Joan Collins

How's This as a plot line for Dynasty, ABC's soapy series of sex and corporate intrigue that's become a national mania: Alexis Carrington Colby--a woman so evil and conniving she makes J. R. Ewing look like Mother Teresa--decides to pose for Playboy. The word goes out to Blake, her slick and sometimes sinister ex-husband, and Krystle, his stunning, goody-two-shoes second wife. Of course, Alexis will have to tell her two sons, the mentally unstable Adam (don't (text continued on page 306)Joan Collins(continued from page 135) mention the word breakdown or he'll fly into a rage) and the homosexual Steven, who had such radical plastic surgery last season that it allowed the producers to pull the ultimate in soap-opera chutzpah--to fire one actor and replace him with another without changing the character.

Let's say Alexis gathers all of them, plus her daughter, her ex-son-in-law and assorted others, in her penthouse office overlooking Denver. What will she say?

''I'm appearing in playboy, with a modicum of tasteful eroticism, because I know that it looks good,'' she'll announce, sipping from her glass of Louis Roederer Cristal champagne. ''If I didn't look good, I wouldn't do it. I'm far too vain. I've too much pride and I'm too intelligent to stand there with fat arms and a big, fat belly.''

Blake looks stunned; Krystle is envious. Steven seems puzzled and Adam starts to have flashbacks to the mental hospital in Montana.

''To me, I've got a great body,'' Alexis will say. ''Sometimes, it looks terrific; and if it's photographed right, it can look absolutely great.''

Sound like the Alexis we've come to know and fantasize about? Regular Dynasty fans probably will not be surprised to learn that those words were actually uttered--during a taping session for a forthcoming Playboy Interview--by Joan Collins, the English actress who has made Alexis into TV's top sex symbol for men and an unlikely heroine for women. Those who have followed her more than 50 movies or her escapades that have scandalized Great Britain for years see it as a fitting role for their favorite legend. So when Joan agreed to pose for Playboy, it was obvious that she deserved not one but two of America's best photographers.

George Hurrell, perhaps the most famous name in Hollywood glamor photography, was the choice for the black-and-white series. He took his first photo of a film star, Ramon Novarro, in 1927 and, under contract to various movie studios, shot all the greats--Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, Mae West, Bette Davis, Jean Harlow, Clark Gable and hundreds of others. As the star system died, he found himself in vogue with a new generation and, at 79, has taken album-cover shots for Aretha Franklin, Melissa Manchester, Chevy Chase, Keith Carradine, Lindsey Buckingham and Fleetwood Mac.

If Hurrell missed any stars along the way, it's likely that Mario Casilli covered for him. One of the original Playboy photographers who helped perfect the art of the centerfold (he has shot nearly 70 of them), he's also one of the most sought-after celebrity photographers in the country, with nearly 50 TV Guide covers to his credit. Ironically, it is Casilli, the junior member of the photo team, who has known Joan longer, photographing her at what was the beginning of both of their careers.

''It was 1956 or 1957,'' he recalls. ''She had just come over from Britain as something of a Liz Taylor look-alike. She was much more quiet at the time and was nowhere near the lady she is now. She has grown in confidence and has really become her own person. I was impressed with her then, but I would never have guessed that she'd become such a star.''

For Joan, becoming a star was a long, bumpy ride. She entered the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts when she was only 15 and quickly made her movie debut in I Believe in You, with Laurence Harvey. Numerous films, most of them forgettable, followed. Of course, the quality of her work hardly mattered, since she managed, by dint of her colorful personal 'life and her penchant for speaking her mind, to become a star in spite of her career. Few saw or remembered her movies; no one forgot her well-publicized affairs. And if people did, Joan reminded them by writing her autobiography, Past Imperfect, in 1978. Even for a work by a woman long known as ''Britain's Bad Girl,'' the book was so shocking and the uproar so loud that she demurely returned a $100,000 advance to her American publisher to keep the book from being released here. She has since reworked it, toned some of it down and has agreed to let it be published early next year. Even her age is controversial. She tells interviewers she's 48, but other sources see her as slightly more mature--say, 50ish.

To read Past Imperfect is to realize how anemic the plot lines of even Dynasty can be. Take, for example, Joan's first marriage, to English actor Maxwell Reed. On their first date, he drugged and raped her. Then, seven months into their marriage, he tried to sell her to an Arab sheik. Not even Alexis would have the gall to try that with Krystle.

