Saturday, April 30, 2022
TV ALERT : THE WAYWARD BUS ... TALKING PICTURES TV... SUNDAY MAY 8TH 2022 .. 22:05PM ...
Tuesday, April 19, 2022
EVENT UPDATE : MY UNAPOLOGETIC DIARIES BOOK EVENT.. BOOK SOUP LOS ANGELES.. APRIL 12TH 2022 ..
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| Kassandra with Joan's lippy! |
Kassandra was proud to wear one of Joan's Timeless Beauty Lipsticks to celebrate the occassion at Book Soup.. The new edition of 'My Unapologetic Diaries' sports a fabulous new cover with a sensational shot of Joan along with many more stories not in the UK edition. You can order your copy here!
ORDER MY UNAPOLOGETIC DIARIES USA EDITION FROM AMAZON HERE!
ORDER MY UNAPOLOGETIC DIARIES USA HERE!
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| Kassandra with friend James Hong |
Sunday, April 10, 2022
AUCTION ALERT : BONHAM'S AUCTION.. APRIL 27TH 2022 ..
Lot 147
DAVID WEBB: JOAN COLLINS' CULTURED PEARL AND DIAMOND ENGAGEMENT ...
Provenance:Dame Joan CollinsJoan Collins began dating the then unknown actor Warren Beatty in 1959, when she was 26 and he was 22. The pair became engaged a year later, but their turbulent relationship ended shortly after, and they were never married.
£ 5,000 - £ 7,000
€ 6,000 - € 8,400
US$ 6,500 - US$ 9,100.
Lot 146
JOAN COLLINS' DIAMOND ENGAGEMENT RING FROM ANTHONY NEWLEY, CIRCA 1963 The pear-shaped diamond weighing 1.01 carats, within a surround of marquise-cut diamonds, remaining diamonds approximately 4.30 carats, ring size L½, cased by Antrobus
Provenance:Dame Joan CollinsThis diamond engagement ring was given to Joan Collins by the actor and singer-songwriter Anthony Newley. Collins married Newley in 1963, and the pair had two children together, Tara and Alexander, before divorcing in 1970.
PRESS UPDATE : THE SUNDAY TIMES.. APRIL 10TH 2022 ..
Warren Beatty’s proposal was offally seductive, says Joan Collins
Her wedding ring was hidden inside her favourite dish — liver. Now it is up for sale!
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Warren Beatty and Joan Collins on a date in 1959. He later gave her a diamond and pearl ring, but they never married BETTMANN/GETTY IMAGES; BONHAMS |
When Warren Beatty asked Joan Collins to marry him, he hid the engagement ring in a tub of offal.
The Bonnie and Clyde actor had returned to the couple’s New York apartment in 1960 “laden with Jewish delicatessen delights”, including her favourite treat, chopped liver.
“He must have known that I would consume that first, so imagine my surprise when I found that massive ring inside the container as I greedily ladled myself a spoonful,” Collins recalled this weekend. “He then announced that we were engaged.”
In what might be considered a perk of being married five times — and engaged more than that — the actress has decided to sell her engagement ring from Beatty, as well as the one given to her by her second husband, the actor, singer and songwriter Anthony Newley.
Collins, 88, joked that she was selling the rings because, “like everything else, my fingers have put on weight”, though the real reason is that “jewellery is meant to be worn, and these pieces belong to a different time in my life”.
She met Beatty, the younger brother of Shirley MacLaine, in 1959, when he was an unknown actor; their eyes met across a restaurant where he was dining with Jane Fonda.
They embarked on a whirlwind romance and were engaged the next year. Collins wore the unusual ring — gold encrusted with diamonds and pearls — when she filmed the religious drama Esther and the King, “since it fitted in with the biblical costumes”.
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Collins with her second husband, Anthony Newley, in 1969. They had two children before divorcing. She is also selling the engagement ring Newley gave to her
SILVER SCREEN COLLECTION/GETTY IMAGES; BONHAMS |
The new owners may hope that it proves luckier for them than it did for the Dynasty star. Collins had an intense and tumultuous relationship with Beatty — she once wrote that “he needed to have sex several times a day, which often wore me out” — and had an illegal abortion because she feared the impact on their careers of having a child.
His infidelity meant they broke up before they tied the knot, though they remained friends. There were persistent rumours that the lothario, now 85, was having an affair with his Splendor in the Grass co-star Natalie Wood. Beatty was said by one biographer to have slept with almost 13,000 women.
