Playboy Interview: Joan Collins

When the Emmy nominations for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series were announced last August, Joan Collins was not among the nominees. Linda Evans, who plays the other leading female role in their hit nighttime soap, "Dynasty," was nominated. So was John Forsythe, her ex- and Linda's current husband on the show. Joan was more than a little disappointed. Downright angry would be more like it. Everyone had been telling her for months that not only would she be nominated but she was practically a shoo-in for the Emmy. After all, her friends reasoned, wasn't it she, as bitchy Alexis Carrington, who had turned "Dynasty" around, taking it from so-so ratings to the very top?

Her popularity on the show was nothing short of phenomenal. Critics compared Alexis to J. R. Ewing, her equivalent played by Larry Hagman on the rival series "Dallas," and many felt that she could outmanipulate, outconnive and outfox J.R., hands down.

What had Alexis done to earn such accolades?

In a nutshell: She secretly shot off a gun, spooking the horse that pregnant Krystle (Evans) was riding, causing her to lose her baby; she paid her daughter-in-law to get out of her son's life; she married her ex-husband's archrival on his deathbed and took over his oil company when he died; she hired a detective to find Krystle's ex-husband, Mark, then flew to New York to tell him Krystle needed him, as part of her plan to ruin Krystle's marriage to Blake (Forsythe); then, when Mark fell for her own daughter, Alexis feigned an assignation with him, making sure that her daughter caught them in bed together; when a Congressman double-crossed her, she ruined his career by giving scandalous information to the press; she tried to pay off Krystle to get out of Blake's life. She....

Well, you get the picture. It's soap opera, all right. And in Alexis, Joan Collins has the meatiest role of her career.

That career began in London near the end of World War Two, when, at the tender age of nine, she appeared briefly (as a boy) in Ibsen's "A Doll's House." Her father was a partner in a theatrical agency with Lew Grade, and Joan grew up surrounded by show-business types.

When she was 15, she quit school and enrolled in the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. A year later, she was chosen as a model and shortly thereafter appeared on her first magazine cover and in her first major movie, "I Believe in You," with Laurence Harvey. The year was 1952, and Joan Collins was on her way to becoming a household name in England.

Other films quickly followed, and in 1955, she was signed to a seven-year contract with 20th Century-Fox in Hollywood. Her first picture for Fox was "The Virgin Queen," which starred Bette Davis. Her second was "The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing," which landed her on the cover of Life.

In the years that followed, Joan made more than 50 movies, appearing with such actors as Richard Burton, James Mason, Gregory Peck, Paul Newman--even with Bob Hope and Bing Crosby in their last "Road" picture.

Despite that impressive list of leading men, none of the films in which she appeared was memorable. Yet Joan Collins endured. When TV called, she answered, appearing in more than 30 series, including "Star Trek" and "Batman." It was when she played Cleopatra on an episode of "Fantasy Island" that producer Aaron Spelling noticed her and tagged her for the role of Alexis in "Dynasty." A star, at long last, was born.

But it is probably less her career than her private life that has piqued her public's attention. In 1978, she published her autobiography, "Past Imperfect," but it was sold only in England. In it, she detailed her many affairs, tangled relationships and three marriages. (A tamer version will soon be published in the U.S.)

Her first husband was actor Maxwell Reed. He was 33, she was 17 when the marriage began, as pathetically as it ended. He drugged and raped her on their first date; the relationship was finished when he tried to sell her to an Arab sheik for a night.

Then followed affairs with Sydney Chaplin, Arthur Loew, Jr., Nicky Hilton, Terence Stamp, Harry Belafonte, George Englund and Warren Beatty (to whom she was engaged) and marriage to Anthony Newley. That one lasted seven years and produced a daughter and a son.

At the end of her second marriage, she had an affair with Ryan O'Neal, then met and married record producer Ron Kass, who was then head of the Beatles' Apple corporation. Ten years and another daughter later, that marriage ended and, as she says today, Joan is a free woman for the first time since she was 17.

Besides her autobiography, she has written a beauty book and a memoir detailing her painful experience when her younger daughter, Katy, was hit by a car and it was predicted that she would suffer permanent brain damage. Joan's younger sister, Jackie Collins, is the author of a number of best-selling steamy novels.

To interview this on- and offscreen siren, Playboy sent Contributing Editor Lawrence Grobel (who also interviewed such larger-than-life women as Barbra Streisand and Dolly Parton). His report:

"When the call came to make a specific date, her schedule was so demanding, we decided to make the 'Interview' one long night's journey into light.

"Joan suggested we get acquainted over dinner. I was to furnish the Beluga caviar and the Louis Roederer Cristal champagne; she would provide the baked potatoes and salad.

"I arrived at dusk, just as Joan was returning from a shopping spree along Rodeo Drive. She was elegantly clothed in a short red dress and a wide-brimmed hat, and we had our first glass of champagne by the bar in her den.

"She then changed into something more comfortable--a breezy, fashionable sleeveless dress--and I took off my sports coat. Moving to the couch, I set out my tape recorder, which stayed on through our candlelit caviar dinner...and on into the early morning. She lost her temper only once, when she couldn't find any fucking matches!' to light her cigarettes, but a lighter turned up and she calmed down.

"She lives in a large multistoried house off Coldwater Canyon in Beverly Hills with 11-year-old Katy and a young couple who look after it. The walls are filled with pictures, magazine covers and paintings that chronicle her life from a teenager to the 50-year-old woman she is today.

"As we began our talk, we were interrupted by Joan's secretary with a message that co-star John Forsythe was trying to reach her."

Collins: John Forsythe is trying to reach me? It must be something to do with Linda [Evans]. I'd better call him back. [She makes the call but doesn't reach him] Linda is sick. She had her eye scratched by a cat. I talked with her today. She was sleeping with her cat. [Pauses] I guess that's what you get for playing with your pussy.

[Q] Playboy: You mean we're going to start out catty?

[A] Collins: Are you on?

[Q] Playboy: We're on.

[A] Collins: Oh, shit! [Laughs]

[Q] Playboy: Before we really get going, do you think you can ask your service to answer the phone for you, so we won't have any interruptions?

[A] Collins: Oh, you mean I'm not allowed to speak on the phone?

[Q] Playboy: Well, you wouldn't want your end of the conversations to go into the Interview, would you? You might be annoyed later on.

[A] Collins: I wouldn't be annoyed. After all, we just have a job to do.

[Q] Playboy: Not a bad job, either--interviewing one of the sexiest ladies around.

[A] Collins: Should I go upstairs and put on a nice suspender belt and garters and a see-through bra, heavily slinging a loose lynx coat over my shoulders, with a chauffeur's cap rakishly tilted over one eye?

[Q] Playboy: That would be nice. Though it wouldn't be the first time you've posed in something provocative. In fact, your walls are covered with magazine covers on which you've appeared through the years. How far back do they go?

[A] Collins: I was 16 when I first appeared on a cover. Somebody came to my school and wanted to see the 12 prettiest girls. He picked me out of the 12 as the prettiest. Then there was my first gig in Hollywood, a few years after that. [Points to a 1955 cover of a British magazine] There it is up there--God, I had a big ass! You know, I was a P.T. back then. Do you know what that is?

[Q] Playboy: A prick teaser? We call it a C.T.

[A] Collins: Well, that's what the boys called me, because they all wanted to do it with me, but I wouldn't.

[Q] Playboy: We should probably get right to the subject of your most famous cover, which appeared just a few months ago. That's when your PLAYBOY pictorial appeared, with you on the December 1983 cover. Were you pleased with it?

