Page 32 Daily Mail, Friday, August 30, 2019
BY DAME JOAN COLLINS
London, where her first novel, The
World Is Full Of Married Men,
became an instant bestseller and
her shining career took off.
Tony and I separated in 1970. I
couldn’t have lived with him any
more after seeing the film Can
Heironymus Merkin Ever Forget
Mercy Humppe And Find True
Happiness? at a screening.
It bleakly told the slightly
dramatised story of his life in
which he had affairs with every
female who crossed his path. It
was terribly upsetting and I left
the room in tears.
I had too much pride to swallow
this. In a tiny revenge, I had a fling
with a TV actor, but it was a Pyrrhic
victory. I was desperately sad for
Tara and Sacha, but they didn’t
have much of a father figure, either,
as Tony was always working.
Jackie was delighted, however,
that I was now moving back to
London. She spent weeks helping
me find the right house and was
glowing with the ongoing success
she had with her novels, plus she
and Oscar were expecting their
first baby together.
Back in the UK, my career
suddenly had a renaissance. ‘I’m
not forgotten after all,’ I said to
Jackie as we sat on the spacious
terrace of her flat, watching our
four children play games together.
‘You never were,’ she smiled.
Oscar owned Tramp, the trendy
disco nightclub in Jermyn Street.
Every night, it was packed with
the movers and shakers of the
early Seventies. Michael Caine, Rod
Stewart, Mick Jagger, gorgeous
models and all the Beatles were
regulars, and so were we: Oscar,
Jackie, our brother Bill and me.
We hit the floor every night.
Jackie was brilliant at staying up
every night until 1am or 2am,
getting the kids up for breakfast
and school, then writing all day.
At teatime, she would often pick
up my kids, too, as I was now the
sole breadwinner and working hard
on TV sets and movies, which kept
me away from home 12 to 16 hours
a day. Suddenly, I became knownas ‘Queen of the horror flicks’, as I
starred in several in a row with
the likes of Christopher Lee, Peter
Cushing and Ralph Bates.
During this time, I also met the
new man in my life, American
producer Ron Kass, who was
president of the Beatles’ company
Apple Records. I remember going
up to the roof at Abbey Road for
their last concert, when they
played Hey Jude, but leaving
before I succumbed to a high from
all the marijuana being smoked.
When The Beatles broke up, Ron
went on to head Warner Brothers
Records UK. My career seemed to
be following an upwards swing, with
several more TV and movie roles.
My beautiful daughter, Katyana
Kass, known to us as Katy, was
born in London shortly after. With
three boys from Ron’s previous
marriage, we now had six under
the age of 12 between us, and webought a lovely summer house
in Marbella.
We would often spend Easter
and summer holidays together
with Jackie’s tribe in Marbella and
France, and it was a happy time in
my life, career and marriage.t
HEn Ron insisted we all
move back to the United
States, where he had
signed on as president
of Sagittarius, a movie company
established by businessman and
philanthropist Edgar Bronfman.
The two men were very close.
Ron had been Edgar’s rock
through the incredible ordeal of
having his eldest son kidnapped.
Edgar was Katy’s godfather and,
when he asked us to throw his
second son Edgar Jr’s 21st birth
day at our house in LA, we saidyes. I organised it, inviting all
the high and mighty of show
business and even advancing the
money for the party from my
personal account.
It was an immense success, with
the likes of Dionne Warwick, Kirk
Douglas, director Dick Donner,
Rod and Alana Stewart and
many others all at the height of
their power and fame.
But, on the day after the party,
as congratulations and flowers
arrived, Ron announced: ‘Edgar’s
fired me.’ I couldn’t believe it. After
years of friendship and business
partnership, after schlepping our
family across the Atlantic, his boss
had fired him.
I don’t think Ron ever fully
recovered from the trauma Edgar
caused him. Certainly, this became
a turning point in our uptonow
happy marriage. We started by
selling the house and downsizingJOAN and Jackie Collins were the
sisters who came from nowhere
to conquer Hollywood. Yesterday,
Joan recalled — in her own
sparkling words — their romantic
entanglements with glamorous
stars before they entered their
30s and marriage and children
beckoned. While Jackie created a
new career as a bestselling author,
Joan left acting to embrace life
as a wife and mother with actor
Anthony Newley. Today, she
reveals how, sadly, her happiness
was not to last...a
FTER a gypsy existence that
took me to England and
Switzerland and back to new
York, I finally put down roots
(which I desperately wanted
to do) in Beverly Hills.
Yet, at 32, with more than 17 years of acting
experience and practically nonstop work in
movies, TV and theatre, I had absolutely nothing
to show for it except a load of clothes and a car.
no home of my own, no furniture, paintings or
cash, and just a few pieces of jewellery, mostly
bought by my husband, Anthony newley. As I
explained yesterday, I had given up my career
when I had our children, first Tara, and then, 22
months later, Sacha.
But now the kids were starting nursery school
and kindergarten, Tony was beavering away all
day writing and getting ready to star in a movie,
and I started to miss acting.
Only an actor can know how much the ‘roar of
the greasepaint and the smell of the crowd’
means to them. Even though it’s the world’s
most overcrowded profession, it’s in our blood.
As I always did, over the years, I decided to
consult Jackie, who was, by now, happily married
to her second husband, the wonderful Oscar
Lerman. ‘Go for it,’ she insisted. ‘You’re still young,
you’ve got your whole life ahead of you. You must
do what your heart tells you.’
‘OK for you,’ I grumbled. ‘You’re writing and
getting published. I’ve no career and, it seems, a
marriage that’s going nowhere.’ While I’d thought
Tony would make the perfect husband and father,
the truth was turning out to be rather different.
‘Then why don’t you get an agent?’ she replied.
So I did. Since my previous agent, the formidable
Sue Mengers, had told me I was ‘too old to get
parts’, I switched to Tom Korman, who started to
find me guest starring roles in popular TV shows
such as Batman, Star Trek and Police Woman.
Jackie and Oscar had been married in our house,
with Tara and Tracy (mine and Jackie’s daughters)
as tiny bridesmaids, and then they returned to
How Jackie
wrote the
... and Dynasty saved me from the
dole queue — just two rollicking
tales in the final part of Joan
and Jackie Collins’ life story being
recreated by the makers of The Crown
raciest
chapter
of my life
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