Jackie Collins created a new genre of wildly popular romantic (sexual) fiction which sent 500 million books flying off airport stands all over the world. She was ahead of her time in writing strong female characters who fought for what they wanted in the bedroom and in their careers. Her carefully crafted shoulder-padded, over-made-up public image sold her brand. But she never threw off her inferiority complex at being the glamorous actress Joan Collins’ younger sister.
A new documentary Lady Boss: The Jackie Collins Story, has been an unexpected hit at the Tribeca film festival. It outlines her early life in London with a showbusiness agent father who favoured Joan, her early failed starlet career and the runaway success of her novels from Hollywood Wives onwards. She even rescued Joan’s career when it was in the doldrums with starring roles in the movie versions of her books The Stud and The Bitch which led to Joan getting the Alexis Colby part in Dynasty.
She was born 4 October 1937 (from birth records and sister Joan) maybe 3am (early morning), London. Her first marriage ended because of her husband’s drug addiction and manic depression and he suicided shortly after. Her second husband, a nightclub owner, died of cancer after 18th years; and her next long engagement also finished with her intended dying of cancer.
She was a self-sufficient, focused New Moon in Libra with her Moon and widely Sun opposition Saturn in forced-to-be-self-reliant Aries square Mars in Capricorn. That would dent her self-esteem but also give her the steely determination and self-discipline to achieve financially and in reputation. Her chart is overwhelmingly Earth with her Mars trine Venus in Virgo trine Uranus in Taurus and her Jupiter in Capricorn trine Neptune (Mercury) in Virgo trine Uranus. Her books from my recollection having had to dip into one or two for research were fairly gross in their descriptions of physical sex and were certainly focused on materialistic values. And weren’t exactly great literature to put it mildly.
Despite the celebrity magazines pushing a sibling rivalry story about her relationship with Joan they did have a close though at times competitive relationship. They were both Air Suns which would help as to some extent would Joan’s earthy Taurus Moon.
Their relationship chart has an emotionally intense, possessive though also jealous composite Venus, Pluto, Mercury, maybe Moon conjunction. Plus a creative and suspicious Saturn opposition Neptune and a fairly explosive Uranus opposition Mars square Sun. No surprises it blew hot and cold between them through their lives.
Whatever one thinks about the quality and indeed content of her novels she did have an impact on the culture.
I liked Jackie and admired her determination on making the public aware of prostate cancer. But I’m afraid I preferred Jacqueline Susann’s books. Which I used to sneak my mother’s copy and read under the covers with a torch. That is flashlight in Americanese.
Jackie Collins’ strong women characters got me through a lot of difficult moments as a young woman. She would whisk me from hell to glamourous places and while a number of authors were trying to do this at the time, to me Collins did it best as she always avoided saccharine. I always thought she was a woman who was determined to make the best of the cards she had been dealt rather than wait for rescue or discovery. That has real resonance for me.
Confession – when I was about 11 I picked up two books from my Mum’s bookshelves. One was the Compleat Astrologer and the other was Hollywood Husbands. Both fascinated me clearly!
A quick glance at her novels shows the transits really propelled her with Pluto and Uranus hitting her Virgo and Libra planets through the late sixties and seventies.
Hollywood Wives was published in 1983, about the time Neptune was hitting her Cap Mars in the 4th – seems very apt for what I would imagine is a story about trophy wives and their home lives!