[A] Collins:Extremely pleased. I've gotten a lot of letters from women over 35 who said, "Hurray! You've shown everybody that women over a particular age can still be attractive--particularly in this magazine, of all magazines!" It's one thing to be in Harper's Bazaar or Vogue, which caters to the older woman, but Playboy--Playboy appeals to young guys. Also, I found everyone in Hollywood talking about it--I was the talk of the town for a month. Bette Midler went on the Johnny Carson show and did a whole thing about how great my body was, and everybody applauded. Then I went on The Merv Griffin Show and the Carson show with Joan Rivers, and they both did a whole thing about how I looked pretty good.

[Q] Playboy: You also told Rivers that you did it for feminism. Was that an afterthought?

[A] Collins: It was in my mind. I didn't know how the photo spread was going to be taken, but I saw it as a step ahead for the feminist movement--which is involved not just in equal pay but in proving that a woman can be attractive at any age.

[Q] Playboy: Have you received any adverse reaction to your posing?

[A] Collins: Not at all; believe me, it's been incredibly positive! Even my father and my son and my daughters. In fact, I think it's done a lot for my career.

[Q] Playboy: How?

[A] Collins: It's made me more popular.

[Q] Playboy: How did the Dynasty crew react?

[A] Collins: The day it came out, we were shooting at the airport and about 25 crew members came walking toward me holding their copies of PLAYBOY open to my photo spread. God, it was like a great phalanx of walking Playboys!

[Q] Playboy: Would you do it again?

[A] Collins: What for? Playboy wouldn't have me again, and there's no other magazine that's as good as Playboy.

[Q] Playboy: Do you think you'll start a trend for women over 50 to pose in the buff?

[A] Collins: It depends. When it appeared, I said to a friend at a party, "I think I've decided to become notorious." And he said, "What do you mean, decided? You've always been notorious." Listen, if I hadn't looked good in Playboy, I wouldn't have done it. I'm far too vain. I've too much pride and I'm much too intelligent to stand there with fat arms and a big, fat belly. To me, I've got a great body. Sometimes it looks terrific, and if it's photographed right, it can look absolutely great. So I thought, Fuck it, what the hell? Before it came out, people who heard about it said, "Oh, Joan, shocking girl! There she goes again, always doing the wrong thing, always shocking everybody!" But it's like having an affair. That sort of talk means nothing to me. I do what I want.

[Q] Playboy: Were you tempted to reveal even more than you did?

[A] Collins: No. I learned something from Candy Barr, the famous stripper, when we made a movie together years ago--Seven Thieves. She taught me that the less you reveal, the more exciting it is. Her art was eroticism that involved taking off just her stockings, her long gloves, unzipping her dress, sliding out of it. She taught me how to move and how to look. There was a dance she did that I learned and can still do. I have to say that I became a pretty expert stripper. She was quite a contributing figure in my continuing quest to be a sex symbol--I joke! I jest!

[Q] Playboy: You don't have to try very hard to get attention these days, do you? How do you like being recognized everywhere you go?

[A] Collins: I'll tell you something: I've become aware of it only within the past year. It suddenly hit me. I was walking out of a restaurant, and suddenly these people kept coming up--not fans, people in "the biz," agents, producers, directors, writers, actors--saying, "Joan, how great it is to see you! I'm so happy about your success!" And I thought, Well, gee, my success. When did this suddenly happen? I thought it was kind of indicative, because one of my former agents told me that if I ever became really successful, the "woodwork people" would come out. And that has happened.

[Q] Playboy: Who are they?

[A] Collins: I don't mean to insult them by saying this, but there are people who actually pursue people of ephemeral fame and success, inviting them to their dinners and their parties. And I know perfectly well that it's only because I'm successful in this TV series at this moment. But, hell, I'm enjoying it. I'm in a top television show playing a tough, meaty, wonderful role, and I'm not going to go around crying in my beer because people are snapping my picture. When I go into a restaurant now, it's like the Red Sea parts. I'm not going to say that I don't enjoy that. I'm not going to say I'd much rather sit at the bar and wait while the maitre d' treats me like some piece of shit. Who am I kidding? I want to go in and get my table. I like it.

[Q] Playboy: Is this, then, a kind of peak for you?

[A] Collins: Who was it who said, "It is better to travel hopefully than to arrive"? Whoever it was was a fucking genius. I don't want to think that I'm at the peak. In my own mind, I'm not. I feel I'm still traveling hopefully, and I don't want to get there yet, because my head is not in the right place to be able to handle it all.

[Q] Playboy: Why? Could you go haywire?

[A] Collins: I'm not going to go haywire; I'm far too old and experienced and clever to do that. I've seen them come and go. I just don't want to get big-headed and become like those surly creatures who make ridiculous demands and have everybody hate them. It is ephemeral, I know it is. My ambition now is to solidify my acting reputation so that I can come out of Dynasty and get other shots. I want to play all those parts I've wanted all those years and haven't been able to get.

[Q] Playboy: But isn't the role of Alexis one of the juiciest parts you could ever hope to find?

[A] Collins: There's a certain satisfaction in saying that I did 52 movies in a period of 30 years--most of which were crap--and managed to stay in the mainstream and get a good role in a television series. And it was not a hot series when I joined it. It was number 38 in the ratings and very much a road-company rip-off of Dallas. Yet I managed to make something out of the material. But I can't compare myself with an actress who has had the kind of material that Glenda Jackson, Jane Fonda, Diane Keaton, Meryl Streep, Faye Dunaway, Dyan Cannon or Natalie Wood has had. None of the movie material I've had has been good. But of everything I've done, the basic, raw material I have to work with in Dynasty is an actor's dream. Some of it is over the top, it's overly melodramatic, it's larger than life, it can be unbelievable. But it's given me a chance to stretch myself.

[Q] Playboy: Were you instrumental in developing Alexis' look and character?

[A] Collins: Yes. I knew I had to make an impact. I don't watch very much television. I'd seen Dallas a few times, Hart to Hart, Charlie's Angels, and I realized all those women, as beautiful as some of them were, dressed and acted pretty much like everybody else did. I thought, I must put into this part a European kind of attitude and a certain way of dressing, a certain look that is not a la mode right now. I wanted to make a statement with my clothes: In the Forties and Fifties, women looked great, with suits and hats and gloves and expensive jewelry. So I started to develop a look, and a lot of my success is based on that. Now I hear that there's a bunch of older actresses who watch me in Dynasty and make favorable remarks. They probably don't realize that they're watching somebody who watched them as a child and is doing today what they were doing in 1950.

[Q] Playboy: Is there envy among the other members of the show? You're smiling.

[A] Collins:[Laughs] Do you think I'm going to answer that question? But, no, the tabloids make up these ludicrous stories about how I've been out with Linda Evans' boyfriend--totally untrue--or they report that I say things about her and she says things about me. I've never said anything against Linda. I adore her. We have a lot in common. We're survivors in this business. We both started off with the stigma of being beautiful sex objects. We live on the same street. We both drive Mercedeses. And we both believe that anything is possible if you believe strongly enough in it.

[Q] Playboy: Have you gotten used to being weekly fodder for the tabloids?

[A] Collins: It's like living your life in a fish bowl. And the press loves to pretend your real life is like your television life. But it is just a soap opera. I'm not knocking it. It's my bread and butter--or my broccoli-and-cream-cheese dip--but I don't think people care that much. See, most movie stars--I hate that term--are not very bright. They are dumb. The same goes for television stars. I met one the other day, the star of a major television series. I shan't name him.

