Louis Theroux's latest interview series, which premiered on November 7, sees the documentarian meet a range of British stars, from Anthony Joshua to Pete Doherty, from Raye to Ashley Walters.
But his most recent interviewee, Dame Joan Collins, brought a singular magic to the show, as Theroux chatted to the 90-year-old national treasure in her villa in the South of France.
Although the conversation was charming and whimsical, it nevertheless covered some of the more difficult periods of Collins' life, with the actor speaking about being raped by her first husband, MeToo, her career, her reputation, and her tumultuous love life.
Here are some of Joan's most eye-opening, fascinating or revelatory lines from the interview.
What she would say to her younger self: "Don’t let the bastards get you down."
On Princess Diana: “I think she was treated very badly.” Who by? asks Theroux. “I’m not going to go into that, because this is about me, not Princess Diana.”
On ambition: “People have always talked to women about ambition, as if it’s a dirty word. I’ve never ever seen a man accused of being ambitious. I wanted to be successful, yes. I wanted to make a living, yes. And I wanted to make a living in a world that I enjoyed.”
On her 1983 Playboy shoot, in which she was “slightly” naked: “But, so was Diane Keaton, so was Glenda Jackson, so was Jane Fonda. It was the era of lady stars taking their kit off. So, you know, I did it just a bit.”
On the death of her sister, the celebrated writer, Jackie Collins, eight years ago: “It’s so sad. I think of her all the time. That’s life, isn’t it?”
On her childhood. She was born in London in 1933. Her mother was a dancer, her father was a talent agent. “We were told as children to just get on with our lives. We were not played with, we were not entertained. And so we, therefore, had a whole vast amount of hobbies. Jackie’s was writing, mine was painting, making doll’s clothes for my doll’s house.”
On her sister hating her friends: “Unfortunately, a lot of people in my life… she hated. And luckily, she adored [Joan's husband] Percy. Adored him, adored him, adored him. And we all got along so well in the last, sadly, just few years of her life.”
On Percy’s special qualities: “Humour. And great looks. And kindness. He’s just a wonderful person.”
On MeToo: “I think it’s been very good for some women. I think it’s been tragic for some men. I mean, touching somebody on the shoulder, or saying to somebody, ‘You look beautiful,’ or, ‘I love your dress.’ This is against the law now? I mean, I’m sorry, but, no, I don’t want to agree with that.
“But I do think that some of these men who’ve been called out, because I went through it in my generation of men, and I know how predatory they were. Horrible. Horrible. Everywhere you went. They’d be on the set, it could be a cameraman, it could be a producer, the director… They’d come to your room, they’d knock, they’d try to force themselves on you. It was just a given. And many, many of the actors expected the leading ladies to go to bed with them. I mean, I had that with several of the ones that I worked with."
On Darryl Zanuck, the “head, head, head honcho of 20th Century Fox": “Darryl Zanuck I had been warned about by Marilyn Monroe. I was warned to watch out for him, because he could kill your career if you didn’t go to bed with him. I mean, and he did. And one day he found me in the corridor and, literally puffing his vile cigar smoke breath into my face, said, ‘Honey, you haven’t had anyone till you’ve had me. I’m the biggest and the best and I can go all night.’ Which I thought was one of the most terrifying things anybody’s ever said to me. And I thought, what do I do here? And I wriggled away.
“And then, when I refused, I thought, well, I’ve lost this role. I’m not going to get this role. But I’m not going to demean myself by, you know, allowing him to do… Use me as a plaything.”
On the difference between the two editions of her first memoir, the first of which contains many more juicy details than the second: “My agent, Swifty, the first one, I said, ‘I’ve got all these wonderful stories about, you know, when I met Laurence Olivier and John Gielgud.’ He said, ‘Screw that. We don’t want to hear about you meeting Laurence Olivier.’ You know, ‘We want to hear who you fucked.’ And so, that’s what I did.”
On often being judged unfairly for her rather normal sex and romantic life: “If you compare how I was in the Fifties, Sixties and Seventies, in between husbands, with the way that some actresses – I shan’t mention any names – are today, I was positively nun-like, really. Yeah, I had a lot of boyfriends. I had a lot of boyfriends at RADA. It was the normal thing that you do, and you try out, you know, different permutations of me.”
On losing her virginity when she was 18 to the 32-year-old actor, Maxwell Reed, who would become her first husband: "In terms of knowledge of men… Of anything, of anything. I’d never seen a naked man. Never. I was a virgin. Very much so. You know, I had been brought up to be a virgin. I had been brought up to believe that you didn’t do anything with a man unless you were married."
On Reed raping her on their first date: “And I was looking at this book and drinking my rum and coke, and the next thing I knew I was coming to on the sofa, and he had, as they say in Victorian novels, had his way with me. I was raped. Horrible experience, I don’t wish to relive it. That’s all I’m going to say.”
On their “disaster” honeymoon in the South of France: “It was a hot day, and I was talking to these beach boys. You know, I was in a bikini, we were on the beach, and he hit me. It was the first time and the last I’ve ever been hit by a man. And I then finally graduated from being 11 to being 12, and realised I had married a complete nutter.”
On her second husband: “I married Anthony Newley, my second husband, because I fell in love with his enormous talent. I loved what he did as a singer. I met him when I was 28. I fell for him. I thought we had a very good marriage, I thought. Until I realised, after seven years, that he was a serial womaniser. He admitted that he had had lots of affairs and couldn’t stop, and was going to continue having lots of affairs and could not be faithful to one woman.”On her third husband: "Then, sadly, my next husband, Ron Kass, developed a drug habit. Yes, while we were married.
"I have had a lot of horrible things happen to me. But, you know, I believe in marriage… which is why I’ve done it five times! No. I believe in marriage. And I finally have a wonderful marriage."
On dating younger men: “Percy is 30-odd years younger than me…
“First of all, I don’t even feel my age. I don’t even talk about it. I don’t think about it. I just feel like I couldn’t… I have some friends around my age and, um, I don’t find them interesting. Everybody’s gotten older except me.”
On being appreciated: “I’m not saying I’m not appreciated. I think I have become more. But there’s a grudging kind of, ‘Yeah, she’s terrific in many ways, but she can’t act and she can just play these roles and…’ You know. And early reviews of everything only talked about the way I look and ‘the way she swung her hips’. Yeah, they were always very half-assed snide.”
On wanting to get back in the industry after having her kids: “I remember Sue Mengers, big Hollywood agent, saying to me years ago, ‘Honey, if you want to get back in the business, take off your make-up and don’t get your hair done and wear some drab clothes so they take you seriously.’ I said, ‘Really? Is that what it’s going to take?’ I said, ‘I grew up with a mother and 10 aunts who were all incredibly glamorous, who always had their hair done, who always wore make-up, who always wore nice clothes, even going to the supermarket. We didn’t have supermarkets then, but the market. So why should I throw all that up so that some ditzy casting director can think that I can act?’ So I decided to be true to myself.”
On being described by Theroux as a 'cultural figure of significance': “I just can’t think that I’m a cultural figure of significance. No. I mean, thank you for that. I do know that I am a national treasure. Apparently. And I’m called an icon. And maybe it’s because they’ve all seen something. And so I think I’m like a thorn in people’s side. I’m just there.”
On being 90 years old: “Why should I be defined by a number?”
On retiring, or slowing down: “Who’s going to support me? And I want to work. I like to work.” Then, “I am slowing down. Compared to what I was doing in Dynasty, I’m a snail.”
