Jackie Collins: The original Lady Boss
In spite of the vast success of her books, author Jackie Collins was frequently criticised for putting female sexuality at their heart. These days, she is increasingly regarded as a pioneering feminist. James Rampton on the extraordinary life of a woman whose writing was a celebration of sexual freedom
Jackie Collins got a terrible kicking on Kilroy. When the bestselling author, known for her books bursting with sex, scandal, shopping, sassiness and style, appeared as a guest on the current affairs talk show hosted by Robert Kilroy Silk in 1993, members of the audience took great delight in laying into her.
One revealed that she had read just one paragraph of a book by Collins, and declared: “I felt I was demeaning myself.” Another added: “The first chapter is disgusting,” while yet another claimed: “She is making millions of dollars through abuse.”
Collins was subjected to similar levels of opprobrium when she guested alongside fellow author Dame Barbara Cartland on Wogan in 1987. Cartland described Collins’s books as “evil” – say what you really think, Barbara. With barely disguised disdain, Cartland continued: “Have you ever thought about the effects on young children? Don’t you think it’s helped perverts?”
Displaying admirable coolness, Collins calmly ventured that there was room in the world for all types of fiction. With brilliant comic timing, she added: “I really don't think there is anything disgusting about naked people rolling around on beds.” A beat. “I thought that was what you were supposed to do.”
Her brand of feminism was about sexual freedom, and she wrote about female desire in a way that was brave, bold and ahead of its time
These examples are typical of the combination of sneers, snobbery and sexism that Collins faced for much of her career. Many (frequently male) critics derided the author for her apparent obsession with sex.
Collins’s 32 novels have sold more than 500 million copies around the world, been translated into 40 languages, and spawned eight films and TV series. Misogynistic reviewers, however, refused to accept that her global success had anything to do with her talent as an author. They contended that the only reason she was so popular was because sex sells.
However, people are now beginning to reassess Collins, who died from breast cancer in 2015 aged 77. They maintain that her books were in many ways revolutionary because they placed female sexuality at the heart of their storytelling. In a male-dominated world, the author called all the shots in her life and work. After losing three partners (one to suicide, two to cancer), she brought up three daughters on her own. She was the original Lady Boss.
This argument is made most convincingly in Lady Boss: The Jackie Collins Story, an absorbing new documentary about the author, which screens on BBC2 at 9pm on Friday 15 October. The director of the film, Laura Fairrie, suggests that her film is political:
“Jackie Collins has often been dismissed as the ‘queen of sleaze’. But this is to ignore the fact that she consistently wrote female characters who unapologetically demand the sex, careers and lives they want. Her brand of feminism was about sexual freedom, and she wrote about female desire in a way that was brave, bold and ahead of its time.”
It is true that Collins, who was born in London but spent many years in LA, is increasingly regarded as a pioneering feminist. Tracey Lerman, Collins’s daughter, remarks: “Some people might say, ‘Jackie Collins? A feminist? Yeah, right. You’re kidding!’ But my mother was completely for full social, economic and political equality for all women, and, although she didn’t put it like that, she was very much concerned about the oppression of women.
“She was a cultural feminist who really fought for women to be seen. She wanted women to be treated as equal to men, but on a very personal level, rather than a political level.”
Despite – or perhaps because of – her immense success, Collins still perpetually had to fight the prejudice of snooty critics. Her daughter Tiffany Lerman asserts: “God forbid that women should be writing about sex the way men are writing about sex! These men didn't get called out on it. So it was a real double standard that was very unfair.”
Suzanne Baboneau, managing director at Simon & Schuster and an editor at Collins for many years, says: “Jackie suffered from ‘tall poppy syndrome’. Because she was incredibly successful, there was a lot of envy directed at her.” But that never put her off. “She was fearless in her plotting and her storytelling. She delivered a book a year, and she really knew her readers.
“Her books sell because they have a huge readership who always come back for more, and you can’t quarrel with that. You can’t force people to buy a book. What’s interesting is that we’re very much a paperback-driven market, but people would still queue to get that new Jackie Collins hardback. They are addicted, even slightly obsessed, and that’s just great.”
Collins, who wrote such bestsellers as The Stud, The Bitch, Chances, Lucky, Hollywood Wives, and Lady Boss, became adept at deflecting the slings and arrows of outrageous reviewers. Tracy Lerman says: “She was very unapologetic about what she was doing. It didn’t matter how many critics wanted to tear her down by saying, ‘Her books are absolutely unreadable.’
“She stood her ground with a great sense of humour, and I think that really unsettled her critics because they didn’t know how to place her. She felt a lot of those reviewers hadn’t even read her book. They’d scan it, or read the first few pages, and absolutely assumed they knew what it was about.”
Collins always disarmed those who made such assumptions about her. Tracy Lerman continues: “A lot of people think it’s easy to be successful as she was, if you’re not writing a seminal novel or examining feminism like Germaine Greer was.
“They imagine that these books are simple to write and that anyone could do it, but nobody could do it quite like my mother. She paved the way for so many female writers who came after her.
Exemplifying Collins’s philosophy that women could do anything, her books struck such an immediate chord because they empowered women
“What she was doing was giving women who perhaps wouldn’t otherwise have been exposed to the more intellectual ideas of feminism an opportunity to say, ‘Maybe there’s another way. Maybe you don’t have to settle for this life, maybe you don’t have to accept your husband coming back at 10pm saying he has been working, when clearly he hasn’t. Maybe it’s OK for you to be as successful as your husband, if not more successful.’”