[Q] Playboy: How about naming the series?

[A] Collins: Well...our competition. And this man was talking like and acting like the character that he plays. He was just so overbearing and so stupid, using a phony accent, which I know he doesn't have, asking me if I allowed people to smoke on our set. I said, "Well, sure." He said, "You've got enough clout not to let them. I don't allow anybody to smoke on my set." [Director] Billy Wilder overheard us and asked me later, "Who is that asshole?" I said, "You obviously don't watch TV, Billy; he's a very famous star." The man has totally believed his own publicity.

[Q] Playboy: Since you're obviously talking about Larry Hagman----

[A] Collins: I'm not saying who it is.

[Q] Playboy: Well, let's acknowledge that Hagman is on your rival series, Dallas, and has a well-known aversion to smoking-

[A] Collins: Well, I didn't say it.

[Q] Playboy: Anyway, didn't you and Hagman co-star in a film in 1970?

[A] Collins:Three in the Cellar, yeah.

[Q] Playboy: What was he like then?

[A] Collins: I knew him earlier than that, when he was going to school in England for a time, and we dated once. He was a very shy young boy of 19 or 20. I was 16 or 17. We were reminiscing about that the other day. He came over to me at a dinner party recently and I said, "Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could be guests on each other's shows?" He said he'd love to do it. I said I'd create havoc in Dallas while he created havoc in Denver. But our producers would never go for it. Anyway, Larry was different back when I met him. He was always a touch crazy, but he certainly didn't have the Southern accent he uses in real life now.

[Q] Playboy: Is there a real competitive feeling between Dynasty and Dallas?

[A] Collins: Yes, there is.

[Q] Playboy: How do you compare the two villains in the shows--your Alexis and Hagman's J.R.?

[A] Collins: I don't watch Dallas, so it would be hard for me to draw a comparison. I do know that Alexis would never kill and I know J.R. would. Alexis has a tremendous love for children; I don't think J.R. has any love for anybody other than himself. J.R. has a good sense of humor; I'd like Alexis to have a better sense of humor.

[Q] Playboy: Is it true that Sophia Loren was offered Alexis before you?

[A] Collins: Yes. They had endless conversations with [Loren's husband, producer Carlo] Ponti.

[Q] Playboy: Could she have played it as bitchy as you?

[A] Collins: Sure. It's easy to play a bitch.

[Q] Playboy: In fact, you did it even before Dynasty, when you starred in a film called The Bitch in 1979.

[A] Collins: I hate, hate, hate that film! It was just a cheap imitation of The Stud. I didn't like the script, I didn't like the director.

[Q] Playboy: Didn't your sister, Jackie, write the script?

[A] Collins: Yeah, but it wasn't nearly as good as The Stud. It was just an utter rip-off. It didn't have the rawness and the kind of modern vulgarity that The Stud had. And I hated, loathed and detested the title with such a passion that I practically went down on my knees begging the producers not to use it. They wanted the ads to say, Joan Collins is the Bitch. I wanted them to be Joan Collins as the Bitch. I remember I was in the south of France when one of those planes flew by at the Cannes Film Festival with a banner that read Joan Collins is the Bitch. I thought then, I'm in trouble here; this is going to stick. And it did. It's one thing to play a part, but it's another for it to become your nickname. Now it's Princess Di and The Bitch.

[Q] Playboy: Have you always had a bitchy, intimidating sort of look?

[A] Collins: Not at all. I was told when I was a little girl that I looked like Loretta Young. There is a certain type of big-eyed, wide-apart-eyes look: Jean Simmons also looked a bit like me; Lesley-Anne Down looks like a younger version of me; I looked a bit like Elizabeth Taylor at a certain time; and Natalie Wood and I had a look of each other in the Sixties. None of them was particularly intimidating.

[Q] Playboy: When you were 22, weren't you voted the girl with the most beautiful face in England?

[A] Collins: You know, the papers asked my father what he thought when I was voted the most beautiful girl, and he said, "I can't see that. She's got a nice face and she has a nice personality, but I wouldn't say that she was particularly beautiful." He always had this good knack of bringing us down to earth. But I felt very irritated that he couldn't just say, "Yes, she is; she's wonderful and beautiful and gorgeous!"

[Q] Playboy: Your father was an agent; were you surrounded by actors and actresses when you grew up?

[A] Collins: No, he represented variety acts, not stage ones. They were mostly comedians, singers, jugglers, conjurers, ventriloquists. My dad has two sisters in the business, too. One was a chorus girl who had an affair with [musical-comedy actor] Jack Buchanan. He was, I suppose, the Warren Beatty of his day. My other aunt was an agent, too. She's 75 and is a wonderful character, always getting into taxis and saying, "Do you know who I am? I'm Joan Collins' aunt!" She often gets to ride free, which she likes a lot.

[Q] Playboy: What about your mother? Didn't she always tell you that men were no good?

[A] Collins: She didn't say men were no good, she said sex was no good. I think what my mother was trying to tell me was that sex for a man is much less important than it is for a woman. I'm generalizing, but I think, on the whole, it is a more important emotional experience for women than it is for men. That's really what my mother was trying to say. Certainly, she was right about me.

[Q] Playboy: Is it true that your mother refused to tell you what the word fuck meant?

[A] Collins: I see you've read my book.

[Q] Playboy: Yes, your autobiography, Past Imperfect. But it's the uncensored British edition.

[A] Collins: It's true, she didn't want to tell me. And she said that if Daddy said that word, she would divorce him, it was such a bad word.

[Q] Playboy: Was your mother timid?

[A] Collins: Yeah. I like women with balls, with guts. My mother was the most wonderful, sweet, tender, motherly woman you would ever wish to find, as well as being beautiful. But she didn't stand up for herself, and I had a certain lack of respect for her because of that, particularly in my teens. She was such a slave. She thought of herself as so secondary to Daddy, who had a wild temper with us kids.

[Q] Playboy: You're referring to your younger sister, Jackie, who has become a best-selling novelist. Did you each grow up wanting to be what you now are?

[A] Collins: She used to write stories when we were kids and I used to illustrate them, because I was very tempted to become a dress designer. I was torn between that and being an actress. You know, Jackie's book [Hollywood Wives] was a best seller and I'm one of the most popular TV actresses. What do you suppose the odds are that two English sisters would make it this big here in America, where the competition is so fierce? I'd say billions to one! I think that had a lot to do with how our father and mother brought us up, don't you think? It wasn't just in the genes.

[Q] Playboy: Your sister writes very steamy novels; has she ever used you as a model for any of her characters?

[A] Collins: No.

[Q] Playboy: Are you sure?

[A] Collins: I'm positive.

[Q] Playboy: Your book was pretty steamy in its own right. What made you decide to write Past Imperfect?

[A] Collins: I was in dire need of bread at the time. And [agent] Swifty Lazar talked me into it, because I'd had a very interesting life and was still relatively young and nobody else had written her memoirs at such an early age. I also wanted to talk about the misconceptions of female sexuality--something still not considered quite right by middle America.

[Q] Playboy: In what way?

[A] Collins: Oh, that it is all right for men to have sex indiscriminately or with a lot of partners, but it isn't for women. So, in a way, I tried to explain that in the book.

[Q] Playboy: You certainly gave it a try. The list of men you say you slept with has a lot of famous names.

[A] Collins: But, see, I don't think I shopped anybody in my book.

