My dynasty of fighters
Actress reveals her pride over daughter’s campaigns for rights
Hollywood legend Joan Collins has revealed she’ll fight for women’s rights as long as she has a pulse.
The former Dynasty star battled to get equal pay for actresses long before it became fashionable. She takes her inspiration from another movie icon once typecast because of his looks.
Joan, 87, said: “It’s great to know that I was some kind of role model. I never thought of myself that way, I just believed in the way I was brought up by my mother and turned those rules into how I brought up my children.
“I think I was born living life to the max. I remember as a child doing six projects at once and having huge enthusiasm for life, which I’ve never lost. “I wake up every day feeling grateful for everything life has bestowed on me. For example, you have to suffer to be beautiful. As Paul Newman used to say, ‘ Still got a pulse.’”
The actress, whose 70-year film career saw her branded a diva by much of Hollywood, has outlasted many of her female contemporaries. Her long-running stint as Alexis Carrington in TV’s Dynasty and movies such as The Bitch and The Stud underlined her fearsome reputation.
She refused to become the prey of salacious producers and endured four divorces. She was made a Dame in 2015.
Joan made her stage debut aged nine in 1942 and continues to inspire, most notably her daughter, writer and activist Tara Newley Arkle, a celebrated champion of women’s rights. Tara, 57, whose dad is the late actor and singer/songwriter Anthony Newley, said: “Having a strong, empowered mother has definitely helped form my thoughts and feelings about how important
Heather Greenaway
it is to continue that struggle because sadly it is a struggle when strong women like my mum who only want equality are labelled difficult.
“It seems crazy that in the 21st century we are still having this discussion.
“I am incredibly proud of my mum. People come up to me all the time to tell me how amazing she is and I say get behind me.
“Her acting career provided her with a platform to stand up for and speak out on behalf of women and she got a lot of flack for it. She taught women they didn’t have to be a mouse in the corner.
“Mum accompanied me on marches and we have stood shoulder to shoulder flying the flag for rights for women.”
Tara has invited Joan to speak next week at a virtual conference she founded to mark the United Nations Elimination Of Violence Against Women Day.
Joan, who married her fifth husband, Scot Percy Gibson, in 2002, will join speakers including Clare Balding and Baroness Scotland at the Created Forum online event next Sunday.
Mum-of-two Tara has made the forum, which will see speakers sharing their success and survival stories, free to women across the globe, with any donations made going to Refuge, Women’s Aid and Child In Need India.
She said: “I love working with my mother to support women and continue the strong tradition she started and am delighted she will be speaking next week.
“Every year I help organise a march to mark the UN’s Elimination Of Violence Against Women but, due to Covid, we had to cancel so this is my way of taking the event online.”
Joan, also mum to Alexander, 55, and Katyana, 48, is proud of all Tara has achieved. She said: “Tara is an achiever, she never stops experimenting and finding new and interesting projects.
“She is able to do a balancing act of being a great mother, a school teacher, a poet, a writer, a scriptwriter and a novelist.”