PHOTO UPDATE : AHS - WHICH WITCH IS WHICH! SEPTEMBER 29TH 2018 ..

For those lamenting the demise of the fabulous Evie Gallant on AHS, Fear not! Joan will be back in more upcoming episodes!
 Here is a super shot of Joan with Sarah Paulson, Frances Conroy, Emma Roberts, Gabourey Sidibe, Leslie Grossman, Billie Lourd, Taissa Farmiga & Billy Porter.. But the question is Which Witch is Which!!

PRESS UPDATE : TV LINE : LESLIE GROSSMAN TALKS APOCALYPSE & JOAN! .. SEPTEMBER 23RD 2018 ..

Horror Story Fave Leslie Grossman Teases Future Apocalypse Twists!

Leslie with Joan on set...

The world of American Horror Story: Apocalypse may seem like a bleak nightmare, but for Leslie Grossman, it’s a dream come true. “Ryan [Murphy] has a lot of fun writing for Coco — his fingerprints are all over that character,” she tells TVLine. “I know she’s a strong flavor, but stick with her, because it gets interesting. She seems to be one thing, but you never know what she’ll turn into.”

Grossman’s character, the vapid-yet-lovable Coco St. Pierre Vanderbilt, is one of several major characters in the frame. Others include Emma Roberts’ Madison Montgomery, Frances Conroy’s Myrtle Snow, Gabourey Sidibe’s Queenie and Taissa Farmiga’s Zoe Benson, all of whom Grossman is “excited” to be working with, assuring us, “It’s not lost on me who I’m standing with in that picture.”

Another person Grossman is having a particularly good time with this season is Joan Collins, whose first character — the glamorous-yet-cannibalistic Evie Gallant — met her untimely demise this week. (Don’t worry, Collins has already let it slip that she’s playing multiple roles this season, so we’ll see her again soon enough.)

“I grew up watching Dynasty, being obsessed with her, so when Ryan told me she was doing the show, I fell to the floor — physically and emotionally,” Grossman says. “She means a great deal to me. And she’s so iconic, which is a word that gets overused now. She’s smart, funny and so talented, but what really struck me about her is that she’s incredibly warm and inviting. … I didn’t think she would be as accessible as she is. She’s literally a dame, and I don’t mean that in the colloquial sense. She’s, like, English royalty. Her lovely husband Percy is also fantastic and is always with her at work. It’s been a joy.”

With so much of the season still shrouded in mystery — we’re only two episodes in, and we just found out Kathy Bates is playing a robot — Grossman can only offer these parting words as a tease: “All I can tell you is that there are a lot of layers. When you think it’s going to go one way, it goes another. Just let it unfold, and I promise it’s going to be satisfying.”

TV ALERT : AMERICAN HORROR STORY APOCALYPSE .. FOX UK .. SEPTEMBER 27TH 10PM

Viewers in the UK & Ireland can finally catch all the action as Joan joins the cast of 'American Horror Story' on Fox UK starting on Thursday September 27th at 10pm.. 

TV UPDATE : THE LATE LATE SHOW WITH JAMES CORDEN .. CBS .. SEPTEMBER 20TH 2018 ..

Joan made a guest appearance on 'The Late Late Show with James Corden' last night to talk about among other things, her role on 'American Horror Story Apocalypse'.. Here is a clip of Joan revealing how she got the gig in the hit show! The series continues every Wednesday on FX in the USA.. Viewers in the UK & Ireland can catch the show from Thursday September 27th on FOX at 10pm...

TV ALERT : THE LATE LATE SHOW WITH JAMES CORDEN ... CBS SEPTEMBER 20TH .. 12.37 / 11.37c

Tune into The Late Late Show on CBS at 12.37 / 11.37c as Joan is James Corden's special guest tonight Sept 20th to talk about her role on AHS Apocalypse. .

Joan backstage with James Corden & Jeffrey Lane

EVENT UPDATE : THE HBO POST EMMY PARTY .. THE PLAZA AT THE PACIFIC DESIGN CENTRE .. LOS ANGELES .. SEPTEMBER 17TH 2018 ..