[Q] Playboy: You mean put down?

[A] Collins: No, shopped is British for selling people out, using things you know about them to make them grist for your mill. Anything I said about Warren Beatty, for instance, is pretty well known, right?

[Q] Playboy: You said you and he went at it five times a day; other women have claimed less or more--it depends on who's kissing and telling.

[A] Collins: There's a sort of mystique that's grown up about Warren. Every girl, every tacky starlet in England who's gotten £25,000 for writing My Night with...always mentions the same guys. It's always George Hamilton, Warren Beatty, Ryan O'Neal, Rod Stewart, David Bowie. The same "fab five" that everybody's fucked. But I didn't think when I wrote mine that it would be considered a kiss-and-tell book. If it had, there were names I could have put in that would have made it a much hotter seller.

[Q] Playboy: Such as?

[A] Collins: I'm not going to tell you. Jesus Christ, you're shitty!

[Q] Playboy: We had to ask.

[A] Collins: I know you did. The people I wrote about were people who had a real effect on my life at that particular time. There was an importance there. The mistake I made with the book, which was a mistake that I made in my life, was that my heart ruled me rather than my ambition to succeed as an actress. And that is now reversed. My ambition as an actress is ruling and superseding any feelings that I have about romantic entanglement.

[Q] Playboy: Will the new version being published here reflect that?

[A] Collins: Yeah, I have 75 pages of new manuscript of the continuing saga of Joan Collins' Past Imperfect that I wrote last summer. As you've said, I've also censored certain things.

[Q] Playboy: Why?

[A] Collins: Certain descriptions were a bit too graphic. There was too much concentration on men and not enough on career or how I really felt.

[Q] Playboy: Do you still tease readers?

[A] Collins: I? Tease? How dare you! My God!

[Q] Playboy: Well, when you wrote about Harry Belafonte as your lover, you didn't use his name; you called him the "King of Calypso."

[A] Collins: It's all changed for America. Belafonte's not in it. It wasn't a very important part.

[Q] Playboy: Not even the part where you say his body was the best male body you had ever seen?

[A] Collins: I didn't write that.

[Q] Playboy: Yes, you did.

[A] Collins: Listen, bodies have changed a great deal since then. A good body in the Fifties is very different from a good body in the Eighties.

[Q] Playboy: Did you also censor the part about Nicky Hilton, who used to keep a scoreboard next to his bed to record each consummation?

[A] Collins: Who wants to know about him? That's too boring. He's not going to be in the book.

[Q] Playboy: He's out, too? Well, it did sound bizarre, what with the pill bottles, porno books, crucifix and gun on his night table.

[A] Collins: I was just trying to give a little flavor, you know--a little description of him as a person.

[Q] Playboy: Would it upset you if all the men you wrote about wrote their own books with graphic descriptions of you?

[A] Collins: It would bother me if they all did it. But if one or two did it, I wouldn't mind. I mean, it would bother me if Warren wrote a book and I wasn't included in it. I would think it was pretty curious. But why are you so fascinated with this fucking book? I wrote a beauty book, too. I've written three books.

[Q] Playboy: Because your autobiography caused a scandal in England, then got more notoriety in the U.S., when you returned a $100,000 advance rather than publish it as it was here. That makes it a curiosity, at least. Why did you stop it from being published here?

[A] Collins: Because of the absolute fucking outcry from everybody in England about this "shocking" book. And those people know me! The English have known me since I was 16--I've always been sort of a household name in England, even when I was not as successful. I thought, If they do this to me in England, God knows what they're going to do in America, which is a much more puritanical country. I mean, the British have three newspapers that feature nude girls every day and report the sexual exploits of everybody from prime ministers to pop stars, and there's a great deal of advertising based on sex. So I was astonished at the flak I took just because I talked rather frankly about sex and about women's attitudes toward it. God, did I get flak! I got insulted on television shows. I mean, they made me cry. It was as if I had done something obscene. And all I was doing was being honest.

[Q] Playboy: Painfully honest. You wrote about your first boyfriend, who wouldn't take your virginity even though you were willing. You described it as a sadomasochistic relationship.

[A] Collins: I took all that out here.

[Q] Playboy: Why? It seemed a courageous thing to have written.

[A] Collins: My editors at Simon & Schuster didn't want that. Maybe because he was gay. They gave me definite advice about what they didn't want. But it's true. I was a girl of 16 who felt the time was ripe to "do it," as we used to say in those days, and the chap I wanted to do it with was unable to do it. Of course, I didn't know. I never even saw a naked man until I got married.

[Q] Playboy: Whatever happened to him?

[A] Collins: I heard ten years later that he became an actor, did fairly well, had a nervous breakdown onstage one day. He was carried off screaming and yelling. He was sent to a mental home for a year. Probably all to do with the fact that he realized he had missed his chance with me.

[Q] Playboy: It was around that time that you appeared in your first major film, I Believe in You, with Laurence Harvey. What was that like?

[A] Collins: It was awesome. I was very much in awe of simply everybody. I tested for that part three times. Every young actress in England had been after it, and I got it. I didn't know how to act, I didn't know what to do, I didn't know what a camera was. I stumbled and stuttered my way through.

[Q] Playboy: Did your urge to "do it" include your first leading man?

[A] Collins: How can I say what I was like when I was 16? I can't say I said, "Hey, Larry Harvey, I want you to fuck me!" It wasn't that at all.

[Q] Playboy: You did write that he had a "deep sadness" because he wasn't "all the man" he should have been.

[A] Collins: Did I say that? Oh, God, hoisted by my own petard!

[Q] Playboy: You became friends, though, didn't you?

[A] Collins: Yeah, he introduced me to my husband.

[Q] Playboy: And the first time you went out with him--Maxwell Reed--he deceived you, drugged and raped you, didn't he?

[A] Collins: Um-hmm. He told me we were going to a private club, so I walked up five flights of steps to the apartment of a man I didn't know, who had been a famous movie star in England. It was our first date and I was terrified, feeling that I didn't in any way measure up to what he expected. I was 17 and he was 33.

[Q] Playboy: How did you feel after you realized he had taken advantage of you?

[A] Collins: Disgusted. It was just like my mother said: the pits. She always told me it was going to be awful, that it was dreadful. She was absolutely right. But I went out with him later on because I wanted to prove that she was wrong.

[Q] Playboy: Was she?

[A] Collins: She was, because we saw each other again, and he finally asked me to marry him. So I was able to prove that my mother's attitude toward men and sex was wrong.

[Q] Playboy: Your description of that first time with Reed is horrifying: You kept throwing up and he kept sticking your head into a bucket, and then he put a "strange, soft object" into your mouth.

[A] Collins: Oh, God, don't talk about that! That's out. That is out, out, out.

[Q] Playboy: You also describe how later on in the marriage, he had a slipped disk and became very cruel and sadistic. What did you feel when you realized you were married to a man who couldn't get aroused unless he beat you up?

[A] Collins: Fear. Just fear. Fear of failure. Fear of upsetting my father, of having a failure at marriage.

[Q] Playboy: Then there was the time you were at a night club and Reed met an Arab sheik and agreed to sell you to him for one night. Was he serious?

[A] Collins: Yes, he was bloody serious. He was exceedingly serious. Dead serious. The Arab had offered him £10,000 to bed me for the evening. I said, "You've got to be joking. No way." He said, "You're a stupid little fool. We could buy a cottage, we could go to Hollywood and make our fortune."

[Q] Playboy: What happened then?

