‘I’m not everybody’s cup of tea’

Press, 13 April 1989, Page 9

‘I’m not everybody’s cup of tea’

JOHN SELBY

meets television’s superstar.

The Knightsbridge restaurant could not be more discreet. The diners could not be more absorbed in their decorous conversations. The protective sunglasses could not be more securely in place on the tip-tilted nose of the newest arrival. Yet when Miss Joan Collins is ushered to her table — the statutory 26 minutes late — there is not a pair of eyes in the establishment that does not swivel in her direction. Life can be tough when you're one of the most famous women in the world. In her creation of Alexis Carrington Colby in “Dynasty” and of the Russian singer Katrina Petrovina, in her own co-pro-duction of “Monte Carlo,” the redoubtable Miss Collins would seem to be having her cake and eating it.

So does she find this extreme good fortune difficult to live with? Does she hell!

“Life, to me, is like a soap opera,” she announces. “It’s a great big bowl of candy. A game of Monopoly. Not that it’s always been good to me,” she checks herself, “but, then it’s not always good to many people.” She takes a sip from her glass of champagne. “I always had four things I wanted to do when I was a child, and I’m doing all of them. I wanted to be an actress, obviously. Then I wanted to be a fashion designer, then a writer, and my final fascination was with furnishing my doll’s house. ‘Not only did I become an actress, but I’ve designed my own range of lingerie, I’ve just written my first book (‘Prime Time,’ based, not too surprisingly, on an English actress in an American soap), and now I’m renting a flat in London and furnishing it.”

There is no false modesty here. Joan Collins is that rare creature — a strong, successful, strikingly good-looking Englishwoman motivated by American values. Do women like her? “Yes — my friends do.” And women generally? "I think to some women I’m somebody they admire, somebody they’d like to emulate. But, then, I’m equally sure that there are some who adsoutely loathe me. I’m not everybody’s cup of tea.” Tough she may be, but

not, presumably, totally impervious to criticism. “Yes,” she acknowledges, “sometimes it does get to me. Basically, you see, I think I’m quite a nice person, so the bitch image can be presented in a way that isn’t always fair.” But she is not one to bottle up her emotions. “If I’m upset, I’m upset,” she confesses. “If I’m happy, I’m happy. If I’m sad, I’m sad. For instance, some of the criticisms of ‘Monte Carlo’ have been of my singing, and I have to say that they were right. “It was a bone of contention between Peter (Holm, her then husband and co-producer) and me. I wanted to take some training for the role and he kept on insisting that I didn’t need it. He won She pauses long enough to extinguish her cigar-

ette. “And I was right.” That apart, she is pleased with the result. “I think it’s a very glossy, entertaining, star-studded four hours,” she says. “I had a whole bunch of people over to my house to watch it, including George Hamilton and Elizabeth Taylor — they were going together at the time — and everybody was glued to it.” Privately, filming was not without its traumas. “Ron (Kass, Joan’s third husband) was dying at the time and I knew it,” she says, “I was also having problems with Peter. So it wasn’t the easiest of times. “We were working tremendously long hours — never less than a 15-hour day. And I would never change my costume less than four times in any of those days.”

How does she always seem mint fresh?

“Well, if I wasn’t Joan Collins, actress, I would still care a lot about how I looked because that was the way I was brought up. And, to this day, I do not intend to be a slob.” What about the added responsibility of stepping off that plane each time looking perfect? “It’s not really a pressure,” she says. Does the apparently unsinkable Miss Collins lose sleep over anything? There must have been times, surely, when she felt the need to turn to professional help — like marriage guidance? ""Oh yes,” she says, breezily, “I’ve attended marriage counselling. It was while I was with Ron in America, when we were coming to the end of our marriage. When

you’ve got one party who wants to end a marriage and one who doesn’t, when you’ve got a child you both love dearly — well, it isn’t easy.”

So who wanted out? “Me. Ron was a wonderful man, but he had some problems and he’s dead now because of those problems ...” Her voice trails away. “Look, it’s very difficult for me to say this because of Katie. I would hate to say anything against her father.” She pauses again. “I happen to have been given some incredible inner strength that carries me through all kinds of things. I don’t know why I have it, but I do. My sister (novelist Jackie) has it, too.”

Did they inherit this from their father? “I don’t know,” she says, “because he was such a distant, aloof figure. I never really felt he cared about me.” Did he have a favourite child? “Oh, yes, the boy. Bill, my brother.” She toys with her glass and then continues, unprompted. “In analysing the success of Jackie and me, a lot of it stems in some strange way from the daddy who never really thought much of either of us girls. “Of course, he loved us in his way, but he was the typical undemonstrative English father.” Did she want to please him? “Yes, I did. I didn’t do anything to please Mummy; she was just pleased with me anyway. She was so wonderful and loving and sweet and kind. She was a saint. I loved her absolutely. But I think we were just a bunch of scruffy kids as far as my father was concerned.” Two of those kids went on to achieve considerable acclaim. Didn’t that impress him? "Well, he never said so to my face, although he did to other people. Interesting, isn’t it?” What of Joan Collins, mother? She brightens visibly. “I think that being a mother is the greatest responsibility a woman can take on,” she says. “It’s all-encompassing and never-ending.” She has three children, a girl and a boy, Tara and Sacha, both in their early 20s, from her marriage to the actor Anthony Newley; she also has a daugher, Katie, 16, from

her marriage to Ron Kass. (The reason, it turns out, that she was late for lunch is because she was discussing Katie’s future with her headmistress.) “They all hate being talked about, which I respect, and that’s why I try to protect them,” says Joan. “The children have a right to their private lives. The fact that they’ve got me as a mother doesn’t mean they have to put up with all the attendant stuff that goes with it.” It cuts both ways. Joan Collins, mother, nonetheless feels pretty strongly about Joan Collins, career woman. It is different for men.

“Take Prince Charles,” she says. “When Prince Harry had his hernia operation recently, Diana was up all night. Prince Charles called in the next day. But nobody said, ‘lsn’t he a terrible father?’ If it had been the other way round, it would have been headlines. I can see them now: Di Sleeps Through Harry’s Op.”

In spite of that, attitudes are beginning to change, she thinks. “Women are beginning to assert themselves.”

“Mrs Thatcher is my idol” she say. “I just worship her. She’s strong, she’s strict, she says it like it is, she doesn’t pussyfoot around, she calls a spade a spade, she expects people to work. She doesn’t put up with the lackadaisical. She really believes that you get out of life what you put into it.

Joan’s other heroines? “The Queen. I think she has probably the most difficult job in the country, which she carries off brilliantly. And I admire Diana, too.” All three, like Miss Collins herself, are used to life in the goldfish bowl, And, as she says, her children are not.

Do they still make comments about their mother’s life, professional or private? “Of course,” she says. “They feel they have a right to make a comment, and I now ask their opinion.” Do they ever say anything about the men in her life? “Yes,” she says,

“... and I don’t have the smallest intention of telling you what.”

And the indomitable Joan Collins smiles her dazzling smile. — Copyright DUO