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Jackie Collins
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Jacqueline Jill "Jackie" Collins (born 4 October 1937) is an English novelist and former actress. She is the younger sister of actress Joan Collins. Each of Collins' twenty-six novels have been on the New York Times bestsellers list.
ins was born in London, the daughter of Elsa Bessant and Joseph William Collins, a theatrical agent whose clients included Shirley Bassey, The Beatles and Tom Jones.
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Jacqueline Jill "Jackie" Collins (born 4 October 1937) is an English novelist and former actress. She is the younger sister of actress Joan Collins. Each of Collins' twenty-six novels have been on the New York Times bestsellers list.
Biography
Early life
Collins was born in London, the daughter of Elsa Bessant and Joseph William Collins, a theatrical agent whose clients included Shirley Bassey, The Beatles and Tom Jones. Collins's South African-born father was Jewish and her British mother was Anglican. A middle child, Collins has one sister, actress Joan Collins (b.1933), and a younger brother, Bill Collins (b. 1946).
At 15, Collins was expelled from school; after she had been expelled, she threw her school uniform in the Thames.
Early career
Like her sister, Collins began in acting roles, in a series of British B movies in the 1950s. She also made appearances in the 1960s ITC television series Danger Man and The Saint before giving up an on-screen career. She has since played herself in a few television series including Minder in 1980.
Writing career
Collins' first novel, The World Is Full Of Married Men, was published in 1968. Its open sexuality caused novelist Barbara Cartland to call it "nasty, filthy and disgusting", and it was banned in Australia and South Africa. This scandal bolstered sales in the United States and the United Kingdom.
Collins' second novel, The Stud, was published in 1969 and followed the sexually charged affairs of married Fontaine Khaled, who owns a fashionable London nightclub. It soon made the bestseller lists.
Collins' third novel, Sunday Simmons & Charlie Brick, (first published under the title The Hollywood Zoo in the UK and then retitled Sinners worldwide in 1984) was published in 1971 and again made the bestseller lists.
Lovehead followed in 1974 (retitled The Love Killers in 1989). This novel was Collins' first foray into the world of organised crime — a genre that would later prove to be extremely successful for her. The plot concerned the organised murder of women's right activist and feminist Margaret Lawrence Brown. Three women -- two who are Margaret's half sisters and one who she saved from a life of working in the porn industry -- plan revenge on the mobster responsible, Enzio Bassalino.
Following this, Collins released two more novels in the mid 1970s: The World Is Full Of Divorced Women in 1975, and her longest novel, Lovers & Gamblers, in 1977.
Later career
In 1978, Collins co-wrote the screenplay for the film version of her 1969 novel The Stud, starring her older sister Joan as gold-digging adulteress Fontaine Khaled. Following this, Collins wrote the screenplay for the film adaptation of her first novel The World Is Full Of Married Men, which was released in 1979. She also released her seventh novel, The Bitch, a sequel to The Stud, which was also made into a successful film the same year, with Joan reprising her role. The film version of The Bitch was written and directed by Gerry O'Hara, based on Collins' source novel. Also in 1979, Collins wrote the screenplay for the film Yesterday's Hero.
In the 1980s, Collins and her family moved to Los Angeles on a full time basis. Her next novel was Chances, published in 1981 and which she described as her first Harold Robbins-type novel. It was also the first novel to introduce her most famous character, Lucky Santangelo, the "dangerously beautiful" daughter of a one-time gangster Gino Santangelo. While living in the hills above Sunset Boulevard, Collins collected the knowledge and experience to write her most successful novel, Hollywood Wives which was published in 1983. The novel hit the New York Times bestseller list at number one, and went on to sell fifteen million copies worldwide . Marketed as a "scandalous exposé", the novel placed Collins in a powerful position and made her a celebrity of almost equal status to sister Joan, whose own career had taken an upwards direction with her role in the hit US soap drama Dynasty. In 1985, Hollywood Wives was also made into a highly rated mini-series, produced by Aaron Spelling and starring Candice Bergen, Stefanie Powers, Angie Dickinson, Anthony Hopkins, Suzanne Sommers and Mary Crosby. Though credited as "Creative Consultant", Collins later stated that she was never consulted during production and that she did not agree with some of the casting choices. She then went on to write the sequel to Chances entitled Lucky, published in 1985, Hollywood Husbands in 1986, Rock Star in 1988 and a third Lucky Santangelo novel, Lady Boss, in 1990. Also in 1990, Collins wrote and co-produced a mini-series that combined her first two Santangelo novels entitled Lucky Chances.