[A] Collins: I left him. That minute. I got a taxi, in tears, and went home to Mommy. That was the end of the marriage.

[Q] Playboy: But some years later, he tried to blackmail you with nude pictures he had taken of you when you were together.

[A] Collins: Yes. I paid him for the pictures, but he gave me different ones--though he never used the real ones. He's dead. Maxwell Reed's dead.

[Q] Playboy: Other men continued to try to use you, especially producers and studio executives. You wrote that after moving to Hollywood, you had a run-in with Darryl F. Zanuck, who was head of production at 20th Century-Fox when you were under contract there. What happened when he grabbed you in a hotel corridor?

[A] Collins: He grabbed me in the hallway one day with a cigar sticking out of his face, got me up against the wall, pressing his...well, he made a rather overt pass at me, saying things like what a great lover he was and why did I bother wasting my time with those callow boys I was going out with when he could show me a good time? I laughed at him. It's a good trick--a man can't stand to be laughed at.

[Q] Playboy: Have such attacks happened often?

[A] Collins: Yeah, among certain men, particularly older ones. Younger men don't do that.

[Q] Playboy: Do you think you would have had better roles in movies if you'd gone along with some of those men?

[A] Collins: Absolutely. I know I would have. I would have gotten Cleopatra if I had gone along with [Spyros] Skouras' [chairman of the board at Fox] advances. I'm sure I would have. I was pretty upset when Elizabeth Taylor got the part.

[Q] Playboy: Do you regret having resisted?

[A] Collins: Never. I have never, ever compromised myself in that way, and I never will. It's very important that you put that in. Because it's the truth.

[Q] Playboy: Do you think your career would have changed had you done Cleopatra?

[A] Collins: Well, I wouldn't have fallen in love with Richard Burton. I think that the film would have been just another sort of period schlock potboiler, like Esther and the King and those things that I did.

[Q] Playboy: Speaking of Burton, didn't he come on to you when you starred opposite him in Sea Wife in 1956?

[A] Collins: Burton came on to everyone. It's like saying the Pope is Catholic. I told him I don't mess around. Quite frankly, I didn't fancy him. He was quite arrogant. He was also married and his wife was there, and I was in love with somebody. I really don't find it a terrific turn-on when somebody says, "I have made love to every one of my leading ladies-don't break my record." That's not guaranteed to send me galloping between the satin sheets.

[Q] Playboy: You did do some galloping around with Sydney Chaplin, son of Charlie Chaplin, didn't you?

[A] Collins: Sydney was very funny. He had a scurrilous wit that was almost sacrilegious. He was the life and soul of parties.

[Q] Playboy: Did he really do comedy routines during your lovemaking?

[A] Collins: Yeah. We both did. We had great fun. For the first time, I was on my own and running with this fast, cosmopolitan European crowd. We used to stay up all night drinking absinthe and playing games--a very exciting, kind of Scott Fitzgeraldish time. Rome in the Fifties was amazing. It was the full dolce vita, it really was. And those particular people were extremely exciting. There were writers and producers--and Brigitte Bardot, the new girl in town. She was with Roger Vadim. I disapprove of what she says about herself now. I think it's shocking.

[Q] Playboy: What's that?

[A] Collins: Oh, she's so stupid. She says, "I'm 49 years old now and I'm no longer pretty or attractive and I won't be seen in a bikini, because nobody wants to see me. My flesh is rotting." It's so pathetic. I don't think women should think that way about themselves!

[Q] Playboy: Perhaps she feels that way. Look at what Greta Garbo did when she retired from public life.

[A] Collins: Garbo's about 100, isn't she?

[Q] Playboy: Not quite.

[A] Collins: I never thought she was either very beautiful or a very good actress. But she had mystery. Something I'm not going to have when this Interview comes out.

[Q] Playboy: You'll have----

[A] Collins: Celebrity I've already got.

[Q] Playboy: Notoriety.

[A] Collins: But I want to have mystery!

[Q] Playboy: Have another glass of champagne. Back to Sydney Chaplin. You met his father, Charlie; what was your impression of him?

[A] Collins: He reminded me of my own father. Austere. Kind of dull. Patriarchal. I sensed a tremendous coldness and a surprising lack of humor. Sydney had all the humor in the family. I felt a certain disapproval of me. But then, I always felt everybody had a disapproval of me.

[Q] Playboy: That may not be surprising; most actors are insecure people.

[A] Collins: Do you think I'm insecure?

[Q] Playboy: It's too early to tell.

[A] Collins: We've been talking for five fucking hours, for Christ's sake! You don't know yet whether I'm insecure? I've told you everything except how many times a day I go to the loo.

[Q] Playboy: Do you feel you're insecure?

[A] Collins: Obviously, one is insecure about certain things. And now you're going to ask me what they are.

[Q] Playboy: Well....

[A] Collins: I'm kind of insecure and cocky at the same time. I'm very secure about the way I look. I'm quite secure about the way I act, in terms of performing--though I was tremendously insecure about my talent when I was a girl of 16, with no experience at all, thrown onto the screen in a major leading role, with a huge publicity build-up. And the kid didn't know how to act! I got a lot of really rotten reviews, and they've lingered. People still say, "Oh, my God, you were so good in that; I didn't know you could act!" I'm also insecure about the fact that I left school at such an early age, so I feel insecure about my intellect. I'm not as well read as I'd like to be. My children are shocked by me. They say, "Mommy, why do you read Vogue and Harper's Bazaar when you could be reading...?" I say, "Look, I have to read my scripts, I have to work, I don't want to educate my brain! My relaxation is reading Vogue and Harper's Bazaar and Us and People, thank you very much." So I'm insecure about that. But not insecure enough to do something about it.

[Q] Playboy: Let's go back to Sydney. How did that chapter of your life end?

[A] Collins: It was kind of funny, in a way. We were going up to Palm Springs and he was going before me, because I was working on The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing. He said he would drive my car and meet me at the airport if I took the plane from L.A. to Palm Springs, which is not a pleasant flight. So I arrived at the airport at seven and no Sydney. I hailed a taxi and figured he'd be at the Racquet Club. By that time, I was really steaming. Sydney was sitting there with Gene Kelly and a bunch of cronies and they had been drinking all afternoon. They were absolutely smashed. I stood there bristling and said, in my high little voice, "Sydney, I have been working at the studio all day. You took my car, you promised to pick me up, I had to find a taxi, it's 105 degrees." He just ignored me, took another drink. "Fuck you, Sydney!" I cried. "Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you!" He looked at me and said, very slowly, "And fuck you, too, honey." I said, "Sydney, that is the last time that you will ever fuck me." And I turned around and got on the next plane back to Los Angeles.

[Q] Playboy: You've had some good exit lines, haven't you?

[A] Collins:[Laughs] A bit crude.

[Q] Playboy: After Sydney came Arthur Loew, Jr., scion of one of the royal Hollywood families.

[A] Collins: What is this, the story of my life?

[Q] Playboy: You are the subject of this Interview.

[A] Collins: He's a very small part of my life, very unimportant.

[Q] Playboy: OK, we'll pass him right by.

[A] Collins:[Laughs] OK, good. Though I did have another good exit line with him, now that you mention it.

[Q] Playboy: Well?

[A] Collins: Arthur and I were dancing at a New Year's Eve party and were having a row, and he said, "You are a fucking bore." And I said, "And you are a boring fuck!" And that was that. Pretty witty, huh? We broke up after that.

[Q] Playboy: You got to know James Dean around that time, shortly before he died. What did you think of him?

