“What did you not ask me the last time in York that you particularly wanted to know about?”

Now that question and answer must wait until the next time, Dame Joan.

Dame Joan Collins, Behind The Shoulder Pads, Grand Opera House, York, October 2, 7.30pm, in the only Yorkshire show of the tour. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

FLASHBACK : PAST IMPERFECT .. 1978 /1984 ..

UK Ppaerback 1979

As we look forward to Joan's sensational new book 'Behind The Shoulder Pads' due out September 28th, I thought it would be fun to look back at Joan's many other bestsellers, starting with her very first book. Joan  hit the bestsellers list in 1978 with the publication of her autobiography 'Past Imperfect' from W.H.Allen.

 The book was a big seller and a little controversial as it was deemed a kiss and tell which was a sure way to have a bestselling autobiography in those days. It also helped sales when the top rag of the day the News of the World serialised the book. Joan was urged by the publishers to include many salicious tales and she later regretted it. The book was not published in the USA until 1984 when she had become one of America's, if not the worlds biggest stars. However the version which hit the bestsellers list in 1984 was a more tamer version, leaving out some of the more intimate revelations! The 1978 edition was a big seller and with the hit film 'The Stud' on release at the same time, Joan's career hit the heights with numerous tv appearances and print interviews. The paperback edition issued by Coronet was a bestseller also and put Joan back firmly in the public eye. 

UK Reissue Hardback

Joan embarked on a series of book signings around the UK to promote the book, with a crowd packing event at London's Selfridges. After the success of the 1984 USA publication, it was decided to re-release the book in the UK. The hardback edition  was the same abridged version from the USA with a new cover portrait to reflect's Joan's success on 'Dynasty'. 

UK Reissue Paperback

A paperback edition also hit the top of the bestsellers list. you can still buy the USA edition in paperback form as it was reissued by Renaissance Literary in 2020..

ORDER 'PAST IMPERFECT' 2020 EDITION HERE...
 

PRESS UPDATE : WIRRAL GLOBE .. AUGUST 12TH 2023 ..

Dame Joan Collins returning to Floral Pavilion for book talk  

By Craig Manning..

HOLLYWOOD superstar Dame Joan Collins will share stories and secrets from her career when she returns to the Floral Pavilion later this year.

The award-winning actress, author, producer and entrepreneur – who became a household name in 1980s American soap opera Dynasty – will tell all at the New Brighton venue on October 16 as part of a tour launching her latest book, Behind the Shoulder Pads.

The show includes an audience question and answer session and will be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for fans to spend an entertaining and unforgettable evening in the company of a true legend of stage and screen.

Looking forward to returning to the Floral Pavilion, Joan told the Globe: "It's wonderful to be back at the Floral Pavilion.

"If audiences remember my last show, it was a more general look at my life and career but this one will discuss my latest book, Behind the Shoulder Pads, in depth.

"The book contains many stories that up to now I've only told my friends!"

Joan says she 'always' enjoys the audience participation element, adding: "It's wonderful to have a dialogue with the audience and it does provide quite a lot of excitement as one never knows what someone will ask!

"I was at the Floral Pavilion in 2019. Lovely town and everyone made us feel welcome."

London-born Joan trained at RADA and first appeared on the big screen in 1950s Hollywood where her classical stage training prepared her for some major movie roles.

In the late 1970s, she appeared as a sexy siren in The Bitch and The Stud, written by her sister, the award-winning novelist Jackie Collins. Moving from big screen to TV in the early '80s.

Joan joined the cast of Dynasty as Alexis Carrington, a lead role in the show. It earned her a star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame and a Golden Globe Award.

In 2015 Joan was made a Dame.

In the years that have followed Joan has toured her 'Audience with ...' shows and returned to stage and screen, including playing the fictitious Queen Mother in the E! Spoof soap The Royals.

She is the patron of numerous charitable activities including campaigns for Unicef and has her own Timeless Beauty cosmetics range.

Asked if she expected the success that followed, Joan replied: "Not at all. I originally wanted to be an actress of the stage, because that's what the 'real actors' did. I had no dreams of stardom.

"I wanted to be a working actress. I still consider myself a working actress, and stardom a sometimes welcome, and sometimes unwelcome, adjunct".

Asked if there was there a plan B, Joan admitted: "My father wanted me to be his secretary! But fortunately, I couldn't type.

"When I was young, I wanted to be a private detective, a clothes designer, and an interior designer.

"I still flex my muscles on the last two, and my husband says I missed my calling on the first!"

Asked if she would appear in a remake of Dynasty if it was ever produced, she said: "Of course, I would consider a remake! I remember the show and my fellow cast members with great fondness.

"I originally expected it to be another 'gig' which would last six months, as the show was languishing in the ratings.

"Nine years later, I was cleaning out my dressing room, which had become a second home. I found so much memorabilia!"

Looking back on the start of her career in Hollywood Joan said she would "absolutely" do it again, adding: "It was a wonderful time for me personally, as a 20-year-old and for my career too.

"I was thrilled to be in Hollywood, and it was just like I imagined it - fabulous weather - unbelievably glamorous - every one beautiful and exquisitely groomed - and that was just the men!

"I had my eyes wide open, so I accepted the nightmares – the unwanted advances and the heartaches - along with the dreams – making lifelong friends, which included some of the biggest names in Hollywood.

"It made me a citizen of the world.

"I loved Paul Newman. He and I, and his wife Joanne Woodward became very good friends and they lobbied for me to be in their movie Rally ‘round The Flag, Boys.

"They were the only ones in the business, aside from my sister Jackie, who have ever helped me along my career.

"When I lived in New York while Tony (Anthony Newley) was on Broadway, we'd go up to his country house and he would fire up the b-b-q and made the most amazing dressings.

"He said: 'one of these days I'm going to bottle them! The last time we saw each other I asked him how he was and he said 'still got a pulse!'"

Joan has many strings to her bow - award-winning actress, author, producer, humanitarian and entrepreneur.

Asked which aspect of her career Joan found most rewarding, she replied: "Being an actress without a doubt. I have always considered myself an actress first and foremost."

Looking back on the start of her career in Hollywood Joan said she would "absolutely" do it again, adding: "It was a wonderful time for me personally, as a 20-year-old and for my career too.

On her proudest moment, Joan said: "Giving birth to my three children, becoming a dame and winning my golden globe, in that order'".

Joan splits her time between homes in London, LA, and the south of France, but stresses: "before you ask, I love them ALL equally. Although I am slightly more partial to London, being a true-blue Englishwoman".

Asked how she would describe herself, she replied "As the prologue of my last book said: "I am an actress, a wife, a mother, a grandmother, a sister, an aunt and a loyal friend."

Tickets for Joan’s show at the Floral Pavilion show on October 16, which starts at 7.30pm, are from the box office on 0151 666 0000 ... 

y