Furious Joan cries ‘flu’ to dodge son’s book launch Snub follows his claim film star father was a paedophile
WHEN I disclosed back in August that Dame Joan Collins’s son, Alexander ‘ Sacha’ Newley, was to publish an extraordinary book about his childhood in which he would detail the ‘ emotional trauma’ he endured, he insisted his mother had ‘read it and likes it very much’.
Sadly, the actress now appears to have tired of Sacha’s revelations, and was conspicuous by her absence at Wednesday’s launch for the tome, Unaccompanied Minor: A Memoir. The former Dynasty star was infuriated last weekend by her son’s allegation in an interview that his father, the Hollywood star Anthony Newley, was a ‘paedophile’.
Before the party, at Daunt Books in London’s Marylebone, Dame Joan, 84, told Sacha she could not attend as she was ‘ill with the flu’. Sacha had to make do with the company of a Joanie lookalike.
However, the actress, inset, recovered swiftly enough to attend a lunch to promote her beauty range at Daphne’s restaurant in South Kensington the following day.
On Monday, she appeared on breakfast TV to deny her son’s claims about her second husband, who died in 1999. She said his allegation was ‘absolutely untrue’. Dame Joan added: ‘I think that Sacha is being extremely naive and not really knowing the meaning of that word because what Tony admittedly was . . . is he loved young women and young women of 17, 18, 19 years old. Not children by any means.’
She had previously admitted that the actor had a predilection for girls several years younger.
At the party, one of Newley’s lovers accused Sacha of ‘besmirching’ Tony’s name. Former actress Sue Selfe told me: ‘I’m not happy with him. Tony was the love of my life. I told Sacha I can’t bear to hear him being talked about like this.’
Another notable absentee was Sacha’s sister, Tara Newley. She had also denied his claims, which left her ‘deeply upset’.