[A] Collins: Intense, moody, incredible charisma. He was short, myopic, not good-looking in life, really. He was very close to Oscar Levant, who was the town wit at the time. Billy Wilder is now the town wit, but then it was Levant, the aged sage, the guru of the Nick Adams set: Natalie Wood, Nick Adams, Sal Mineo, Jimmy Dean, me, Arthur Loew, Paul Newman--always sitting with a can of beer--George Englund, Marlon Brando. Errol Flynn used to come over, too. Flynn was an old man to us. Probably 45, but we considered him positively geriatric. And he used to do shtick to amuse us kids. He'd get on the floor on all fours and bark like a dog. Dean and the rest of us would go into hoots of laughter.

I drove with Jimmy in his new red Porsche once. We were pissed [drunk] and went down Sunset and I was scared. He had the windows open, the music up, driving really fast. He died in that same Porsche two or three months later. You know who he was like? A young, better-looking Woody Allen, in a way. He had those same qualities of shyness, uncertainty and insecurity. I saw Woody Allen not long ago coming out of Elaine's with his head down, being escorted out by Elaine. I went up to him and said, "Mr. Allen, I just wanted to say hello because I admire you and think you're a great talent and brilliant and I really empathize with you about a certain facet of your character, which is that you're shy--because I'm shy, too." He looked me over and said quietly, "Well, you could have fooled me."

[Q] Playboy: Were you shy when you met Brando in 1955, at the height of his career?

[A] Collins: Oh, total awe and admiration. He was fascinating, scary. Not somebody I would want to get involved with for one second.

[Q] Playboy: Was he at all shy around you?

[A] Collins: No, Brando is not shy. Brando is smart enough not to come on to a woman unless he thinks that he's going to get somewhere. I was involved with his best friend at the time----

[Q] Playboy: George Englund?

[A] Collins: Yes. So we had a sort of passing relationship. I admired him and listened to him when he talked. But you know, I don't think people are so interested in Brando anymore. They're much more interested in Tom Selleck, Larry Hagman. Movie stars aren't where it's at today.

[Q] Playboy: Spoken like a true TV star.

[A] Collins: Well, I'm not in the movie business anymore. I'm in the television business. You see, Brando was the most wonderful actor once. The thing I think is terribly depressing about him is that he hates everything to do with this business so much. It's really sad. I read your Interview with him. I don't think he really feels there are no artists and acting is trivial. I think he felt it was a good way to make an impact. It's certainly totally different. I mean, you start off by wearing a torn T-shirt when everybody's in blue three-piece suits; then you balloon to 300 pounds and tell an interviewer there are no artists since Picasso.

He was right about there being no great men, no great leaders. Not since De Gaulle, Churchill and Kennedy. Other than Mrs. Thatcher. I adore her. She is the savior of Britain. But I remember reading the Brando Interview and thinking, This man is so unhappy. I'm totally the opposite of him. I think this is a wonderful profession to be in if you happen to be successful. When you think that 99 and nine tenths of our profession are clawing for a living, to be successful and make money at it, to be able not only to feed and house your family but to go down to Rodeo Drive and drop a couple of thou in an afternoon and live well is a great bonus. Because I'm getting paid for something I wanted to do since I was eight years old. And I was able to go through the really fallow periods, of which there have been a lot, without clinging to drugs, booze, men or any of those other things.

[Q] Playboy: Wait a minute. You've never taken drugs or resorted to alcohol?

[A] Collins: I am very hot on the old Cristal and white wine. But drugs? No. They're an absolute no. I abhor what they do to people. I was given some cocaine in St.Tropez in the Sixties and it just freaked me. I was at a disco and danced until about six in the morning and didn't sleep for three nights. Then I had a postnasal drip for three weeks, and I thought, Fuck this for a laugh.

And, yeah, I've smoked a joint, but it has a very bad effect on me. Of course, I wouldn't today--I'm terrified of getting herpes. I never smoke a cigarette from somebody's lips or even drink from someone's glass anymore. There's a moral laxity around. Herpes and AIDS have come as the great plagues to teach us all a lesson. It was fine to have sexual freedom, but it was abused. Apparently, the original AIDS sufferers were having 500 or 600 contacts a year, and they are now inflicting it on heterosexuals. That's bloody scary. A good reason for celibacy. It's like the Roman Empire. Wasn't everybody running around just covered in syphilis? And then it was destroyed by the volcano.

[Q] Playboy: That's bending public health and ancient history a little out of shape, but let's get back to your life history. Was George Englund the love of your life?

[A] Collins: The love of my life--I haven't met him yet. [Sighs. Long pause] I suppose up until I met Ron [Kass], yes. And then I thought that Ron was.

[Q] Playboy: You called that time the most traumatic and emotionally upsetting of your life.

[A] Collins: Well, I was in love with a married man, which I would not advocate to anybody. He was brilliant and witty, charming, urbane, good-looking and clever, very successful. Had a wife and three children. He was also a Cancer who wanted to keep both things going.

[Q] Playboy: You wrote that his influence was so great that you would have skated naked around Rockefeller Center if he'd asked you to.

[A] Collins: Are you really going to continue asking me questions out of the book? Read me your questions! I want to hear more of this crap you've got written down there!

[Q] Playboy: Crap? This is your life.

[A] Collins:[Gets up, goes toward interviewer] Let me see those. Let me see. Come on.

[Q] Playboy: You're not supposed to read them. They're written to be asked in the natural course of our conversation.

[A] Collins: Let me see! I just want to see one. God, you're terrible to me!

[Q] Playboy: Has this Interview been so painful so far?

[A] Collins: It's work. Actually, I'm enjoying this. Dreadful! People do like to talk about themselves, don't they? It's like fishing or catching a butterfly, isn't it?

[Q] Playboy: There's one last Englund story that may give an insight into your personality. It has to do with the diamond necklace Rafael Trujillo, Jr., gave you after a romantic evening on his yacht. When Englund got upset about it, didn't you do something your character Alexis would have been proud of?

[A] Collins: George got very upset the night I wore the necklace and he ripped it off at Romanoff's, throwing it across the floor in front of half of Hollywood. I scrambled around on my hands and knees, trying to get all the bits of diamonds. A few months later, I was in New York and I saw a jewelry shop called Jolie Gabor, and one of its imitation necklaces looked terribly like mine. I bought it for $150, and a week later, I was walking with George along the beach in Malibu on a very romantic moonlit night. I delved into my purse and pulled out this necklace and said, "I've been thinking about what you said about the necklace, and because I love you so much, this is what I'm going to do with it." And I chucked it into the ocean, to be swallowed by some passing whale or seal. He was absolutely flabbergasted. He yelled, "You've just thrown $15,000 away." I said, "Yes, but I know how much it upset you, and I want you to know that your love means more to me." It was a pretty good scene.

[Q] Playboy: Did he ever find out?

[A] Collins: He will now.

[Q] Playboy: Didn't Beatty also give you a piece of jewelry in an interesting way?

[A] Collins: Chopped liver was our favorite snack. One day, Warren wanted me to get some chopped liver for him while he watched television. I got it and opened it up, and there was this ring--gold, studded with diamonds and pearls. "What's this?" I asked. "It's for you," he said. "That's your engagement ring, fool." He had a certain throwaway way with a gift.

[Q] Playboy: What happened to the ring?

[A] Collins: It's in my safe-deposit box along with all the others.

[Q] Playboy: How many rings are there?

[A] Collins: There are a few.

