{"id":10811,"date":"2023-05-23T10:14:57","date_gmt":"2023-05-23T10:14:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/?p=10811"},"modified":"2023-06-02T16:57:49","modified_gmt":"2023-06-02T16:57:49","slug":"when-joan-collins-kicked-me-off-the-set-of-dynasty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/?p=10811","title":{"rendered":"When Joan Collins kicked me off the set of \u2018Dynasty\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

By Ray Bennett<\/p>\n

LONDON \u2013 Joan Collins was pointing at me. I was on the set of the hit primetime soap opera \u2019Dynasty\u2019. It\u2019s important to make yourself as invisible as possible on a busy TV soundstage so I stood quietly at the rear. TV shows proceed at a rapid pace and performers often need to be prompted by a floor manager. I wasn\u2019t surprised to see Collins blow her lines.<\/p>\n

Finally, she cried out. \u2018There\u2019s someone in my eye line. It\u2019s distracting. Someone in a white shirt.\u2019 Her outstretched right hand was aimed directly my way. I had been standing quite still and my shirt was a soft off-white denim but all eyes pinned me down. An assistant director gestured with his thumb: Out!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Joan Collins kicked me off the set of \u2018Dynasty\u2019.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Earlier that day in 1982, I\u2019d enjoyed lunch with the actress, who turns 90 today, for a cover story in Canadian TVGuide. Collins entered the busy 20th Century Fox commissary looking every inch a movie star. Striding serenely past Alan Alda and other cast members of \u2018M*A*S*H\u2019, she joined me at our reserved balcony table.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Following mutual greetings, she said, \u2018So, tell me something. The other day I was driving along when I saw some youngsters waving to me. I waved back, a sort of Queen Mum wave, and when we came to a light, I rolled the window down. They came over and they were yelling, \u201cAlexis, we hate you! We hate you!\u201d I found this a bit staggering. Does it mean people really think I\u2019m Alexis Carrington?\u2019\u00a0 (pictured above with Linda Evans as Krystal Carrington)<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I suggested that they might be forgiven if they did, so convincing was she as television\u2019s supreme female viper of the day. She smiled at the compliment and after we placed our orders, she began to relate some well-rehearsed stories about her career. I interrupted her. \u2018Joan,\u2019 I said, \u2018I\u2019ve read your book.\u2019<\/p>\n

Starting out in her career in Hollywood, Collins was \u2018Britain\u2019s bad girl\u2019 dubbed \u2018the British Open\u2019 by Bing Crosby, her golf-loving co-star in \u2018The Road to Hong Kong\u2019. She made headlines with her troubled marriages to actors Maxwell Reed and Anthony Newley and affairs with several actors including Sydney Chaplin, Warren Beatty and Ryan O\u2019Neal. She had written in detail about her escapades in a tell-all autobiography titled \u2018Past Imperfect\u2019 that was published in England in 1978. Too much detail, she later decided, and the book was not published in America.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Collins stopped talking and smiled sweetly. She tapped fingers on my wrist and said, \u2018Ah, then let\u2019s start again.\u2019\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Her autobiography, she confessed, had caused her a lot of grief. \u2018I don\u2019t like the book,\u2019 she said. \u2018I put a lot things in it that I regret. I don\u2019t want to defend it. My defence is that I\u2019ve not allowed it to be published here and I don\u2019t want to talk about it. I spent a year defending it in England and I\u2019ve had it. We all make mistakes.\u2019\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Born in London, one of two daughters of theatrical agent Joe Collins (sister Jackie wrote best-selling novels such as \u2018The Stud\u2019, \u2018The Bitch\u2019 and \u2018Chances\u2019), Collins got into films in England at 16 after one year at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. After a string of movies including \u2018Cosh Boy\u2019 and \u2018Turn the Key Slowly\u2019, playing juvenile delinquents, she had the lead in a the comedy \u2018Our Girl Friday\u2019 (above) with Kenneth More and she was an Egyptian princess in Howard Hawks\u2019s epic \u2018Land of the Pharoahs\u2019.(pictured below left).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Collins moved to Hollywood under contract to 20th Century Fox and went on to a long list of screen credits few of which she thought were worthwhile. \u2018I seem to have been in an enormous number of films that are memorable only for being totally unmemorable,\u2019 she said. \u2018I don\u2019t think anybody has made as many forgotten films as I have. I know that \u201cLand of the Pharoahs\u201d has become something of a cult film and plays constantly on television but that\u2019s because they don\u2019t have to pay residuals.\u2019<\/p>\n

She liked only three of her fifty-odd movies: \u2018The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing\u2019 with Ray Milland and Farley Granger, \u2018Rally \u2018Round the Flag Boys\u2019 with Paul Newman (pictured below) and Joanne Woodward, and \u2018The Stud\u2019 based on her sister’s novel. (poster below)<\/p>\n

\u2019I can truthfully say that there is none other than those three that I think have any particlarly merit,\u2019 she said. \u2018Please don\u2019t tell me that \u201cThe Wayward Bus\u201d or \u201cSeven Thieves\u201d or \u201cTales From the Crypt\u201d are works of art because they are not.\u2019<\/p>\n

She made no apologies for appearing in them. \u2018If you are not one of the top actors and you want to make a living, you take mostly what\u2019s offered,\u2019 she said. \u2018If you want to starve and do art, then you live in a garret and you wait for the right part to come along. Sometimes it will and sometimes it won\u2019t. I\u2019m pragmatic and I don\u2019t want to starve. I also like working and I always manage to enjoy what I\u2019m doing. You have to have enthusiasm for the thing at the time because you couldn\u2019t make it if you thought it was a total piece of crap.\u2019\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u2018Dynasty\u2019 came out of the blue, she said, when producer Aaron Spelling decided the show needed a colourful character like J.R. Ewing in \u2018Dallas\u2019 to spice up things. \u2018A character this rich, this juicy \u2013 I would have been a nut to turn it down,\u2019 she said. \u2018Of all the parts on television, if I were given a choice, if they said you can play anything that you see, I would choose her.\u2019\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

She had no intention of ever retiring and, of course, she hasn\u2019t with a great many TV credits since I spoke to her. \u2018I\u2019d like to go on for another 30 years,\u2019 she said. \u2018Not if I have to be wheeled on in a wheelchair but I\u2019d like to be a vigorous old character actress. I consider myself very blessed to be in the arena, as it were. I can never understand why so many actors are ungrateful.\u2019\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The interview, I thought, had gone very well and then she had me booted off her set. Some twenty years later, I was invited to a function following a game at the Oxford Town Football stadium where Joan Collins was to be a guest of honour. I had no reason to go except to give my daughter Shannon the chance to see her first pro soccer game. At the reception, a publicist urged me to speak to Collins so with reluctance I went over and introduced myself.<\/p>\n

\u2018What brings you here?\u2019 I asked. Collins reacted in horror and turned to a club executive complaining, \u2018I didn\u2019t know there would be press here!\u2019 He said, \u2018I don\u2019t know what he\u2019s doing here\u2019 and hurried her away. Ah, that’s my Joan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Ray Bennett LONDON \u2013 Joan Collins was pointing at me. I was on the set of the hit primetime soap opera \u2019Dynasty\u2019. It\u2019s important to make yourself as invisible as possible on a busy TV soundstage so I stood … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6,1263,2257,15],"tags":[5277,5350,702,957,1232],"class_list":["post-10811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-film","category-interviews","category-memory-lane","category-recalling","category-television","tag-dynasty","tag-past-imperfect","tag-joan-collins","tag-paul-newman","tag-warren-beatty"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10811"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10811\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10844,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10811\/revisions\/10844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}