“I Wear Trackies At Home!” Joan Collins
Legendary actress Dame Joan Collins shares her thoughts on love, looking good, and how acting is just another job…
In her upcoming one-woman show Dame Joan Collins promises a host of exciting revelations from her legendary career. But one secret that audiences won’t be expecting is the surprise admission that the elegant Hollywood star isn’t above relaxing in tracksuit bottoms when she’s at home.
“I like to look as good as I can. I really don’t like looking sloppy and scruffy – I don’t enjoy it. But that doesn’t mean that when I’m around the house I’m not in trackies,” she confesses. “They’re the most comfortable things you can wear.”
Glamour is Joan’s watchword, but the former Dynasty star is equally as well-known for her deliciously dr y and self-deprecating wit. We suspect that’s very much at the forefront as she insists audiences of her Unscripted tour are just as likely to be impressed by the charms of her husband of 17 years, Percy Gibson.
Percy will appear on stage with Joan throughout the show and Joan promises audiences are in for a treat. “Ever ybody loves him, you know. ‘Joan and Percy? Oh, we love Percy! Joan? Yes, she’s all right…’” she deadpans.
“I said it was too hard being on stage by myself, so he said, ‘well, why don’t I come on at the beginning?’ and now he’s on all the way through. It’s great, because we play off each other, a bit like George Burns and Gracie Allen did years ago. I think that’s what the audience enjoy, because I have to say my husband is a very likeable person.”
Percy, 53, is 85-year-old Joan’s fifth husband and it’s clear he is the love of her life. “We’re best friends, we’re each other’s confidantes and partners in crime,” Joan declares. “We don’t have any secrets from each other and I trust him totally. He’s funny and charming beyond belief; everyone loves Percy.”
It’s fair to say that most people love Joan too. RADA-trained, her career took off when she moved to Hollywood in the 1950s. In the 1970s she famously appeared in films including The Bitch and The Stud, written by her novelist sister Jackie, but it was in the 1980s when her career hit the stratosphere, with the starring role of Alexis Carrington in the hit series Dynasty.
Her success on both sides of the Atlantic has rewarded her with a life of luxury and she divides her time between residences in Los Angeles, New York, London and the south of France. Yet Joan, mother of three and grandmother of three, admits her career was not always as glamorous as it seems and singles out a 1977 science fiction horror movie as proof.
“Acting is a job, it’s like being a butcher or baker or candlestick maker; there are high points and low points,” she explains. “I wasn’t too thrilled about Empireofthe Ants, but I had to put the children through school.
“We were in the Florida swamps for
One day I was knocked out! This is what I have to do to pay school fees
weeks, up to our knees in alligators and filth, then at the end of the film, I get eaten by a giant papier-mache ant!
“One day, I was knocked out! It was a very windy day going to the location. The driver opened the door and I went to get out and he didn’t hold the door and it hit me. I could have lost an eye. I took a Polaroid and sent it to my children saying, ‘This is what your mother has to do to pay the school fees.’”
Things were no better last year when Joan appeared in critically-acclaimed US TV series American HorrorStory. “I hate snakes and we had to do a scene at a table where we’d take the lid off our bowl and writhing snakes would go over us,” she reveals. “I wasn’t thrilled about this. Luckily, when they took the top off, the snakes were asleep!”
Far more fun for Joan is interacting with her fans. “About half of the show is questions from the audience,” she explains. “And we have loads of movie clips showing me working with Gene Kelly or Paul Newman or Bette Davis. It’s ver y enjoyable.”