Collins later began a relationship with the actor and singer-songwriter Anthony Newley. The pair married in 1963 and had two children, Tara and Alexander, before divorcing in 1970.
The actress said that Newley, who as a child played the Artful Dodger in Oliver Twist, David Lean’s 1948 film adaptation of the Charles Dickens novel, gave her the pear-shaped ring “shortly after I told him that I never had any diamonds. It was my first diamond ring.”
Her third husband was the American music executive and film producer Ron Kass, whom Collins married in 1972 and divorced in 1983. She sought an annulment of her fourth marriage, to the Swedish pop star Peter Holm, just over one year after marrying.
Collins married her fifth husband, the film producer Percy Gibson, at Claridge’s in 2002 — and returned to the central London hotel recently to celebrate their 20th wedding anniversary with a party. Collins said the white-tie event was “reminiscent of the glamour and romance of the 1930s and 1940s, with candlelight and trailing orchids and a wonderful big band playing the romantic ballads of the time”. She added: “Everyone was enchanted, so I think people still love elegance and style.”
The actress, who divides her time between London and Los Angeles, believes that a return to partying after the end of pandemic restrictions will see jewellery and high fashion coming back into style.
Collins’s jewellery has been a success at previous auctions, with five items raising more than £200,000 for a children’s hospice in 2020.
Beatty’s ring will have a guide price of up to £7,000 when it goes under the hammer at Bonhams in London on April 27, while Newley’s diamond band could fetch as much as £8,000.
Neither will be presented in chopped liver!
Tuesday, April 5, 2022
PROMO ALERT : CALVIN KLEIN - CK1 PALACE CAMPAIGN .. APRIL 2022 ..
Here is a first look at the cool new advert featuring Joan for Calvin Klein's new collaboration with Skateboard brand Palace....
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| Joan on set of the new advert.. |
Palace has officially revealed the “ CK1 Palace ” collaboration with Calvin Klein. The new project blends the skate brand's playful aesthetic and clothing with exclusive Calvin Klein pieces, including jeans, t-shirts, wool sweaters, as well as men's and women's underwear [a first for Palace].
Calvin Klein's classic color palette runs throughout the capsule collection, with a focus on black, gray and white. Additionally, the two brands created a custom logo that blends the Calvin Klein brand with Palace's tri-ferg . Palace also adds a partnership with Vans to create a limited series of “CALVANS”.
The collection also includes a new version of the CK ONE fragrance – the first time it has been altered by a partner brand.
To mark the collaboration, Calvin Klein and Palace enlisted Alasdair McLellan to create a campaign inspired by the brands' respective home cities, New York and London. Celebrating both cities, the advertising images feature a cast that ranges from Palace team skaters like Lucien Clarke and Charlie Birch to Hollywood royalty in the form of Willem Dafoe and Joan Collins. Other names featured in the campaign include The Pet Shop Boys, Adwoa Aboah, Madonna's daughter Lola Leon, Precious Lee and Unknown T.
Thursday, March 31, 2022
PRESS UPDATE : THE SPECTATOR .. APRIL 1ST 2022
Joan Collins
Oscars diary: a jaw-dropping night
Oscar week is intense – and it’s been a while since it’s been as intense. The red carpet is full of eager paparazzi and interviewers waiting for a photo opportunity or a quotable gaffe. My husband and I went to a couple of parties, but the most coveted is the Vanity Fair Oscar viewing dinner at the Annenberg Center. About 100 people are invited by editor Radhika Jones, and we were delighted to be among the chosen few. The ceremony was long and snoozy, and people were scrolling down their phones for entertainment when suddenly one of the most celebrated actors in Tinseltown, Will Smith, rushed to the stage and bashed the comedian Chris Rock in the face. You could almost hear the collective jaw-drops in the silence of that room. Naturally, the next day there was barely a mention in the press of the wonderful Best Picture, Coda, announced by a wheelchair-bound Liza Minnelli, or of the touching speech by the deaf actor Troy Kotzur. Everything was about this outrageous incident.Breathing in the cool Los Angeles night air at the end of the evening, I could still feel the slight stinging in my left breast where I had been hit hard by a stale bread roll a month ago. A complete stranger, the female guest of an unknown-to-me Lord, had launched it at me from across the room of the Chelsea Arts Club. She was insulted that she couldn’t crash our private dinner party. So I felt sympathy for Chris Rock when he bore the brunt of Will Smith’s rage. My assault, coming out of the blue, was a shock to my system, so I can only imagine the pain and embarrassment that Rock endured. But I must admit, it’s one heck of a way to make the Best Documentary category more interesting.
