RE-COVERED! - Joan Collins, actress - Interview

Interview, Feb, 2000 by George Christy

F. Scott Fitzgerald may have said that there are no second acts in American lives, but we've found artists who surprise again and again. In the following pages, Interview catches up with six former cover subjects--and remembers one the world has lost

INTERVIEW, SEPTEMBER '84 ISSUE

Interview by George Christy

GEORGE CHRISTY: It's unusual that all of you at Dynasty, the cast and production staff, get along so well, isn't it?

JOAN COLLINS: No I've found that with all my many years in the business, actors and actresses and crews get along extremely well. I've only worked with three or four real pain-in-the-neck actors and actresses, which is pretty good, considering that I've done fifty-two movies and God knows how many television shows. I loathe conflict, and I loathe not getting along well with people, so I always try very hard to be on the best terms with the people I work with.

GC: What about all the things you're doing besides Dynasty?

JC: I've become a cottage industry. First of all, there is Dynasty, which is a full-time job in itself. I'm one of the only one of the members in the cast of Dynasty who has children who haven't really left the nest, so they are a responsibility. I want to spend time with them, and I never have enough time to spend.

GC: When do you find time to memorize your lines?

JC: The disgusting thing about me is that I don't. I learn them just before I do them. I know that the people I studied with at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts must think, "My God, this woman has no sense of her craft." But I have had to give up certain things in my life. One is shopping. Two is lunch with the girls. Three is cocktail parties, and four is studying my lines.

INTERVIEW, FEBRUARY 2000 ISSUE

Interview by Michael Musto

No one personifies glamorous bitchery more than Joan Collins--at least when she's acting. Her role as the vitriolic windbag Alexis Carrington on Dynasty remains the sine qua non of TV diva-dom. No one could tell someone off more entertainingly than Collins, who--with eyes flaring and mouth quivering--epitomized '80s greed and sparkle in a way women and drag queens imitate to this day.

Fortunately, there has been life after Dynasty. Since that show, and her Interview cover in September 1984, Collins hasn't stopped emoting for the cameras, even if her efforts haven't always been as widely publicized as before. She's done lightly self-mocking film and TV roles, a Broadway production of Noel Coward's Private Lives, written some scandalous novels, and even endorsed a line of celebrity eyewear. Only a restaurant chain or bowling-ball collection seems to have eluded her marketing mayhem. This year, she'll be visible in everything from The Clandestine Marriage to The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas, in which she plays Wilma's mother and will prove once and for all that she's no dinosaur. For literary types, Collins has a new book, due out in March, called My Friends' Secrets, in which she interviews Shirley MacLaine, Ivana Trump, and other forty-plus women about what makes them tick.

Above all, the whatever-plus Collins retains her sharp humor and vivid sense of self. She's a celebrity in the old style--because in Joan's book, a star must look good, radiate charisma, and never bore. And we love Joan's book!

MICHAEL MUSTO: Catch us up a bit about what you've been doing since you appeared on the cover of Interview in 1984.

JOAN COLLINS: I received an OBE from the Queen, which probably doesn't mean anything in America but is quite nice in England--the Order of the British Empire for services to drama. I just finished a movie with Nigel Hawthorne, which I co-produced; it's called The Clandestine Marriage and is an eighteenth-century romp.

MM: What part do you play in that?

JC: I play a very overbearing and vulgar, nouveau-riche woman who would like to be an aristocrat. I wear a wonderful pair of snaggy, yellow teeth along with a big gray wig.

MM: You were very cartoony in Dynasty.

JC: Yes, I love playing cartoony characters. Been known for that.

MM: How do you maintain such a great self-mocking kind of tone?

JC: I think it has something to do with being British. We don't take ourselves as seriously as some other countries do. I think a lot of people take themselves far too seriously; I find that a very tedious attitude.

MM: Are you philosophical about your career, now that you're very hot again?

JC: I wouldn't say that. A career is like a seesaw. The fact that I have been in the business for more than forty years is a miracle because most actresses don't survive that long--not many actors do, either. So, yes, I am very philosophical. I consider myself very lucky. I love working. I will go on working as long as I can.

MM: Do we really get wiser as time goes on or just more cautious?

JC: How old are you?

MM: I'm in my forties.

JC: Oh. You sound younger.

MM: Thank you. I look older. [laughs]

JC: Do you? [laughs]

MM: No, I'm kidding. [laughs) I like to say between forty and death.

JC: Between forty and death, right. Absolutely.

MM: Do you have romance in your life now?