[Q] Playboy: Did you really think you'd marry Beatty?

[A] Collins: At the time? Yeah. I was engaged. I had a wedding dress made. But we were just having such terrible fights that I realized it was absolute stupidity. There's no point in marrying somebody whom you're arguing with four hours a day. I don't want to talk about Warren--I want to talk about me.

[Q] Playboy: Well, he was once very much a part of your story.

[A] Collins: Yeah, we were sort of the latter-day Troy Donahue and Sandra Dee. For a brief moment in time, we conquered the fan mags. We would go and eat a health-burger at the Aware Inn and meander down to the corner drugstore and flip through dozens of magazines and look at our pictures. I'll tell you something: Most actors still read those magazines, except that they buy them rather than flip through the pages. We'd buy only the ones that we thought we looked good in.

[Q] Playboy: You got pregnant in that relationship and had an abortion. Did you both think it best to have it? Did he talk you into it? Did you feel it would hurt your career to have the baby?

[A] Collins: Yeah, all of those things. [Laughs] Everybody talks about Warren. Let him remain an enigma. He should play Howard Hughes. Perfect. Listen, I haven't seen Warren for ages. He's a totally different person from when I knew him. I don't know what he's like. I knew him in his 20s; he's now in his 40s. He's immensely ambitious, very smart, almost calculating. But very shy. When I knew him, he was certainly running after the people in town who could be of benefit to him in his career. Bloody clever. I think he's much better as a producer and an entrepreneur than as an actor. I'm totally uninterested in anything he has to say or do. I don't even see his movies.

[Q] Playboy: Really? He makes good ones.

[A] Collins: I lie. I did see Reds. Lost a fortune, didn't it?

[Q] Playboy: Did you see Shampoo?

[A] Collins: Yes. I guess I have seen his movies. He's now, what? Forty-six? He has an immature look. And he still seems to be concerned with his looks. He's not like Paul Newman or Sean Connery. I think Sean is utterly wonderful, both as an actor and in what he does, which is kind of "So I'm bald and ten pounds overweight; so what?" He's still the most attractive man on the screen. I don't think Warren can do that; he doesn't have the confidence in himself. You have to be very confident to be able to say, "OK, so I've got a few wrinkles now, and maybe my hair is receding, and maybe I can't pull the 18-year-old girls off that I used to be able to." Warren's brilliance is that even after losing a fortune on Reds, he still could get millions of dollars in up-front money to make a movie if he wished. Very clever. Now, ask me original questions.

[Q] Playboy: OK. It seems to us that you come off as strong and tough--until you meet a man. Then you lose that strength. Is that a fair assumption?

[A] Collins: That's the best thing you've asked in half an hour. [Laughs] Yes, I would say that I do. And I hate myself for it, but it's perfectly true. Basically, I become a wimpy clinging violet. At least, that was the way I used to be. I don't know whether or not I'm ever going to get involved in a relationship again. It totally terrifies me. I think the type of man I'd like to get into a relationship with doesn't exist!

[Q] Playboy: Who would be the perfect man for you?

[A] Collins: Well...oh, no, you're not going to catch me on that one, darling. No way. This is the first time in my life I've been free since I was 17, that I have had nobody to answer to. My head rules my heart a lot more now. I'm much more logical. I hate the word calculating, but I mean, once burned, twice shy, right? I've been married three times and have had quite a few relationships. Maybe one gets more discerning as one gets older. Since I've been a free woman, I have not been having very many temper tantrums. I'm much more calm and relaxed. So maybe I'm just meant to live alone.

[Q] Playboy: Have the men in your life always made career decisions for you?

[A] Collins: Yes. [Sighs] I just don't understand men. I just fail to understand them. Maybe they're not sensitive enough.

[Q] Playboy: All men?

[A] Collins: That's true, there are some good ones. I just happened to have picked wrongly.

[Q] Playboy: When you were married to Anthony Newley----

[A] Collins: I don't understand why you're asking me all these questions about all these men! Why are you doing this?

[Q] Playboy: How can we not ask you about Tony Newley? You were married to him for seven years; you had two children----

[A] Collins: Oh, yeah. Tony! Great. Genius.

[Q] Playboy: Come on, Joan.

[A] Collins: All right: He reminded me of Charlie Chaplin. I went to see him in Stop the World, I Want to Get Off and I was absolutely mesmerized. I thought he was spectacularly talented and witty. There's a certain fun that Brits have with one another that you don't get with you Yanks. I'd just broken up with Warren about two weeks previously, so it was sort of from the frying pan into the fire. I realized after a while that given the way he felt about sex outside of marriage, I couldn't continue being married. Look, fidelity is important in a marriage, but it's not that important. Most men, according to my sister, the expert, stray. And sex doesn't mean anything to most men. It's like going off and having, as Paul Newman said, hamburger instead of steak. But when, as Tony felt, it's a way of life and a necessity, I think a woman's got to take stock of whether or not she wants to live another 30 or 40 years with a man with those aspirations. And that was that.

[Q] Playboy: Yet you had an affair with Ryan O'Neal while married to Newley and said you enjoyed being an adulteress.

[A] Collins: I enjoyed being an adulteress at that time because my marriage was falling apart, and I was taking a certain vengeance for the fact that my husband was not being faithful. And fidelity to me is rather important, actually. It sounds a bit square, doesn't it? Have you ever been unfaithful to your wife?

[Q] Playboy: More champagne?

[A] Collins: You wouldn't tell me if you had. She'll probably read this. [Laughs]

[Q] Playboy: Newley was one of Barbra Streisand's flings; you've had a few men in common with her and have known her quite a while, haven't you?

[A] Collins: Yes. When she got the movie Funny Girl, she used to pick my brain about things like lighting and make-up and hair and angles. She's an absolute sponge. She and Brando are very similar. He's a sponge, too. They soak things up. I'm a sieve--things go in and they go out immediately.

[Q] Playboy: She's also the opposite of you when it comes to posing for photographers.

[A] Collins: I can understand why: I've seen pictures of her in English papers; she was wearing a Zeppo Marx suit.

[Q] Playboy: You both are also art-deco and art nouveau collectors, aren't you?

[A] Collins: Barbra came to my house in London about ten years ago. She was so funny. She wanted to see my collection of art deco and art nouveau. So we went around the house and she asked me how much each piece was. I told her and she always said, "Oh, my God, I bought that for ..." and it would usually be half of what I paid.

[Q] Playboy: Streisand told us that she usually knocks off 30 percent of any price given her, since she figures that's how much they jack it up when they know it's her.

[A] Collins: Does she? Well, I'm only half Jewish.

[Q] Playboy: Well, we've just about come to the end of the known men in your life. How did you meet your last husband, Ron Kass?

[A] Collins: One of my best friends had a friend named Ron Kass, who was the head of the Apple corporation, the Beatles' company in London. I said to my friend, "You're always so mean with your friends. I've introduced you to mine; why don't you introduce me to this bloke?" So he brought him over to the house one night. My marriage to Tony was foundering badly at that time, and Ron seemed to be all the things that I had wanted in a man. He was born on the same day as Sydney and Warren; interesting, huh? We were both married, so it was very tricky.

[Q] Playboy: And what happened?

[A] Collins: This is the part that I shall not discuss.

[Q] Playboy: Is he still a sore point?

[A] Collins: He isn't a sore point. He's the father of my daughter, and I made a pact with my daughter's therapist that I'd never discuss Ron.