When Percy and I dine at the popular Craig’s restaurant in Hollywood, we, and many other well-known people, are often subjected to a barrage of flash bulbs. Usually the pictures are not good. Nevertheless, each shot, however awkward or uncomfortable we look, is allegedly the property of the independent paparazzo, who can then charge as much as they want for it. If the person in the photo (i.e. me) should post it on their social media or website, they can be threatened with a significant demand for payment. To me, this means that I do not own exclusive rights to my image. What next? Will expectant mothers not be able to post an ultrasound of their babies because the images belong to the technician?
When we attended an outdoor cocktail party for Sir Kenneth Branagh and his excellent film Belfast, Sir Kenneth was his usual ebullient yet modest self as he was being lionised by the guests. We reminisced about In the Bleak Midwinter, the movie he wrote and directed in which I played a tough Hollywood agent. In one scene, I had to walk down a hill chattering away to another actor while being followed by the camera. Being a stickler for authenticity of dialogue, Sir Kenneth insisted I retake this four-minute tracking shot several times.‘But why?’ I would ask. ‘What didn’t you like?’‘Darling, it was fine,’ said Ken, ‘but you kept on saying “the” instead of “a”.’‘It’s not bloody Shakespeare,’ I muttered, trudging back up the hill.In January, we returned to London. I thought I was safe from Covid after my booster, while Percy and I prepared for our 20th anniversary party at Claridge’s, which we had been planning for over two years. In the middle of the complication of creating perfect placement for 140 people, I started sneezing. It was Covid. Terrified I would have to cancel the event, I tested myself every day, and felt tremendous relief when I was finally negative with five days to spare. However, I asked my doctor to carry out a PCR test in the middle of my convalescence and this was reported to the NHS, so even though I was feeling better, the NHS kept calling me and telling me I couldn’t go out. I was in bureaucratic limbo.The party was spectacular. The invitation stated that ‘white tie was optional’ but, lo and behold, at least half of the gentlemen complied. They all looked exceptionally handsome, as white tie is a most flattering look for men. The women also looked stunning wearing full-on evening gowns and finery. Many guests hadn’t been out of their homes properly for more than two years, so the celebrations, dancing and speeches were stellar. Altogether it was one of the best nights of my life, which I was so happy to celebrate with my husband of 20 years and so many close friends, some of whom had flown in from Scotland, Spain, Switzerland, New York, Hollywood and even, yes, deepest darkest Peru.
Tuesday, March 29, 2022
PRESS UPDATE : FORBES .. MARCH 29TH 2022 ..
Joan Collins Reflects On Her Life, New Documentary, And Being An Early Trailblazer For Fair Pay In Hollywood..
I write about news emerging out of the evolving entertainment world.
For seven decades now, Dame Joan Collins has graced our screens, big and small, with her commanding presence of confidence, beauty, and wit. Arguably best known for bringing to life the iconic pop culture character of Alexis Carrington on the hit 1980s television series Dynasty, Collins is ready to tell her life story in the form of a new documentary on BritBox called This Is Joan Collins. But much like she has been throughout her entire Hollywood career, on and off camera, Collins continues to take matters into her own hands.
“Well, I’ve been asked to do them several times over the years and the format was always the same,” Collins, 88, tells me of the many documentary pitches she has received over the years. “Yes, we will get a bunch of your friends in, Joan, and they’ll all talk about you and say how fabulous you are - blah, blah, blah! And I said I don’t want to do that, and so I just waited until [producer] Karen [Steyn] came to me and said ‘Well, we have this idea that you would narrate the [documentary] yourself and we would take most of the text from your autobiographies that you’ve written.’ That’s what we did.”
In the documentary, Collins opens up in great detail about her early acting career as the golden age of Hollywood started to dwindle. She also speaks candidly about the ups-and-downs of her five marriages and her devotion as a mother throughout much of that turmoil. Collins goes on to tell me that she did not discuss the passing of her younger sister, popular novelist Jackie Collins, because she says the loss was too sad for her. What she does decide to share in This Is Joan Collins is her daughter Katy’s traumatic accident in the early 1980s, when she was hit by a car and had to undergo a long journey toward recovery.