Joan met up with good friends Barbara Davis & Nikki Haskell at The Plaza at The Pacific Design Centre for the HBO post Emmy Awards reception..

TV ALERT : AMERICAN HORROR STORY APOCALYPSE .. EPISODE 2 - THE MORNING AFTER .. SEPTEMBER 19TH FX 10PM

After last week's exciting premiere episode of 'American Horror Story - Apocalypse' Joan is back in episode two called 'The Morning After'.. Check out the preview above and the full episode on FX at 10pm on Wednesday September 19th...

PRESS UPDATE : THE GLORIES OF BEING A GRANDMOTHER! .. SEPTEMBER 15TH 2018 ..

From the supermodel to James Bond’s boy: They’re all part of my own little dynasty - but please no more, dahlings! JOAN COLLINS reveals the glories of being a Godmother ...13 TIMES over

By JOAN COLLINS FOR THE DAILY MAIL

Occasionally people ask me: ‘How do you manage 13 godchildren?’ And my answer is simple: ‘You’d have to ask them.’ And it would be quite a task, as they range from aged three to 54 and are scattered all over the world.

But I think they’d probably agree that, although I love them all dearly, I have failed badly in my godparenting duties of advice, outings and gifts.

In fact, I have to confess that once, in around 2000, I was asked to become a godmother again when I already had around ten to my name and I actually refused. ‘I’m a lousy godparent.’ I said. ‘I can’t do it again.’

SNAP-HAPPY SCOTT: Scott Sanderson is the son of LA-based British celebrity photographer Eddie Sanderson, who has been photographing me for more than 40 years

Having discussed it with other godparents, it seems I’m not the only one who doesn’t live up to their responsibilities. Apparently, Queen Victoria had about 50 godchildren, many of whom she ignored even though some were named after her. None of mine were named after me — Joan, after all, is a very boring name — but I do have something in common with the great lady on that front.

It’s not that I don’t love babies — I absolutely adore them. That wasn’t always the case, however. I can remember my baby brother, Bill, arriving when I was 12; ‘Horrible, smelly little brat,’ I sneered to my put-upon mother. ‘No way am I going to change his nappy!’

And I didn’t. I ignored the poor child until he became a teenager and became more interesting, and we started to become close — a bond that is even more intense following the death of our beloved sister, Jackie, three years ago.

DELIGHT FROM MY TV DAYS: Amy Wilson, 31, daughter of former PR Stella Wilson from my days on Dynasty. Amy is married to former Saracens rugby player Chris Wyles

It was only six months after I found myself with my own baby, my beautiful Tara Cynara Newley, that I acquired my first godchild, Adam Bricusse. It felt like a double blessing.

Adam’s father is the lyricist Leslie Bricusse, the song-writing partner of my then husband, Anthony Newley, and his mother the film actress Yvonne Romain. We all were extremely close and spent years going on holidays together.

When my baby son, Sacha, arrived about a year after Adam, they became best friends for decades.

MT THEATRE PAL'S TWINS: Declan, left, and Justin Duggan, with my beloved sister Jackie. They’re the twin sons of Charles Duggan, who produced my U.S. tour of Noel Coward’s Private Lives

Our families had many adventures together, but one particularly horrific one took place in a rented New York brownstone, when the children were tiny. The nanny came rushing out of Adam’s room in the middle of the night, screaming: ‘He’s covered in cockroaches!’

When we went to look in his cot, we found cockroaches crawling all over his crib and up his baby-gro. Never have two families packed so fast as we did to evacuate that infested house.

Eight years later, my best friend, Judy Bryer — my personal assistant when I was starring in Dynasty — produced her first-born, Victoria, and I was delighted to be asked to be a godmother for the second time. Victoria and I have kept in constant touch, as she is almost the same age as my youngest daughter, Katyana..

CATWALK STAR CARA: Model and actress Cara Delevingne, 26, daughter of my life-long friends Charles and Pandora.

Two godchildren were entirely manageable and a huge honour, and I went into each relationship with the very best of intentions. I dutifully remembered birthdays, and chose thoughtful presents.