After divorce number one, Joan learned to enjoy life. She had affairs with a string of famous sons: Charlie Chaplin's son Sydney, Arthur Loew's son Art, Jr., Conrad Hilton's boy Nicky and Rafael Trujillo, son of the then-dictator of the Dominican Republic. Terence Stamp and Harry Belafonte got their turns at bat, according to the book, while Richard Burton tried and struck out. Warren Beatty asked Joan to marry him--he even slipped her an engagement ring in a carton of chopped liver--and their ill-fated engagement was the talk of Hollywood.

Her second marriage, to singer-song-writer-director Anthony Newley, was an improvement over her first but was still stormy enough to be charted by the National Weather Service. Seven years and two children later, they split, and Joan fell into the waiting arms of Ryan O'Neal. A third marriage, to Ron Kass, who at one time headed the Beatles' Apple Records, was marked with tragedy when their youngest daughter, Katy, was hit by a car and suffered what doctors said was permanent brain damage. Joan and Ron dedicated their lives to helping her recover, and after years of both professional and home-grown therapy, Katy was able to resume a normal life. In fact, it was her recovery that allowed Joan the chance to work full time as Alexis, the only role in her career that has overshadowed her private life.

Veteran star watcher Hurrell is surprised that Joan has never before reached superstar status through her work. ''She has everything--the face, the figure, the talent, the enthusiasm, the tenacity,'' he says. ''The only thing I can figure out is that she probably had a lousy agent.''

Casilli, on the other hand, thinks that the public was just slow to catch on. ''Sometimes it takes the public a while to realize how exciting a certain character is,'' he maintains. ''Now Alexis is a fantasy figure--rich, tough, sexy.'' After all, it says something about America that Alexis--who gleefully grinds her spiked heels into the little people on her climb to the top--has been accepted as a sexual fantasy rather than a threat.

Of course, there's one other important element to Joan's current success. She has put in years of hard work and has thrown herself into the role of Alexis--and that of Joan Collins the star--with enthusiasm and professionalism. The lessons of other actors and actresses who turned out to be flashes in the pan have been noted and filed, as the longevity of her career attests. It's a career she runs singlehandedly, often without the help of a manager, a business manager or a press agent.

''She follows in the tradition of the stars of yesteryear,'' says Casilli. ''She has an image and she knows how to exploit it. It's almost as if she's a product. During our session, she knew exactly what she wanted to look like and what she wanted to wear. She even does her own make-up--that's a lost art; none of today's actresses can do their own theatrical make-up.''

Hurrell agrees. ''She cares about her public. She's always dressed to the nth degree, always performing. She wants to look good for the public at all times. You don't see that anymore. And I like the way she speaks with such certainty. When we went to her house to show her the pictures, she didn't fiddle around. She knew exactly which pictures made her look good--she has a great eye for photography.''

Joan admits that she has been inspired by the great stars she watched as a child, and after realizing that few, if any, women on television paid attention to fashion, she saw a chance to stand out.

''I was very positive that I wanted to make a statement with clothes,'' she explains. ''I'm not Glenda Jackson. I can't just appear in an old serge skirt and a blouse.''

''It's fun to see that glamor come back,'' says Casilli. ''Joan has been so successful with it that I think we'll see a lot more of it from others in the future.''

That doesn't mean that glamor has replaced controversy as a Collins trade-mark. Like Alexis, she seems to be able to have them both--and her photos in Playboy are proof positive that elegance can be scintillating.

''The things I did in the Playboy layout are unrevealing rather than revealing, because that's more interesting,'' she explains. ''I can project sex by my face and my bodily attitude. I can switch it on.''

Sex isn't all that gets switched on. People expect the outrageous from Joan, and she expects criticism from them.

''Everybody says, 'Oh, Joan, shocking girl. There she goes again, always doing the wrong thing, always shocking everybody and being controversial.' Everybody else rallies around, saying, 'Oh, God, she's so terrible.' ''

Is this pictorial the wrong thing? Is it terrible? That's not what Joan told us.

''I can do what I want, and what I do is not shocking and is not bad,'' she insists. ''In my own mind, it's OK. I've got a good body. I'd do it only if I knew I could do it. The instant I know I can't do it, I won't.''

''To me, I've got a great body. If it's photographed right, it can look absolutely great.' ''