Joan Collins

Dame Joan Henrietta Collins, DBE (born 23 May 1933) is an English actress, author, and columnist. After making her stage debut in the Henrik Ibsen play A Doll's House at the age of nine, she trained as an actress at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London. She then signed an exclusive contract with the Rank Organisation and appeared in various British films.

At age 22 in 1955, Collins headed to Hollywood and landed sultry roles in several popular films, including The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing (1955) and Rally Round the Flag, Boys! (1958). While she continued to make films in the US and the UK throughout the 1960s, she also guest-starred in an episode of Star Trekin 1967 named "The City on the Edge of Forever", as Edith Keeler. Her career languished in the 1970s, when she appeared in a number of horror films. Near the end of the decade, she starred in two softcore pornographic films based on best-selling novels by her younger sister Jackie Collins: The Stud (1978) and its sequel The Bitch (1979).

She began appearing on stage, playing the title role in the 1980 British revival of The Last of Mrs. Cheyney, and later had a lead role in the 1990 revival of Noël Coward's Private Lives. In 1981, she landed the role of Alexis Carrington, the vengeful and scheming ex-wife of John Forsythe's character, in the 1980s soap opera Dynasty, winning a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in 1982; she is credited with the success of Dynasty, which was the most-watched television series in the United States during the 1984–85 broadcast season. Collins also received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1983 for career achievement.

In 2015, Collins was made a Dame by Queen Elizabeth II for services to charity. Since the late-1970s, Collins has written several books (including beauty and autobiographical books). In 1988, she published her first novel, Prime Time, and she has continued to publish various kinds of writing. A member of the Conservative Party, Collins was invited to attend the funeral of former UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in April 2013.

Early life
Collins was born in Paddington, London, and brought up in Maida Vale, the daughter of Elsa Collins (née Bessant), a dance teacher and nightclub hostess, and Joseph William Collins (died 1988), a talent agent[2] whose clients would later include Shirley Bassey, the Beatles, and Tom Jones.[3] Her father, a native of South Africa, was Jewish, and her British mother was Anglican. She had two younger siblings, Jackie (1937–2015),[2] a novelist, and Bill, a property agent.[8][9] She was educated at the Francis Holland School, an independent day school for girls in London[10] and then trained at the RADA.

At the age of 17, Collins was signed to the J. Arthur Rank Film Company, a British film studio.[11]

Career
Collins made her feature debut as a beauty contest entrant in Lady Godiva Rides Again (1951) followed by The Woman's Angle (1952) in a minor role as a Greek maid. Next was a more significant role as a gangster's moll in Judgment Deferred (1952).

Rank Organisation
Her big break came when the Rank Organisation signed her for a major role in I Believe in You (1952). Other roles to follow included Cosh Boy (1953), billed second, directed by Lewis Gilbert; Decameron Nights (1953); Turn the Key Softly(1953); and The Square Ring (1953). She was lent out to appear in Our Girl Friday(1953), in which she was top billed.

Hollywood and 20th Century Fox
Collins was chosen by director Howard Hawks to star in his lavish production of Land of the Pharaohs (1955) as the scheming Princess Nellifer opposite Jack Hawkins. Lacking a big-name cast, Land of the Pharaohs was unsuccessful at the box office, earning $450,000 short of its $3,150,000 production budget. The film drew more interest over the years and has been defended by Martin Scorsese, French critics supporting the auteur theory, and for numerous elements of its physical production. Danny Peary in his book Cult Movies (1981), selected it as a cult classic.[12] The film's reputation continues to improve with the test of time. As of 2013, Land of the Pharaohs holds a 71% "fresh" rating at the film review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes. Although the film was a box-office disappointment, Collins' performance led to a contract at 20th Century Fox.

The contract with Fox led the production company to cast Collins in The Virgin Queen (1955) as Elizabeth Raleigh in support of Richard Todd and Bette Davis. The same year, Collins was cast as the leading role in The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing directed by Richard Fleischer from a screenplay by Walter Reisch and Charles Brackett, and starring Ray Milland, and Farley Granger. The CinemaScope film was released by Twentieth Century-Fox, which had originally planned to put Marilyn Monroe in the title role, and then suspended her when she refused to do the film, which led to Collins' casting.[13]

