Tribute: Queen of pulp versus queen of soap
Are you having a midlife crisis? I ask Joan Collins. Through those mascara-laden lashes, her eyes pop out. She stares incredulously at me as though I have asked if she’s having an affair! “Of course not!” comes her sharp reply. A hushed silence descends over the grand ballroom at Claridges Hotel in London where a legion of British media are present, all eyes to feast on the sexy star; all ears to hear the details of her maiden novel Prime Time. Clicking her stiletto heels, prim in a Chanel outfit, complete with a cream silk blouse and a black silk neck bow, there she is, the woman who played Alexis Carrington in Dynasty, the beautiful, vicious and vengeful ex-wife of an American oil tycoon.
My question to her was 27 years ago. Ms Collins, then 55, was fiercely fighting to fend off the telltale signs of age creeping up.
Are you afraid of aging? I persist, looking straight into those exotic eyes, sparkling under the raven black bangs arranged carelessly across her forehead. She pauses momentarily, and then turning her full gaze on me, answers coolly: “I am not afraid of aging. However, I also don’t get up every morning and shout, ‘isn’t it great I am a day older!’ Age is something you have to accept, because if you don’t, you will be dead. I hope to live to be a very old lady and in my 80s to be carried to the stage in a wheelchair.” Ignoring the restlessness levitating around, I press on with the theme of aging. Joan Collins by now is turning philosophical. “To be afraid of aging is to be afraid of life because you age the time you’re born.”
Joan Collins was larger than life for us, the housewives of Karachi in the ’80s. She had bulldozed her way into our bedrooms via Dynasty, the television soap opera that ran for seven long years. Remember too, the raunchy movies brought to us courtesy the newly-minted wonder machine called the VCR that provided us hours of vicarious thrills at hen parties over coffee and samosa chaat. We’d huddle and watch Joan Collins give a steamy performance in movies like The Stud (1978) and its sequel The Bitch (1979).
The story of two sisters who were beautiful, glamorous and talented in their own ways
Only younger sister Jackie Collins could have authored such a tangy mix of sex fest in her best-selling novels turned into movies by Hollywood starring elder sister Joan. They made for a rich compost of romance and lust, fuelling the fertile imagination, persuading one to indulge in stargazing, daring to go beyond the realm of reality, wondering if indeed one could live such an exciting existence. We were blameless — being young was to be beautiful, being beautiful was to dream … “I am fed up with having to overcome people’s preconceptions. They assume I am this horrible b---- Alexis,” Joan Collins’ crisply delivered words in an English accent drag me back from Karachi past to London present, “Every time I meet somebody, he has a huge block about me being a very bitchy person,” Joan Collins told the media at Claridges.
So, is Prime Time the result of sibling rivalry? It’s no secret that Joan and Jackie are not close. Joan, the queen of soap, coveted the literary skills of her younger sister Jackie, the queen of the pulp. Had Jackie read Joan’s novel? Her answer a blunt no. “I am not in competition with her … we don’t have much in common, we are not in touch daily,” says Joan fluttering her eyelashes.
Twenty-seven years later, Joan’s words ring true: some weeks ago, Jackie flew to London to meet Joan. This was to be the sisters last meeting. Jackie, 77 and Joan, 82 looked glamorous in their designer wear. It was at dinner that Jackie told Joan for the first time she was dying.
On Sept 19, Jackie died at her Los Angles mansion. She was battling breast cancer since 2009. It was her best-kept secret. The novelist discovered the malignant lump two years earlier but didn’t seek medical help. “I thought, ‘I’m not dealing with this’ because in my mind I decided it was benign,” she told the People magazine, days before her death. “I’ve had to deal with losing my mother (to breast cancer), my husband (to prostate cancer) and my fiancé (to lung cancer) and I did not want to put pressure on everybody in the family. So I happily, happily went day by day.” She was terrified of seeing the doctor given her family’s history. “I know we’re all told to [get checkups], but some of us are too stupid, and I was one of them,” she said. “That was my choice and maybe it was a foolish one, but it was my choice. Now I want to tell people it shouldn’t be their choice.”