Joan Collins (her full name is Dame Joan Henrietta Collins) is an English actress, author and columnist. With a career spanning nearly 8 decades, Collins is the recipient of several accolades, including a Golden Globe Award, a People’s Choice Award, two Soap Opera Digest Awards and a Primetime Emmy Award nomination.

Joan Collins, an illustrious figure in British cinema, is best known for her portrayal of the cunning and vengeful Alexis Carrington Colby in the soap opera “Dynasty,” which aired from 1981 to 1989.

Joan Collins’ Reflections on Family Dynamics

The actress, born on May 23, 1933, in Paddington, London, is the daughter of Elsa Collins, a dance teacher, and Joseph William Collins, a talent agent whose clients included Shirley Bassey, Roger Moore, and The Beatles.

Joan Collins, who deeply loved her Anglican Briton mother, realized that she did not want to live the same life her mom lived. “Mummy was the 1950s housewife, very sweet and very docile,” she explained.

The actress had previously said that her mom, who died at the age of 52, died very young because she never spoke back to her husband.

Joan expressed that her father was always candid, and she regarded him as a role model more than her mother. Although she loved her mother deeply, she saw her as weak and disliked her choice of clothing.

Joan, who took great care in her appearance, was voted the most beautiful girl in England by a photographers’ association when she was 18. The newspapers asked her dad what he thought about her daughter’s position, he replied, “I’m amazed. She’s a nice-enough-looking girl. Nothing special.”

At this point, Joan had departed from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), developed a passion for French existentialism, admired the singer Juliette Gréco, and dreamed of becoming a celebrated stage actress.

Joan Collins’ Encounter with Body Image in Hollywood

The focus on her appearance was even more as her film career progressed. Joan disclosed that in Hollywood, she faced daily verbal abuse.

She recounted how the makeup department gave her cruel nicknames, such as “Moonface” due to her baby fat and “Scrawny Legs” because of her thin legs. She remembered the department as a large group of women who were particularly harsh and unkind to her.

In 1955, when Joan was 22, she was cast in the biopic about Evelyn Nesbit “The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing.” Evelyn was considered the most beautiful girl in New York and Joan was to play her.

So, one day, Joan who was still in the Juliette Gréco character and thus had no makeup and was in jeans with scruffy hair, ran into her director Richard Fleischer. Richard told her, “Oh my God, I cannot look at you – you are so ugly. You cannot go around like that – put some makeup on, get your hair done, get a proper dress.”

Joan Collins’ Eventful Marriages and Relationships

Just like her career, Joan’s personal life also had its ups and downs. When she was 17, still a virgin, the actress went on a date with actor Maxwell Reed, aged 31. She said, while they were in the apartment, Maxwell spiked her rum and coke and raped her.

“I was 17, but I was the equivalent mentally of 12. We did not have sex education,” she noted. Shockingly, Maxwell became the actress’s first husband. When asked why she chose to marry her rapist, she answered, “Because I come from a generation where if you’re going to have sex, you get married.”

However, when Joan learned that Maxwell wanted to give her to older men for $12,710 a night as long as he could watch, she stood up for herself. After four years of marriage, the two divorced.

In her 20s, Joan lived with several men, including Sydney Chaplin and Arthur Loew Jr. She also had an affair with a married man who was eight years her senior. As much as the man was handsome, witty, and fascinating, Joan said the affair was utter hell and she never engaged in one again.

Hollywood men, including directors, also went after Joan. In her autobiography, “Behind the Shoulder Pads,” the actress revealed that she was offered the role of Cleopatra in Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s film on the condition that she got along well with Buddy Adler, the head of Fox, and the chairman of the board.

Joan, who was disgusted by how directors and producers, who were old men, took advantage of young actresses said no as she never wanted to be a part of that. The Cleopatra role was given to Elizabeth Taylor.