My traumatic childhood, by Dame Joan’s son
JOAN Collins’s acting career spans eight decades and she was awarded a damehood for her services to charity, but have her children suffered along the way?
For the Dynasty star’s only son, Alexander ‘ Sacha’ Newley, is to publish an extraordinary book about his childhood in which he will detail the ‘emotional trauma’ he endured.
The 51-year-old portrait painter has given the book the provocative title Unaccompanied Minor: A Memoir and his publisher, Quartet Books, suggests he will not spare his famous mother’s blushes.
‘Born with a famous name to an unhappy marriage, Alexander Newley is the son of the Hollywood stars Joan Collins and Anthony Newley,’ the publisher says.
‘Their life was one of almost unparalleled privilege and glamour but under the glossy veneer there was trouble: drugs, infidelity, insecurity and emotional trauma.
‘Both Joan and Anthony were infantilised after being thrust into the spotlight so young, rendering them ill-equipped to care for Alexander and his sister Tara when they were born.
‘ This book, written with humour and compassion, tells the story of Alexander’s nomadic childhood; the disintegration of his parents’ marriage; and his battle to make sense of the past.’
Two years ago, Sacha hit the headlines when he revealed in an interview that he had been left in the care of a nanny, Sue Delong, who would gain almost sexual gratification from her physical methods of disciplining him.
He said: ‘There was a lot of S&M. She wouldn’t just sit on me, but sit and grind me into the carpet.
‘It was like the relationship boys might have with their older brothers, but in my case it was with a woman who was employed, so it had a different frisson about it.’
Ms Delong later committed suicide after being fired from a series of jobs.
Sacha said he loved his mother ‘deeper than I can process’ but added that he had a strained childhood relationship with her and described her as a ‘narcissist’ who ‘abandoned’ him and his sister Tara, now 53.
Sacha — whose late actor/ singer father, was the second of Dame Joan’s five husbands — said: ‘I can’t remember her hugging me, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. I just wanted Mummy to love me. She nourished me in a way a muse nourishes; at a distance.’
Naim Attallah, chairman of Quartet, tells me: ‘I was totally seduced by his honesty which, I think, will touch so many readers.’
Dame Joan appears to have reacted with typical sangfroid. ‘The book was discussed with my mother beforehand,’ Sacha insists. ‘She has read it and likes it very much.’