In 1992, Collins experienced a tremendous loss when her husband of twenty six years, Oscar Lerman, died of cancer. Around this time, Collins also wrote and produced another mini-series based on her Lucky Santangelo novel Lady Boss. She went on to pen several more bestsellers; American Star in 1993, Hollywood Kids in 1994 and the fourth Lucky Santangelo novel Vendetta: Lucky's Revenge in 1996. In the mid-1990s, Collins met Los Angeles businessman Frank Calcagnini to whom she became engaged. Sadly Calcagnini also died of cancer in 1998 as Collins's attempted foray into talk television also floundered. She soon penned a new novel, Thrill, and wrote a four-part series of mini novels to be released in a newspaper every six weeks called L.A. Connections, introducing a new heroine in the form of journalist Madison Castelli. Dangerous Kiss, the fifth Lucky Santangelo novel was published in 1999 and she soon brought back Madison Castelli in Lethal Seduction, published in 2000. In 2001 she published Hollywood Wives: The New Generation, which itself was later turned into a television movie starring Farrah Fawcett and Melissa Gilbert. Deadly Embrace, the sequel to "Lethal Seduction", was published in 2002 and Hollywood Divorces was published in 2003. Her last two recent bestsellers were Lovers & Players in 2006 and Drop Dead Beautiful in 2007. Collins initially said on her website that this would probably be her final Lucky Santangelo novel, but has apparently since refuted this in an interview on BBC Radio 4 on 31 October 2007. Her new novel Married Lovers concerning the affairs of personal trainer Cameron Paradise will be published on June 10 2008.
Collins is currently working on a new novel, Poor Little Bitch Girl, about three strong, sexy, powerful women.
To date she has sold over 400 million copies of her novels which have been translated into 40 languages.
Other career highlights
In 2004, Collins created a series of specials for E!, which she hosted to great success. She is still with the same publisher that she has been with for over 20 years Simon & Schuster, . She has also signed a new deal with Fremantle Television to create a television series based on heiresses entitled Rich Girls.
Personal life
Collins married her first husband, Wallace Austin, in 1959. They had a daughter and divorced after four and a half years.
In 1966 Collins married for the second time to art gallery and Ad-Lib Nightclub owner Oscar Lerman on 15 June 1965, in the home of sister Joan and (then) husband Anthony Newley. Together Collins and Lerman had two daughters and Lerman formally adopted Collins' daughter from her previous marriage. The marriage was dissolved upon Lerman's death in 1992 from prostate cancer.
In 1994 Collins became engaged to Los Angeles business executive Frank Calcagnini. Calcagnini died in 1998 from a brain tumor.
Collins now lives her life, in her own words, "like a cool bachelor, I have a man for all seasons" and resides in Beverly Hills, California in a mansion she designed herself.
Bibliography
Hollywood Series
- Hollywood Wives (1983)
- Hollywood Husbands (1986)
- Hollywood Kids (1994)
- Hollywood Wives: The New Generation (2001)
- Hollywood Divorces (2003)
The Santangelo Novels
See main article The Santangelo Novels
Madison Castelli Series
- L. A. Connections (serialised novel):
- Power (1998)
- Obsession (1998)
- Murder (1998)
- Revenge (1998)
- Lethal Seduction (2000)
- Deadly Embrace (2002)
See also
External links
- - The Official Jackie Collins Web Site
- at the Internet Book List
- Jackie Collins at NNDB
- .
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