Collins didn’t set out to be an author – as a young woman she had always dreamed of becoming an actor, like her big sister, Joan. But gradually it dawned on her that she had a rare gift for writing – which came hand in hand with a burning desire to be the master of her own destiny.
Tracy Lerman believes the turning point in her mother’s life came after the suicide of her first husband, Wallace, in 1965. That was the moment when Collins started to see that she could no longer rely on men, and that she had to carve out a living for herself.
According to Tracy Lerman, at that point her mother “created a world for herself of wonderful characters who wouldn’t let her down. If she could become successful in her own right, then nobody else could take that away from her.”
Collins spent a lot of time hanging out with Joan’s Hollywood jet-set friends, including James Dean, Judy Garland, Paul Newman, Michael Caine, Roger Moore and Sean Connery. She had an affair with Marlon Brando, and memorably said Marilyn Monroe possessed “a walk that could make a revolving door look stationary”.
All the while, Collins was taking copious mental notes to use in her writing. This research resulted in her first novel in 1968, The World is Full of Married Men. Cartland (her again) fumed that the book was “nasty, filthy and disgusting”, and accused Collins of “creating every pervert in Britain”. The book was also banned in South Africa and Australia. Of course, the furore enormously boosted sales of the novel, which became an instant bestseller. Readers especially loved the book’s closing line: “Justice for all females.”
The World is Full of Married Men broke the mould. Collins said that before her books appeared, all female authors were expected to write about was “ladies having nervous breakdowns in southern Wales”. But she changed all that.
Gustave Flaubert used to advise authors to “write what you know”, and Collins very much subscribed to that view, stating: “I love what I do. I fall in love with my characters. They become me, and I become them.”
But Collins also used her own experiences of how exploitative Hollywood men could be to inveigh against the double standards that prevailed at the time. “Why do we have to tolerate a society which nods approvingly if a married man plays around, but if an unmarried woman does it, people say, ‘Oh dear, no. She’s a slut, a tramp, a bad woman’?”
In detailing the appalling behaviour of many powerful Hollywood moguls, Collins also foreshadowed the #MeToo movement. Tracy Lerman notes: “She very much wrote what she had observed. She had been an aspiring actress in the 1950s and had gone to Hollywood when she was 18 or 19.
“She had first-hand knowledge of how young women who wanted to get into films were viewed. She saw that it was impossible for women to get on without being surreptitiously told to go out for a drink with the director. That has been going on for ever, and she really railed against it. That’s why the negative characters in her books are all seriously unattractive men. She really knew what she was talking about.”
The sort of characters Collins was creating were certainly very prescient. “She was writing a Harvey Weinstein character in every single book,” Tracy Lerman continues. “If you look at any of her books, you’ll see there’s always a movie mogul, opening the door with nothing but a dressing gown or a towel on.
“People have often said, ‘Jackie Collins’s books are complete fantasy. These people don’t exist.’ But of course, you now look at families like the Kardashians, or the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, and you see that all these characters exist.”
As her career started to flourish, the author also began to develop her trademark look of big hair, big shoulders, big jewellery, big make-up, and leopard skin with everything. This larger-than-life image became as much a part of her brand as her larger-than-life characters. Before confronting her critics, she would don it like a medieval knight putting on a suit of armour prior to going into battle.
Collins’s lifelong friend Tita Cahn recalls that in public she never let that façade drop. “She worked tirelessly at being Jackie. I don’t think she ever said, ‘Not today – I’m too tired.’”
For all that, some people still found it hard to get their heads around Collins’s frank depiction of female sexual desire. As Cahn says: “She was putting female sexuality at the centre of the world, and people lost their minds. She changed the way women had sex. Women got to be selfish in bed, thanks to Jackie Collins.”
Jeffrey Lane, Joan’s publicist, concurs. “Jackie was the first author to write about women who behaved like men, and who did what men did, and didn’t apologise or excuse themselves.”
Exemplifying Collins’s philosophy that women could do anything, her books struck such an immediate chord because they empowered women. Above all, they encouraged them not to take any more nonsense from men. Rory Green, Collins’s daughter, recalls women telling her, “Oh my God, your mum taught me everything I know about sex.”
How should we remember Collins, then? “I remember her personally with great affection and great admiration, even awe,” says Baboneau. “Many people tried, but I don’t think there was anybody really who came near to Jackie. Of course, there are some writers who have had successful careers. But Jackie straddled both the UK and US, which is unique.
I would like people to remember her as a consummate storyteller who never short-changed or disappointed her readers. They’re old-fashioned words, but she wrote page-turners and she wrote blockbusters
“I would like people to remember her as a consummate storyteller who never short-changed or disappointed her readers. They’re old-fashioned words, but she wrote page-turners and she wrote blockbusters. I once said to Jackie, ‘If I ever do a PhD, I’ll do it on you!’”
Hazel, Collins’s daughter-in-law, says: “Jackie broke ground for all of us women, she really did.”
Collins’s publicist, Melody Korenbrot, agrees. “What I learnt from her is that I can do anything. I can speak my mind, and I don’t have to hide behind anybody.”
We’ll leave the last word to the author herself. During her final appearance on BBC One’s The One Show, Collins recited what could have been her mantra: “We need more books about women who are strong and sexy and can really control everything.”
Spoken like a Lady Boss.
‘Lady Boss: The Jackie Collins Story’ is on BBC Two at 9pm on Friday 15 October
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