MGM borrowed Collins for The Opposite Sex (1956), a musical remake of The Women (1939) with Collins in a part originally played by Joan Crawford. The following year, Collins returned to featuring in Fox films, where she played a nun in Sea Wife (1957) based on the 1955 James Maurice Scott novel Sea-Wyf and Biscuit.[14] Shot in Jamaica, the film follows a group of survivors from a torpedoed British refugee ship.[15][16] The same year, Collins starred in The Wayward Bus, which received disappointing reviews.[17] Fox had hoped to repeat the success of 1956's Bus Stop (starring Marilyn Monroe) film adaptation, but instead ended up crafting the Steinbeck novel into what one commentator called "the kind of lowbrow schlock the novel had satirized".[18] However, The Wayward Bus was one of 33 films nominated for the Golden Berlin Bear Award at the 7th Berlin International Film Festival, but lost to Sidney Lumet's 12 Angry Men.[19] Later that year, Collins was cast in Island in the Sun (1957), which was a major box office success. The film earned $5,550,000 worldwide, and finished as the sixth-highest grossing film of 1957 and was the eighth-most popular movie in Britain that year.[20]

Collins was the female lead in Stopover Tokyo (1958) opposite Robert Wagnerand The Bravados (1958), with Gregory Peck. She was a temptress after Paul Newman in the comedy Rally Round the Flag, Boys (1959). She finished her Fox contract with the crime caper Seven Thieves (1960) and the biblical epic Esther and the King (1960).

One notable film release in the 1960s was The Road to Hong Kong (1962), the last "road" picture of Bing Crosby and Bob Hope; Collins played the female lead, though Dorothy Lamour was available.

Television
She took a hiatus from her film career to concentrate on having a family after marrying Anthony Newley, and when she resumed her career, it was in the medium of television. Her notable guest appearances on American television during the 1960s and 1970s included Batman, The Virginian, Mission: Impossible, Police Woman, and Star Trek; in the latter, she acted out the role of Edith Keeler in the episode titled "The City on the Edge of Forever", widely regarded by fans as one of the best episodes across all the Star Trek series. Collins also appeared as a guest star on the hit series "Roseanne" in 1993, as the character of cousin Ronnie in the episode "First Cousin, Twice Removed".

Collins also had a guest appearance alongside Roger Moore and Tony Curtis on ITV's television series The Persuaders! as Sidonie in the episode from 1972 called "Five Miles to Midnight".

Collins made the occasional film in the '60s, such as Hard Time for Princes (1965) in Italy; Warning Shot (1967), a drama; Subterfuge (1968), a thriller; and If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium (1969), a comedy; She also appeared in Newley's autobiographical Can Heironymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe and Find True Happiness? (1969).

She was in a thriller with George Peppard, The Executioner (1970) and a quasisequel to Three in the Attic, Up in the Cellar (1970).

British film star
In the early 1970s, Collins returned to Britain and starred in a series of local movies, mostly thrillers and horror films: Revenge (1971), a revenge thriller; Quest for Love (1971), a romantic science-fiction piece; Tales from the Crypt (1972), an anthology horror; Fear in the Night (1972) psychological horror from Jimmy Sangster; Dark Places (1973), a horror; and Tales That Witness Madness (1973), another horror anthology.

She went to Italy for L'arbitro (1974) and returned home for a horror I Don't Want to Be Born (1975).

Collins was in some sex comedies, Alfie Darling (1975) and The Bawdy Adventures of Tom Jones (1976). She returned to the US to make a science-fiction epic Empire of the Ants (1977) and made Fearless (1978) in Italy and The Big Sleep (1978) in England. She had a small role in Zero to Sixty (1978).

The Stud comeback
In 1978, Collins starred in the film versions of her sister Jackie Collins's racy novel The Stud. It was made for $600,000 and went on to gross over $20,000,000 internationally.[21]

After shooting Game for Vultures (1979) and Sunburn (1979), she appeared in a sequel to The Stud, The Bitch (1979).[22] It was another hit and led to her receiving a job offer from US television.

Dynasty
In 1981, Collins was offered a role in the second season of the then-struggling new soap opera Dynasty (1981–89) playing Alexis Carrington, the beautiful and vengeful ex-wife of tycoon Blake Carrington (John Forsythe). Her performance is generally credited as one factor in the fledgling show's subsequent rise in the Nielsen ratings[23] to a hit rivaling Dallas.

