Joan’s son: Dad had an appetite for young girls
But Collins denies ex-husband was a ‘paedophile’
JOAN Collins hit out at her son yesterday over claims that his father Anthony Newley was a paedophile.
Alexander Newley told a Sunday newspaper that his famous father was a paedophile who considered innocence to be ‘an aphrodisiac’.
But Ms Collins, 84, said the claim about her ex-husband was ‘absolutely untrue’ while the couple’s other child, Tara Newley, said she was shocked and ‘deeply upset by these false allegations’.
Actor and singer Newley, who died in 1999, was a known womaniser but in an interview with the Sunday Times his son claimed: ‘He was a paedophile. My father was drawn to youthfulness; he thought innocence was an aphrodisiac. That was his sexual proclivity and it’s a very dangerous, destructive thing.’
Artist Mr Newley, 52, was speaking to the newspaper about his memoir, Unaccompanied Minor, in which he described his father as ‘flagrantly unfaithful’ and ‘a sex addict’. In the book, set to be published this week, he said: ‘He [Anthony Newley] had been honest with my mother about his appetite for young girls, and said he would change, but she married him anyway.’
During the interview, Mr Newley described a 1969 film which his father wrote, directed and starred in as ‘a confession of paedophilia’. He said the controversial film – Can Heironymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe And Find True Happiness? – destroyed his parents’ marriage because of what it revealed about his father’s desires. In the film, Newley played Merkin, a successful middle-aged singer who is making a movie about his life focusing on his promiscuous relationships with women, particularly his wife – played by Ms Collins – and the adolescent Mercy Humppe.
But Ms Collins – who on Saturday joined daughter Tara in Bristol at a demonstration against violence to women – denied the claims, saying in a statement: ‘As far as I’m concerned this is absolutely untrue. I have nothing further to add.’ Tara Newley, 54, said: ‘I was shocked by my brother’s comments. From my end, I don’t recognise the man he is describing. I had an incredibly close relationship with my father and am deeply upset by these false allegations.’
‘Upset by these false allegations’