But then, all of a sudden, I seemed to become inundated with invitations to ‘godmotherhood’. The births came fast and furious in the Seventies: there was Milica, daughter of interior designer Tessa Kennedy and prolific film producer Elliot Kastner, of Where Eagles Dare fame, among many others.

Rachel, the daughter of Rod Tyler, then news editor of the News of the World, and his wife Maggie, who was our personal assistant, was also born in the Seventies. Then came Scott, son of Eddie Sanderson, my favourite photographer, and Christian, son of Luisa and Roger Moore.

MILLIONAIRE'S LAD: Theo Massow, aged three, is the son of Ivan Massow the multi-millionaire entrepreneur and activist. I met Ivan more than 20 years ago, and he calls me his ‘second mum’

By now I was struggling to keep up with remembering all of their birthdays. I did my best, but it was so difficult I decided instead to give a festive children’s Christmas party every year. This proved extremely successful and kept both parents and kids — including my own — happy for a few years.

But as this group turned into teenagers, the novelty of Christmas parties, stocking treats and ‘ho-ho-ho’ Santas grew stale, and they came to a natural end.

Not that that was the end of the godparenting requests! As the Eighties dawned, my younger friends started producing babies.

FILM MOGUL'S BABY: I first met Milica Kastner in her cot in the South of France when she was three months old. Now 46, she is the actress daughter of the late American film producer Elliot Kastner and Tessa Kennedy, a British interior designer, who is godmother to my daughter Katy..

In quick succession, I was asked to become godmother to Chloe, daughter of Neil Dickson (who played Biggles), with whom I was working on my mini-series ‘Sins’; then Coco, daughter of Louise and Theo Fennell, the fabulous jeweller.

Then in the Nineties, Amy, daughter of my publicist Stella Wilson, and Cara, daughter of my good friends Pandora and Charles Delevingne, were born. Lucky Cara had an abundance of godparents — 16 in all, I recollect — several of whom are now dead, so maybe it was foresighted of her parents to collect so many

By this time, I had practically given up on all of them. I sent a Christmas card every year which was often returned with a ‘Not known at this address’ sticker.

BEST FRIEND'S GROWN-UP GIRL: Victoria Dade, pictured here with me and a young fellow goddaughter, Cara Delevingne, is daughter of my closest friend Judy Bryer. Her father is Californian businessman Maximilian Bryer, who gave me away when I married my husband Percy Gibson in 2002. Victoria, now 46, has two sons and works in the U.S. broadcasting industry..

Then when, in the Nineties and early 2000s, my grandchildren were born, there weren’t enough hours in the week to keep in touch with many of them. Being a godparent is supposed to mean acting as a referee for the child and their parents from their baptism to adulthood. Nowadays, it’s all about remembering Christmas and birthdays and dishing out iPads and iPhones as presents.

Another definition of a good godparent is that they will make themselves available at all times to the child, keeping in touch regularly. Sorry guys — I guess I dropped the ball on that one, too. As a working actress, mother to three and grandmother to three, I could only be counted on in emergencies.

On the advice front, though, I’ve tried. I gave Cara Delevingne advice on the perils of showbusiness. When she was 15, she asked me whether she should become an actress: ‘Don’t,’ I told her simply, and paraphrasing Jack Nicholson, added: ‘The world doesn’t need another actress — 95 per cent of actors are out of work.’

+9

CO-STAR'S KID: Chloe, who’s in her 30s, is the daughter of actor Neil Dickson, who starred with me in my mini-series Sins in the Eighties

Of course, she didn’t listen and has become monumentally successful in both her acting and modelling careers. 

Just a few weeks ago we went out to dinner, and I took my 19-year-old granddaughter, Miel, to Cara’s 26th birthday bash in Los Angeles. 

I do try to keep in touch with them all. I see Christian Moore and his gorgeous young children often in the South of France. Christian has just had his fifth baby — a gorgeous little girl called Lily-Lara. And Adam Bricusse, my first godchild, is now godfather to her!

Now that my godchildren are having children of their own, does this make me a great-godmother? 

The early 21st century has seen something of a renaissance for my godparenting duties.