In 1985, Dynasty was the number-one show in the United States, beating out Dallas, which ranked number two.[24] For her portrayal of Alexis, Collins was nominated six times for a Golden Globe Award (every year from 1982 to 1987), winning once in 1983,[25] the same year she was nominated for an Emmy as Best Actress in a Drama Series.[26] Upon accepting the award, Collins thanked Sophia Loren for turning down the part of Alexis.[27] At the age of 50, Collins appeared in a 12-page photo layout for Playboy magazine shot by George Hurrell.[28]

In 1983, Collins starred in Making of a Male Model with young model-actor Jon-Erik Hexum, and in 1984, played a soap star in The Cartier Affair with David Hasselhoff. In the same year, she co-hosted the ABC-TV special Blondes vs. Brunettes. With Dynasty at the height of its success, Collins began producing and starred in the 1986 CBS miniseries Sins and Monte Carlo.[29][30] The first of these two had good ratings,[31] but the second was critical and ratings disappointment.[32]

In the 2001 E! True Hollywood Story episode featuring Dynasty, former ABC executive Ted Harbert stated, "The truth is we didn't really believe that we had this thing done as a hit until Joan Collins walked down that courtroom aisle." Co-star Al Corley noted that Collins "just flew" in the role that was "tailor made...just spot on." In Dynasty producer Aaron Spelling's final press interview, he said of Collins: "We didn't write Joan Collins. She played Joan Collins. Am I right? We wrote a character, but the character could have been played by 50 people and 49 of them would have failed. She made it work."[33]

Later career
After the end of Dynasty in 1989, Collins took time off. She rejoined her co-stars for Dynasty: The Reunion, a 1991 miniseries that concluded the series which had been left with a cliffhanger ending after its abrupt cancellation. In the 1990s, Collins made several guest-star appearances on series such as Roseanne, The Nanny, and Will & Grace. She also appeared as the main characters of films such as Decadence (1994) and Annie: A Royal Adventure! (1995) (in the latter of which she plays the main antagonist, Lady Edwina Hogbottom) during this period.

In 1990, Collins played Amanda in a revival of Noël Coward's Private Lives. She later appeared in the same play in 1992, starring alongside Simon Jones.[34] In 1991, Collins also appeared in Coward's Tonight at 8.30. She was selected as the cover model for the relaunch of the popular celebrity magazine OK! when it changed from a monthly to a weekly.[35]

In 1999, Collins was cast in the film version of musical theatre show Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. She played two roles in this film: a pianist and the wife of Egyptian millionaire Potiphar. In 2000, Collins joined the cast of The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas, a prequel to the Universal Studios live-action film The Flintstones (1994). She reprised the supporting role of Pearl Slaghoople, Wilma Flintstone's mother, that Elizabeth Taylor had originated. In 2001, she co-starred in the television film These Old Broads with Debbie Reynolds, Shirley MacLaine, and Taylor. The film was written for television by Reynolds's daughter, Carrie Fisher.

In 2002, Collins returned to soap operas in a limited guest run on the American daytime soap Guiding Light.[36] In 2005, actress Alice Krige impersonated Collins in Dynasty: The Making of a Guilty Pleasure, a fictionalised television film based on the creation and behind-the-scenes production of Dynasty.[37]

In early 2006, Collins toured the United Kingdom in An Evening with Joan Collins, a one-woman show in which she detailed the highs and lows of her career and life, directed by her by-then husband Percy Gibson. In 2006, she reunited with her Dynasty co-stars for the nonfiction special Dynasty Reunion: Catfights and Caviar. Later that year, she began a tour of North America in the play Legends!with former Dynasty co-star Linda Evans, which concluded in May 2007 after a 30-week run.

In 2005, Collins joined the cast of the hit British television series Footballer's Wives for a limited run. She also guest-starred in the BBC series Hotel Babylon in 2006 as a lonely aristocrat desperate for romance. Collins appeared in "They Do It with Mirrors," a two-hour episode of the murder-mystery drama Marple in 2009, as Ruth Van Rydock, a friend of detective Miss Jane Marple.

On 24 January 2010, it was announced that Collins was joining the German soap opera Verbotene Liebe (Forbidden Love) for a short run. She played an aristocratic British woman, Lady Joan, who takes a young prince, portrayed by German actor Stephan Käfer, in tow. Collins started shooting on 22 February 2010 and appeared on-screen in April 2010.[38] in 2010 she also served as a judge in Miss Ukraine Universe[1].

