Joan Collins Reflects On Her Life, New Documentary, And Being An Early Trailblazer For Fair Pay In Hollywood

For 7 many years now, Dame Joan Collins has graced our screens, significant and modest, with her commanding existence of self esteem, elegance, and wit. Arguably most effective known for bringing to existence the iconic pop culture character of Alexis Carrington on the hit 1980s tv sequence Dynasty, Collins is completely ready to notify her daily life story in the variety of a new documentary on BritBox called This Is Joan Collins. But significantly like she has been in the course of her entire Hollywood career, on and off digicam, Collins continues to get matters into her individual palms.

“Well, I have been asked to do them numerous times in excess of the decades and the structure was always the same,” Collins, 88, tells me of the many documentary pitches she has obtained about the several years. “Yes, we will get a bunch of your buddies in, Joan, and they’ll all chat about you and say how wonderful you are – blah, blah, blah! And I stated I never want to do that, and so I just waited until eventually [producer] Karen [Steyn] came to me and claimed ‘Well, we have this idea that you would narrate the [documentary] on your own and we would choose most of the text from your autobiographies that you’ve written.’ Which is what we did.”

In the documentary, Collins opens up in wonderful depth about her early performing vocation as the golden age of Hollywood began to dwindle. She also speaks candidly about the ups-and-downs of her 5 marriages and her devotion as a mom during much of that turmoil. Collins goes on to tell me that she did not talk about the passing of her more youthful sister, well-liked novelist Jackie Collins, simply because she says the decline was much too unhappy for her. What she does choose 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 or truck and experienced to bear a extensive journey towards restoration.

When I questioned Collins if she lives with any regrets in her life today, she says, “Well, of class I reside with regrets. I necessarily mean, I regret that my daughter was knocked down by a vehicle. I regret some my marriages – I did that too quite a few situations. I was silly. Perfectly, I don’t regret marrying Tony [Newley] because I have two wonderful small children [Tara and Alexander] and marrying Ron [Kass], I experienced 1 wonderful 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 spouse for existence forever.

Whilst Collins was dealing with divorce off-display screen, she definitely found her footing on-display screen when she joined the relatively effective at the time new Dynasty collection at the commence of season two in 1981, enjoying the ex-wife of major character Blake Carrington, performed by actor John Forsythe.

With Collins now onboard as Alexis Carrington for the duration of a time when DVR playback and movie streaming did not still exist, Dynasty reached the variety 1 place on television in the course of its 1984-85 period with a Nielsen rating of 25. and an spectacular ordinary of 21.2 million households tuning in each and every 7 days to see what form of drama Alexis would stir up following.

Collins claims of her beloved character, “The detail that I liked about Alexis was her wit. She was pretty witty, she was chopping, and she didn’t permit anyone get just about anything above on her.”

A real-daily life minute when Collins tapped into her interior-Alexis was when she became informed throughout the peak of Dynasty’s level of popularity that her male co-star Forsythe was staying paid a appreciable quantity much more than her. In the course of a 2021 interview, Collins disclosed that she was creating $15,000 an episode when she joined Dynasty, although Forsythe was taking in all over $25,000 to $30,000 for each episode. During a time in Hollywood when male-to-feminine fork out contrasts were being frequently recognised about but not typically questioned, Collins created the daring alternative to talk up for what she considered that she had acquired.

“Well, all people instructed me that I shouldn’t do it,” Collins recalls. “‘John has been all around the small business a lot lengthier than you.’ I considered Nicely, so what? And of class, he often experienced to be entrance and middle of any ads. If you glance at any of the advertisements from that time, even if you glimpse at the DVDs that are out there, John Forsythe – Blake is usually in the center encompassing a bevy of ladies. And at some point I imagined, here I am on the address of every journal in The usa, in Europe, in Asia. John Forsythe isn’t on the include – why should not I get parity? And so, I went to [producer] Aaron [Spelling] and seemingly, I did not know this but he had it in his deal that he constantly had to be compensated far more than any of the other men and women. So despite the fact that they gave me a raise, they did not make it equivalent but I did not know that right up until just after the display shut, but it did not subject, you know? I necessarily mean, I’m not greedy. Effectively, not actually (laughs).”

Dynasty ran on television from 1981 until 1989. Collins remembers it becoming a fantastic display, at minimum for the initial three or four several years. She claims the producing fell apart shortly following that, because the ABC network wanted to eliminate the display, in accordance to Collins. When Collins ironically teamed up with Linda Evans, the actress who typically played Alexis’s feud-fueled scene partner on-display as Krystle Carrington, to converse up together to producers about why they have been being offered “these awful scripts and these silly storylines,” Collins says producers did not choose discover of their considerations.

These times, Collins still will get a considerable quantity of scripts sent her way and appears to be to have a considerably far more laid-back again approach towards contracts, understanding her price. When I asked Collins how she negotiates income on jobs currently, she claims, “Well, I just have my agent get on with it and just inform him what I want and what I assume I ought to have and he commonly will get it or does not.”

So, what is a day in the everyday living like in 2022 for Joan Collins? “Well almost everything is different, you see, due to the fact we are correct now in LA where we have an condominium but most of the time, we stay in London the place I also have an apartment and wherever my children and grandchildren live. So listed here, it’s really viewing buddies, it is looking at scripts. It’s heading swimming if a person can. I never seriously have any hobbies. Can you rely looking through as a passion? Images? I’m quite interested in fashion. I layout a large amount of my apparel. Final evening, we played poker with friends.” In legitimate Alexis Carrington fashion, when I asked Collins if she has a very good poker experience, she smiled at me with a regular stare expressing, “Well, I commonly gain.”

I wrapped up my dialogue with this lifetime-extended Hollywood legend and trailblazer in lots of respects, wanting to know what she would say to her previous self, the Joan Collins who had just arrived in Hollywood as a teenager, wanting to build a profitable daily life for herself. Devoid of hesitation, Collins confidently responses with, “You have a lot far more energy than you think you did.”