My friend and producer Charles Duggan, who is gay, informed me he was going to become a parent through in-vitro fertilisation. 

Since his twin sons, Declan and Justin, were born in 2002, we, too, have spent several summers together.

FIRST GODCHILD AND 007's SON: Artist Adam Bricusse, left, is the 54-year-old son of lyricist Leslie Bricusse, who worked with my second husband, Anthony Newley. Film producer Christian Moore, 45, is the youngest son of my friend Roger Moore..

Then, in 2015, another of my gay friends, Ivan Massow, asked my husband, Percy, and me to be godparents to his beautiful baby boy, Theo.

To be fair to myself, I am now in regular touch with most of my godchildren, inviting them to my parties whenever they are in town and getting to know and love their own children.

As far as the requests go, I think I’ll definitely stick at 13. Unlucky? I don’t think so.

So, from married parents to single parents to gay fathers, god-parenting has changed a lot in the past 50 years.

I have been happy to have been even a small part of my godchildren’s lives, if not the most active of influencers. I love all of them wholeheartedly.

TV ALERT : AHS APOCALYPSE ... FX (USA) .. 10PM ET .. SEPTEMBER 12TH 2018 ..

Joan invites you to witness The Apocalypse tomorrow evening on FX! Join in the mayhem at 10pm ET.. Make sure to tune in for the beginning... or is it the End!!

PRESS UPDATE : WEEKEND MAIL .. MY LIFE THROUGH A LENS :

My life through a lens: Hollywood legend Dame Joan Collins shares the stories behind her favourite snaps

By DAVID WIGG FOR WEEKEND MAGAZINE

Celebrities share the stories behind their favourite photographs – this week it’s Hollywood legend Dame Joan Collins

1937: Here I am topless aged four with my darling mother Elsa on holiday in Bognor Regis. She’s wearing her ‘Lana Turner’ style turban. My father Joe, who was a theatre agent in London, was a stern disciplinarian, but with a great sense of humour. Mummy was beautiful, adored dressing up and going out, but at heart she was a homebody whose world revolved around her family..

1952: This is my younger sister Jackie [right] and me as teenagers, having fun as we always did. It’s also one of the earliest photos of bikinis. We’re in the South of France, which I’ve loved from the moment I first went there as a girl – it’s magical. I miss Jackie since she died in 2015 – we were so close. She was such a remarkable woman.

1968: I always read bedtime stories to my children Tara and Sacha, even before going out for the evening. I was a single mother – something people never saw. I left my second husband Tony Newley when Tara was five and Sacha was three [both pictured] and cared for them myself. It was the same with Katy, my daughter from my next marriage, to Ron Kass.

1955: The Virgin Queen with Bette Davis was my very first Hollywood movie. I was just 22 when I arrived from Britain and I was scared to bits. She was utterly terrifying. She didn’t only scare me, but also the four other girls who played her ladies-in-waiting. She used to stalk around smoking heavily and wore tight corseted gowns. At one point she kicked me clear from her skirts across the set as I tried to tie her shoes.

                                                                            1954: David ‘Chim’ Seymour, the famous photographer who founded the Magnum photo agency with Henri Cartier-Bresson, George Rodger and Robert Capa, loved to make me cross when he shot me. He nicknamed me ‘the pouting panther’. I adore this glamorous picture he took of me – it’s one of my favourites, especially as it was taken at the beginning of my career.

1983: As Alexis Carrington in Dynasty I had some great fight scenes with Linda Evans, who played Krystle, the wife of my ex-husband Blake. Before we shot them Linda would assure me she wouldn’t hurt me, but how the feathers flew! It was great fun. There was a wonderful line in Dynasty, ‘Don’t mess with Alexis!’, which I repeat to myself if trouble rears its ugly head.

2001: Here I am alongside three fabulous broads – Shirley MacLaine, Debbie Reynolds and Elizabeth Taylor. The film we were shooting here, These Old Broads, was Elizabeth’s last, and she was in pain but always adorable. She overdid it – she drank too much, married too much and had too many jewels. But there’ll never be another actress like her. They’re all too scared now to be that over-the-top.