When I asked Collins if she lives with any regrets in her life today, she says, “Well, of course I live with regrets. I mean, I regret that my daughter was knocked down by a car. I regret some my marriages - I did that too many times. I was stupid. Well, I don’t regret marrying Tony [Newley] because I have two wonderful children [Tara and Alexander] and marrying Ron [Kass], I had one beautiful daughter [Katy]. I sincerely regret marrying the Swede [Peter Holm].”
Collins is now married to Hollywood producer Percy Gibson and she informs me that they just had their 20th wedding anniversary, referring to Gibson as her partner for life forever.
While Collins was dealing with divorce off-screen, she certainly found her footing on-screen when she joined the fairly successful at the time new Dynasty series at the start of season two in 1981, playing the ex-wife of leading character Blake Carrington, played by actor John Forsythe.
With Collins now onboard as Alexis Carrington during a time when DVR playback and video streaming did not yet exist, Dynasty reached the number one spot on television during its 1984-85 season with a Nielsen rating of 25.0 and an impressive average of 21.2 million households tuning in each week to see what type of drama Alexis would stir up next.
Collins says of her beloved character, “The thing that I liked about Alexis was her wit. She was very witty, she was cutting, and she didn’t let anybody get anything over on her.”
A real-life moment when Collins tapped into her inner-Alexis was when she became aware during the height of Dynasty’s popularity that her male co-star Forsythe was being paid a considerable amount more than her. During a 2021 interview, Collins disclosed that she was making $15,000 an episode when she joined Dynasty, while Forsythe was taking in around $25,000 to $30,000 per episode. During a time in Hollywood when male-to-female pay contrasts were often known about but not often questioned, Collins made the bold choice to speak up for what she believed that she had earned.
“Well, everybody told me that I shouldn’t do it,” Collins recalls. “‘John has been around the business a lot longer than you.’ I thought Well, so what? And of course, he always had to be front and center of any ads. If you look at any of the ads from that time, even if you look at the DVDs that are out there, John Forsythe - Blake is always in the middle surrounding a bevy of women. And eventually I thought, here I am on the cover of every magazine in America, in Europe, in Asia. John Forsythe isn’t on the cover - why shouldn’t I get parity? And so, I went to [producer] Aaron [Spelling] and apparently, I did not know this but he had it in his contract that he always had to be paid more than any of the other people. So although they gave me a raise, they didn’t make it equal but I didn’t know that until after the show closed, but it didn’t matter, you know? I mean, I’m not greedy. Well, not really (laughs).”
Dynasty ran on television from 1981 until 1989. Collins remembers it being a great show, at least for the first three or four years. She says the writing fell apart shortly after that, because the ABC network wanted to kill the show, according to Collins. When Collins ironically teamed up with Linda Evans, the actress who often played Alexis’s feud-fueled scene partner on-screen as Krystle Carrington, to speak up together to producers about why they were being given “these awful scripts and these stupid storylines,” Collins says producers did not take notice of their concerns.
These days, Collins still gets a considerable amount of scripts sent her way and seems to have a much more laid-back approach toward contracts, knowing her value. When I asked Collins how she negotiates salary on projects today, she says, “Well, I just have my agent get on with it and just tell him what I want and what I think I deserve and he usually gets it or doesn’t.”
So, what is a day in the life like in 2022 for Joan Collins? “Well everything is different, you see, because we are right now in LA where we have an apartment but most of the time, we live in London where I also have an apartment and where my children and grandchildren live. So here, it’s really seeing friends, it’s reading scripts. It’s going swimming if one can. I don’t really have any hobbies. Can you count reading as a hobby? Photography? I’m very interested in fashion. I design a lot of my clothes. Last night, we played poker with friends.” In true Alexis Carrington fashion, when I asked Collins if she has a good poker face, she smiled at me with a steady stare saying, “Well, I usually win.”
I wrapped up my conversation with this life-long Hollywood legend and trailblazer in many respects, wondering what she would say to her former self, the Joan Collins who had just arrived in Hollywood as a teenager, looking to build a successful life for herself. Without hesitation, Collins confidently answers with, “You have a lot more power than you think you did.”
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