She made her pantomime debut in Dick Whittington as Queen Rat at the Birmingham Hippodrome during the 2010 Christmas season, starring alongside Nigel Havers, Keith Harris, and Julian Clary.[39] In May 2013, Collins announced on her Twitter profile that she would be joining the cast of the British sitcom Benidorm in a guest role. She lent her voice to the animated feature film Saving Santa (2013) and starred in the fantasy Molly Moon and the Incredible Book of Hypnotism, which was slated for release in 2015.

In August 2014, People reported that Collins would guest-star on the forthcoming E! drama series The Royals as the Grand Duchess of Oxford, the mother of fictional British Queen Helena (Elizabeth Hurley).[40]

In June 2015, Collins backed the children's fairytales app GivingTales in aid of UNICEF, together with others such as Roger Moore, Ewan McGregor, Stephen Fry, Joanna Lumley, and Michael Caine.[41]

In April 2018, Ryan Murphy announced that Collins has joined the cast of American Horror Story for its upcoming eighth season, which Collins later confirmed herself in an Instagram post. She first portrays a character named Evie Gallant, the glamorous and rich grandmother of Evan Peters' character, and later portrays witch actress Bubbles McGee. In March 2019 she guest-starred in an episode of the new Hawaii Five-O tv-series.[42] A month earlier she brought her stage show Unscripted to London. In the show Collins talks about her life and career and interacts with the audience.[43]

Family and personal life
Collins has been married five times,[44] first to Northern Irish actor Maxwell Reed, whom she married on 24 May 1952 after he allegedly raped her,[45] and divorced in 1956.[2] She had an affair with actor Harry Belafonte during the filming of Island in the Sun.[46] In 1959, Collins met 22-year-old actor Warren Beatty and became engaged in the early-1960s, but his infidelity led to their split.[46] Collins revealed in her 1978 autobiography that she got pregnant by Beatty but had an abortion.[47] She then married actor and singer-songwriter Anthony Newley in 1963 and American businessman and manager Ron Kass in 1972; she has two children, Tara and Alexander, with Newley and her third, Katyana, with Kass. Collins' marriage to Kass ended in divorce in 1983. On 3 November 1985, Collins married Swedish singer Peter Holm[2] in a ceremony in Las Vegas. They were divorced on 25 August 1987. She married her fifth husband Percy Gibson (born 1965) on 17 February 2002[2] at Claridge's Hotel in London.

As of 2013, Collins has three grandchildren.

Collins maintains residences in London, Los Angeles, New York City, and France,[49] describing her life in 2010 as being "that of a gypsy".

Collins' younger sister was Jackie Collins, a pioneer of romantic novels, who died in September 2015. Collins was told only two weeks before her sister's death about the breast cancer she had battled for over six years.

Political views
In 2004, Collins became a patron of the United Kingdom Independence Party. She said: "I do feel that my country – I am English – is losing a lot of what I grew up with. I feel we are eroding ourselves to Brussels."[51] In early 2005, Collins commented that she had rejoined the Conservative Party, stating, "The Labour Party doesn't care about the British people."[citation needed]

Collins contributes to The Spectator as a guest diarist, something she has done since the late 1990s. Collins also writes occasionally for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Lady in the United Kingdom, and Harper's Bazaarin the United States. In September 2008, Collins signed on to The Sunday Telegraph as a weekly opinions columnist through the final quarter of the year before leaving to pursue other projects. She was a supporter of the late Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, and was invited to attend Thatcher's funeral on 17 April 2013.[52] Collins is also a staunch monarchist, stating "I'm a big monarchist and I love the Queen."[53] Collins favours British withdrawal from the European Union.

Charitable work
Collins has publicly supported several charities for several decades. In 1982, Collins spoke before the U.S. Congress about increasing funding for neurological research. In 1983, she was named a patron of the International Foundation for Children with Learning Disabilities, earning the foundation's highest honour in 1988 for her continuing support. Additionally, 1988 also had the opening of the Joan Collins Wing of the Children's Hospital of Michigan in Detroit. In 1990, she was made an honorary founding member of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.