2013: The great Percy Gibson is my favourite husband, who never stops taking care of me and my whole family. We got married in 2002 and are pictured here at a party together. I’ve never met anyone who doesn’t like him. I subconsciously always looked for a man I can depend on in life and I hadn’t found it until Percy came along. He’s my rock.

TV UPDATE : LARRY KING NOW .. SEPTEMBER 5TH 2018 ..

Joan dropped in for a chat with friend Larry King on his online show Larry King Now... Here is the full interview... 

TV ALERT : AMERICAN HORROR STORY - APOCALYPSE AIRS SEPT 12TH FX USA / SEPTEMBER 27TH FOX UK

The premiere episode of season 8 of American Horror Story - Apocalypse airs on FX on September 12th in the USA, while UK views will see it on September 27th at 10pm on FOX...

Joan faces the end of the world with Leslie Grossman
 & Evan Peters

PROMO UPDATE: IT'S A WRAP FOR JOAN THIS HOLIDAY SEASON!

Joan surrounded by Gilles Toucas & his team, Stylist Rene Horsch, Jeffrey Lane & Percy Gibson

Joan took a break from filming the new series of 'American Horrror Story' to get ready for the holiday season, when she spent the afternoon with photographer Gilles Toucas and his team to shoot a sensational spread for 'Bella NY's', holiday issue.. I am sure it will be a cracker of an edition!

Joan set to cause a sensation this holiday season!

PRESS UPDATE : THE SPECTATOR .. DIARY SEPTEMBER 1ST 2018 ..

DIARY

Joan Collins: Why are people so baffled by the title ‘Dame’?

JOAN WITH CARA DELEVINGNE

Attending my goddaughter Cara Delevingne’s 26th birthday party at the trendy Chateau Marmont hotel in LA, I was interested to see how today’s young dress to party. Forget the fairy frocks, cocktail dresses and lounge suits I remember from my Hollywood parties in the golden age; it was shorts, ragged jeans and T-shirts emblazoned with cryptic messages for the boys, and minute, fabric-saving, low-cut dresses for the gals. Or perhaps it was the other way around. Fortunately the Chateau hasn’t yet succumbed to the fad for gender-neutral toilets that almost every institution in the UK has adopted. Where is a girl supposed to apply some lippy and have a quiet gossip nowadays? These temples of privacy and comfort are slowly being stripped away from us ladies and it’s time to reclaim them before we are reduced to locking ourselves in the supply cupboard to get some ‘me time’ or to escape the clutches of a predatory boss. The party was amusing, with half-naked strippers parading down the stairs and a mermaid frolicking in the pool. But it’s better I stick to my own hangouts where a knee-length little black dress isn’t out of place.

I admit I like going to restaurants. I enjoy the theatre of them and I love good food. There are two or three in LA, London and Saint Tropez that I frequent regularly, where they greet me immediately upon arrival and are always happy to see me. So when asked to dine in a different boîte, I normally decline. I’m not keen at being stared down haughtily at the entrance by a millennial who asks, usually in the squeaky Minnie Mouse voice which is so de rigueur nowadays: ‘What is your name?’ When I recently replied to this query, she asked me to repeat it because she didn’t understand my ‘accent’.

JOAN WITH HER CARICATURE AT LEGENDARY NY EATERIE SARDI’S

As far as using the title ‘Dame’, I never do. Not that I’m not proud of it — I am, immensely, and I love it when a particularly clued-up person uses it. However, in America and France most profess to be baffled and don’t understand the significance of the prefix, so I feel elitist if I mention it. Every now and then a Frenchman will take a stab at it, but it usually ends up as ‘damn’. Even the English seem dumbfounded by the title, so much so that when anyone makes a phone call on my behalf and says, ‘Dame Joan’, they are asked to repeat it. Eventually, in frustration, they just say ‘Joan Collins’, which invariably the person on the other end of the line misinterprets as ‘John Collins’. Most seem to comprehend ‘Sir’, but ‘Dame’ is beyond their understanding. I’m mostly referred to as ‘Ms Collins’ and sometimes ‘Miss’ or ‘young lady’. How kind — or blind!