[Q] Playboy: All right. You and Ron were in Paris when your daughter, Katy, was hit by a car in England. It was a major trauma in your lives, wasn't it?

[A] Collins: Her accident was a major, major, major trauma. Major. We were told she had a less than 40 percent chance of living. When she survived the first 72 hours, we were told that her chances of being normal--walking, talking, being anything other than a brain-injured, hopelessly handicapped child--were very, very small. And Ron and I just refused to believe that. Coma is the next step to death, and every day you're in a coma you're losing some more of life. I was able to muddle through it with my eternal optimism, which is what I've been blessed with. We hired a caravan and lived on the hospital grounds for six weeks. I talked to her those six weeks in the hospital. I held her, touched her, played records for her, put smells under her nose, onions, lemons, perfume. I told her stories. I bought mobiles and put them all over. The most difficult thing was watching her physiotherapy, because she was really like a little animal. Ron gave me the strength to do what I had to do. He kept the really dire truth from me.

[Q] Playboy: Which was?

[A] Collins: That she was going to have brain damage and she might have to be institutionalized. But he kept that from me and just gave me the positive things. The first time I realized that she was aware was when she was lying on my bed, about two months after the accident. Ron and I were joking about something, some kind of scurrilous joke. I think we used the word shit, and she started to laugh. We realized that she understood what we were saying. About a week after that, she said her first word, which was horseshoe.

[Q] Playboy: Has she recovered fully in the three years since the accident?

[A] Collins: She's recovered close to 100 percent. She still has certain problems with balance and memory.

[Q] Playboy: Do you feel that the responsibility of your daughter has changed you?

[A] Collins: I've only started to become mature in the past few years. I was really a kid. It must have something to do with being Gemini. We are just children. Look at Bob Hope, Judy Garland, Marilyn Monroe. There's a tremendous childishness about us.

[Q] Playboy: What have been your biggest mistakes?

[A] Collins: The biggest mistake that I've made in my life is staying with people I should have got rid of--whether it was a maid, a nanny, a husband or a lover. I'm not a very good judge of people.

[Q] Playboy: Does aging scare you?

[A] Collins: No. Death scares me. I don't care how long I live, as long as it's got quality. I don't want to spend the last 15 years of my life sitting in bed watching TV, thank you very much. I've got the kind of metabolism that's going to hold up well against the ravages of time. Too much emphasis is placed on chronological age. I would rather be older and look younger than be younger and look older. I think of myself as a woman of 35. That's how I dress, act, behave. Thirty-eight is the dangerous age for a woman; that's when it all starts to fall apart if she doesn't take care of herself.

[Q] Playboy: Have you ever had cosmetic surgery?

[A] Collins: Absolutely not. There's something horrid about a face lift.

[Q] Playboy: Do you exercise much to keep your figure?

[A] Collins: Do me a favor: Jane Fonda's thing of an hour and a half working yourself to death? It's a bit of a hype. I do 15 minutes a day. Fifty sit-ups, 25 pushups, some weights. Enough.

[Q] Playboy: How do you feel about analysis?

[A] Collins: I went into analysis because it was the thing to do, like getting your nails wrapped. I found out I had some kind of built-in distrust of men because of my father. And I found out that I was a pretty nice person.

[Q] Playboy: What's the worst picture you ever made?

[A] Collins:Empire of the Ants.

[Q] Playboy: And the best?

[A] Collins: I haven't made it yet.

[Q] Playboy: What about The Stud, which Jackie wrote, you starred in and two of your husbands produced?

[A] Collins: I liked some of the things in that. In England, it made more than $20,000,000. I did it for $25,000--isn't that sick?--plus a hefty percentage. I wanted to make it successful; that's why I exploited myself. I thought it would get me back on the track of being a commercial actress.

[Q] Playboy: What do you think of Alfred Hitchcock's famous remark that all actors are cattle?

[A] Collins: Most directors suck! They do. Most directors haven't a clue how to direct traffic. If Hitchcock said that, he was a fat, chauvinistic pig of the first order, and I hate him. I used to be an admirer, but he just lost a fan.

[Q] Playboy: Who do you think are America's best actors?

[A] Collins: It's obvious: Al Pacino and Robert De Niro. I prefer Pacino. What he did in The Godfather was amazing, considering how young he was. He's got such menace. De Niro's a brilliant actor, though Jerry Lewis wiped the floor with him in The King of Comedy. The two actors I'd most like to work with are Sean Connery, who is the best screen actor, and Michael Caine. It sounds chauvinistic, but the actors I'd most like to work with are British. Albert Finney, Dudley Moore. I've worked with Paul Newman; wouldn't mind working with him again.

[Q] Playboy: Who is America's sexiest actor?

[A] Collins: I suppose Richard Gere, really. I think he's too busy flashing his balls. On the screen, I mean.

[Q] Playboy: You've done some commercials for television; what do you think about U.S. TV commercials in general?

[A] Collins: The commercials in this country are nothing short of appalling. I mean, people seriously stand there and do those things about hemorrhoids. They're an abomination to the intelligence of the human race! That's why I can't watch TV. TV is such crap. It really is. The average family in America has dinner together, maybe with the TV on, then goes and watches TV from seven until ten. People don't play games, they don't sing songs, they don't have conversations. The art of conversation is lost. There's not enough stretching of the mind. And TV actors all look alike; I can't tell half of them apart. They've all got that blow-dried hair. It's extraordinary.

[Q] Playboy: Let's be fair; is it any different in England?

[A] Collins: I am nauseated by the attitude of people in my country, too. All they want to do is lie around and watch TV. They don't want to work, they expect the state to support them. We're all so fucking soft, it makes me puke. See, I believe in things like conscription. I think all young men should be taken at 16 or 17 and slung in the army for a couple of years to shape them up.

[Q] Playboy: You feel that way about your own son?

[A] Collins: It would do him a world of good. He'd probably keep his bedroom tidy.

[Q] Playboy: Any other geopolitical opinions?

[A] Collins: Not many. I don't understand American politics. I think Winston Churchill was the greatest statesman ever. I was interested in politics when John and Jackie Kennedy were sort of running the world. They had incredible glamor. After that, you had Lyndon Johnson, who made speeches while sitting in the loo. And the klutz who always fell down, Gerald Ford.

[Q] Playboy: Didn't you once meet Henry Kissinger?

[A] Collins: Yes. He was a charm boy. But I think he's a bit of a fascist, isn't he? I don't think this country should be run by fascists.

[Q] Playboy: Well, we're almost done. You're certainly a woman who's not afraid to voice an opinion.

[A] Collins: Ten glasses of champagne and talking into the wee hours, I'll say anything. But, listen, you've made me see that I'm more complex than I thought. The compartment that's easy to put me in is "freethinking, sexy broad with a dirty mouth, who pretty much does what she wants." But there's more to me than that.

[Q] Playboy: Yes, well, that's it. It's been fun.

[A] Collins: Oh, God, no! I can't believe it's over. Why don't we do some more? God, it's like finishing with your analyst--abandoned!

[Q] Playboy: Sorry. Your time's up, Joan.

[A] Collins: I'm in your hands. I'm sure that you will present me as this wonderful, warm, fabulous human being!

[Q] Playboy: Good night, Joan.

[A] Collins: Two bottles of Cristal champagne; I won't forget that in a hurry.

[Q] Playboy: Sleep tight, Joan.

[A] Collins: So...you think people will buy my book?

"We're so fucking soft, it makes me puke. I think all young men should be slung into the Army at 16 or 17 to shape them up."