In 1994, Collins was awarded the lifetime achievement award from the Association of Breast Cancer Studies in Great Britain for her contribution to breast cancer awareness in the UK. Collins is patron of Fight for Sight; in 2003, she became a patron of the Shooting Star Chase Children's Hospice in Great Britain, while continuing to support several foster children in India, something she has done for the past 25 years. Collins serves her former school, the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, as the Honorary President of the RADA Associates.[55]

Books
Collins has established herself as a successful author. In addition to her bestselling novels, including Prime Time and Love & Desire & Hate, she has also written six lifestyle books, including The Joan Collins Beauty Book, as well as memoirs, including Past Imperfect. To date, she has sold over 50 million copies of her books, which have been translated into 30 languages.[56]

In the 1990s, Collins was embroiled in a high-profile legal battle with the publisher Random House, which was televised daily on Court TV. Collins had signed a two-book deal with the company for $4 million and they had given her a $1.2 million advance. In September 1991, Collins delivered a 690-page manuscript of a novel entitled The Ruling Passion to Random House. However, the publishing firm deemed the manuscript to be of such poor quality that they demanded the return of the $1.2 million advance they had paid to Collins, claiming she had failed to deliver completed books as per her contract. Collins countersued, arguing that her contract required her only to submit a "complete manuscript" not an "acceptable" one. Since she had turned in two novels to the publishing company, A Ruling Passion in 1991 and a second novel, Hell Hath No Fury, in 1992, as her contract stipulated, she felt Random House owed her the rest of the $4 million. She contended that Random House had not provided the editorial assistance she had expected.[57]

Her Random House contract, negotiated by agent Irving Lazar, required that she be paid even if her completed manuscripts were not published. When the case was finally heard in February 1996, a court determined that Collins could keep the advance given to her plus a further $1 million for the first completed manuscript, but that the publisher did not have to pay for the second manuscript, since it was essentially a reworking of the first.[58] Neither of the books was published. Guinness World Records cites Collins as holding the record for retaining the world's largest unreturned payment for an unpublished manuscript.[59]
 * Memoir
 * Past Imperfect: An Autobiography (1978)
 * Katy: A Fight for Life, A Memoir (1982)
 * Second Act: An Autobiography (1996)
 * Passion For Life: An Autobiography (2013)[60]
 * Nonfiction
 * The Joan Collins Beauty Book (1980)
 * Portraits of a Star (1987)
 * My Secrets (1994)
 * Health, Youth and Happiness: My Secrets (1995)
 * My Friends' Secrets (1999)
 * Joan's Way: Looking Good, Feeling Great (2002)
 * The Art of Living Well: Looking Good, Feeling Great (2007)
 * The World According to Joan (2011)
 * Fiction
 * Prime Time, a novel (1988)
 * Love and Desire and Hate, a novel (1990)
 * Too Damn Famous, a novel (1995) retitled Infamous for US (1996)
 * Star Quality, a novel (2002)
 * Misfortune's Daughters, a novel (2005)
 * The St. Tropez Lonely Hearts Club, a novel (2015)
 * By other authors
 * Joan Collins by John Kercher, Gallery Books (1984)
 * Joan Collins, Superstar: A Biography by Robert Levine, Dell Publishing (1985)
 * A Touch of Collins by Joe Collins, Columbus Books (1986)
 * Inside Joan Collins: A Biography by Jay David, Carroll & Graf Publishers, Inc. (1988)
 * Hollywood Sisters: Jackie and Joan Collins by Susan Crimp and Patricia Burstein, St. Martin's Press (1989)
 * Joan Collins: The Biography of an Icon by Graham Lord, Orion (2007)

TV advertisements
In the early 1950s, Collins appeared as a teenager in a Gas Board commercial.

In the early 1970s, she appeared in television and magazine advertisements for British Airways, in which she was referred to as their "Most Frequent Flyer of First Class", a title she has maintained, having promoted the airline for more than three decades.

In 1978, she appeared alongside Leonard Rossiter in a series of Cinzano TV commercials in which the drink was spilled down her dress. It was named as one of the Top 100 British Adverts in a Channel 4 poll.[when?]

In the mid-1980s, Collins appeared in print advertisements for Canada DryGinger Ale and Sanyo and was the face of Revlon's Scoundrel perfume.[citation needed]

In 1992, she appeared in internationally broadcast television commercials for Marca Bravaria beer, while acting as the face of the perfume Spectacular.[citation needed]

Since 2000, she has appeared in TV adverts for UK retailer Marks & Spencer, Olympus cameras, and Old Navy.

In 2007, Collins fronted two high-profile advertising campaigns. The first was as the face of skincare company Cellex-C's Ageless 15 Skin Serum; the second was as the face of the Royal Mail's Christmas campaign.

In 2010, Collins was named the face of Alexis Bittar Jewelry for Spring Fashion Week.[61]

In 2012, she appeared in an advertisement for Snickers chocolate bars, alongside Stephanie Beacham. However, the ad was later re-edited and Beacham's appearance cut.[62]