I have just struggled to open a tiny travel tube of toothpaste, ruining my manicure in the process. Cutting open the cardboard cover with scissors was no problem. Unscrewing the super-tight cap was an effort, but it was the minuscule fragment of silver foil covering the mouth of the tube that confounded me. It had an even more microscopic tab which immediately tore off, so I had to resort to a variety of different tools to achieve my goal. These consisted of a hairpin, nail-clippers, scissors, a fork and finally my thumbnail, which promptly broke. They have similar foil covers on pints of milk, with tiny tabs that declare ‘lift and peel’ as if this were the easiest task to achieve. Invariably, after an effort worthy of Charles Atlas, only the plastic sticker that says ‘lift and peel’ comes off, leaving the foil undisturbed. Earlier this morning I spent several minutes trying to stab off the plastic cover on a cucumber with a fork. It now looks like it was riddled by a machine-gun — like a vegetarian Valentine’s Day massacre.

JOAN IN HER BEST ACTRESS ROLE OF HILDA IN ‘GERRY’

I was thrilled to have been awarded ‘Best Actress’ at the LA Shorts Film Festival in LA, for the first outing of my new movie Gerry. In the 20-minute film, I play a poor elderly widow who is looking for love via newspaper lonely-hearts ads. Very 20th-century, I know. Much was made of the fact that my make-up expert, Alyn Waterman, succeeded — with the application of prosthetics and wrinkles — in making me look like a worn-out woman in her seventies. Ironically, that’s actually younger than I am. Approbation is what I and my fellow thespians seek. Kathy Bates, a Best Actress Academy Award winner, recently told me at dinner that her mother was often asked why her daughter became an actress. She replied: ‘When she was born the doctor smacked on her behind. She thought that it was applause and she’s been looking for it ever since.’

TV UPDATE : KTLA 5 NEWS MORNING .. TUESDAY AUGUST 28TH 2018 ..

Joan popped into the KTLA Studios this morning to discuss her award winning film 'Gerry' and her upcoming role or should that be roles in the new season of 'American Horror Story - Apocalypse' premiering Sept 12th on FX.. For those who missed it her it is!!

TV UPDATE : EXTRA UNIVERSAL STUDIOS HOLLYWOOD .. TUESDAY AUGUST 21ST 2018 ..

Joan dropped into Universal Studios Hollywood to chat to Extra host Mario Lopez about her latest award winning film 'Gerry' and her many other projects for Tuesday's edition of the top rated entertainment show. 

PRESS UPDATE : CLOSER WEEKLY AUGUST 19TH 2018 ..

Joan Collins Reveals Her Biggest Career Regret (It Could Have Won Her an Oscar!)

It was the one that got away. "In 1960, I was offered a [movie] called Sons and Lovers, with Dean Stockwell," Joan Collins recently recalled to Town & Country. "I wanted to do it, and I don't think it was bad. However, I was living with and engaged to a young actor called Warren Beatty, who said, 'This is absolute crap.' So I turned it down." She soon came to regret that decision. 

"Mary Ure did it and was nominated for an Oscar," Joan said. "At that time I was more influenced by men." That didn't last long, though. "Everybody said to me, 'You'll be through by the time you're 24,'" Joan — who has just been cast opposite Jessica Lange in American Horror Story: Apocalypse, the next season of FX's Emmy-winning hit — shared.

Joan's wardrobe test shot for Sons and Lovers

"My father, all these guys in Hollywood... over and over again, I have been told this by men. But it hasn't been true yet," she added. Joan is now married to Percy Gibson and in a previous interview with Hello! magazine, she said that this is her best marriage yet.  

"It is my fifth marriage, and my happiest, and last," Joan gushed. "Percy is wonderful, he's my soulmate. That doesn't mean we don't bicker but we are very understanding of each other." The couple have been happily married for 16 years despite rumors that their union would never last.

"People are entitled to their opinion but it's good to prove them wrong," Percy told the magazine. "I've certainly never been happier and I hope that I make Joan happy because she definitely deserves that." 

For more on Joan Collins, pick up the latest issue of Closer Weekly, on newsstands now