Jackie Collins new book 'Married Lovers'

‘It’s nice here, isn’t it?” Jackie Collins said in her clear, measured, L.A.-by-the-way-of-London tone. Jack Black and Dr. Phil were sitting nearby on the terrace of the Polo Lounge at the Beverly Hills Hotel, but it was Collins’ arrival that created the stir. A large diamond sparkled on her left hand enlivening her appearance in a simple, tailored black suit, offset with dramatic hoop earrings. “I like to sit here where you can see everyone.”

In person Collins is like the content of her books—chatty, funny, irreverent and knowing. Mostly, she is endlessly enthusiastic—she will stop in mid-sentence to declare her various excitements over singers, TV shows, movie stars, friends or just her lunch. “This is the most delicious salad ever,” she announced.

This summer saw the publication of Collins’ 26th book, “Married Lovers”, which centers on a woman named Cameron Paradise, a personal trainer, and a trio of men: a director, a screenwriter, and a late night talk show host, all set in the Hollywood of today.

Twenty-six years ago Collins wrote “Chances”, the bestseller featuring Lucky Santangelo, a heroine who grows up in the mod and takes over the family business. It wasn’t until her next book however, that she became a household name. “I didn’t become established until ‘Hollywood Wives’, which I wrote after I had lived here for awhile and observed those women,” she said. “Oh my God! They were scary in the ‘80s!”

In “Married Lovers,” there is a funny scene in which some Hollywood wives go out to lunch. Collins describes their look: True Religion jeans, James Perse white T-shirts and Birkin bags. “It’s Hollywood Wives,’ the next generation,” she writes.

Collins raised three daughters in L.A., and it sounds as if her exposure to Hollywood wives made her a cautious parent. She stresses that she was “a very strict mother. I took them to school everyday, cooked their dinner every night-before I went out to the nightclubs—and made sure that they were in bed and fed. You can’t just give children a Porsche and a credit card.”

Collins began life in London, where she grew up with her sister, actress Joan Collins. She was thrown out of school at 16, for smoking (“That was the last cigarette I ever had”) and drifted into appearing in films. She married young, had one child, got a divorce, then married again. Her second husband, Oscar Lerman, was a night club and gallery owner, Collins credits him with the beginnings of her career. “I’d done these stupid roles in films—I was always the Italian girl—and he asked me what I was doing, and I told him that I was working on a book. He read it and said, ‘This is fabulous, you have to keep doing it.’”

Collins writes her books right up to the production schedule, so that little editing can be done before publication. “They made a couple of suggestions,” she said, smiling. “But if you’re going to fial, you have to fail on your own mistakes. I sit down and write the book and prefer they don’t ask me any questions until the book is finished.”

09/12/08 6:26am

Jackie Collins marks 40 years of "guilty pleasures"

British author Jackie Collins is still inadvertently teaching teenage girls about sex through her steamy novels that have seen her regularly grace bestseller lists since her first book was published 40 years ago.

Collins -- who refuses to reveal how old she is, except to say that she is still several years shy of 70 -- released her 26th novel, "Married Lovers," in the United States on Tuesday.

"I get the 15-year-olds all the time going 'I read my mum's book under the covers and you taught me everything I know about sex,"' Collins said of e-mails she receives, adding married couples also thank her for spicing up their love lives.

While disliked by critics, the younger sister of Hollywood actress Joan Collins has sold more than 400 million books in more than 40 countries and all of her previous 25 novels remain in print, according to her publisher St. Martin's Press.

"I'm a storyteller. I'm not a literary writer and I never pretended to be," Collins said. Many of her novels have been made into hit television movies and mini-series.

During an interview in a luxury New York City hotel suite, she told Reuters she is "horrified" by the fact it has been four decades since her first novel, "The World is Full of Married Men," was published in the United States and Britain.

"It's ridiculous, time goes by so fast when you're having fun. I think I am the only writer still on the bestseller list all these years later," said Collins, who still handwrites her novels on yellow legal notepads.

Her debut novel, reportedly deemed "filthy and disgusting" by author Barbara Cartland and banned in Australia, she says, "was way before its time" with its tale of a woman who cheats on her husband and another who likes sex with married men.

The latest offering from the Beverly Hills-based author follows a story involving three high-powered Hollywood couples, two affairs, one underage Russian ex-prostitute and a murder.

A self-confessed pop-culture junkie, Collins said she pulls all her stories from "real life and it's toned down."

"All the characters I write about are really characters that I know, I've seen, I've observed," she said.

She began writing when she was just 8, picking up her talent for love scenes after secretly reading her father's copy of "Lady Chatterley's Lover," which Collins says was kept in a brown paper bag beside his bed.

"It's my passion, it's my hobby, it's my everything. I just love to write," Collins said. "I'll write 'til I'm like 100 and whatever and I will drop with a pen in my hand going 'And he looked into her eyes and it was..."'

Michelle Nichols for Reuters

06/28/08 9:33pm

Jackie Collins and new book Drop Dead Gorgeous

Here’s part of an interview on Jackie Collins when she put out her book “Drop Dead Gorgeous” about her famous character Lucky Santangelo. The full interview is at Lifetime. The interviewer is Patty Lamberti.

You could call Jackie Collins the godmother of all Lifetime movies: She was the first female authors to tell stories about women who triumph over seemingly impossible odds and usually get the hot guy in the end as well. So we could think of no better woman to interview.

Interviewer: Tell us about what you’re writing exclusively for LifetimeTV.com and how it relates to your new book.

Jackie Collins: I wanted to write a prequel to the novel. It includes a series of email exchanges between Lucky and her daughter, Max. It’s obvious that one day Max will take over Lucky’s throne, and I wanted to show her at the same age I showed Lucky in “Chances”---as a 16 year old wild child. Except this is 2007, and the world is different. Still, like Lucky, Max thinks she knows so much more than anyone else.

Interviewer: What do you and your sister, Joan, gossip about on the phone?

Jackie Collins: Like all sisters, we talk about the things that annoy us. People are always writing that we don’t like ach other, and that pisses us off. But we laugh about it because we know it’s not true. The truth is, we’ve always been the best of friends. When she got married, there was this whole to-do in the press that I didn’t attend her wedding in London. But I was producing a movie here in LA at the time. She visited me just before her wedding, and I threw her and her husband a wedding party with 80 people. But the media doesn’t mention that, of course.

Interviewer: If “Drop Dead Beautiful” were made into a movie, who would you want to cast in it and why?

Jackie Collins: Before she won an Oscar and was on the cover of every magazine, I wanted Angelina Jolie to play Lucky. She would have been perfect. Nicollette Sheridan ended up playing Lucky in the movie version of “Chances”. If Nicollette agreed to play Lucky now, 15 years later, she’d still be fantastic. In “Chances”, she wore a dark wig to hide her blonde hair. And many people don’t realize that a young Sandra Bullock played Lucky’s mom [in a flashback scene].

Interviewer: What’s one of the most memorable run-ins you’ve ever had with a fan?

Jackie Collins: There are these male twins who are very sweet, but they pop up everywhere I go. I’ll go to the makeup counter at Neiman Marcus, and the clerk will tell me, “The twins were just here looking for you.”

Interviewer: If someone were going to write a new book about you, what you want it to be called?

Jackie Collins: well, I’d prefer they wouldn’t write a book about me at all. I’ve had a few written about me, and they’re appalling. The author will write, “And then she thought…” I say to myself, I don’t think that way. It I want anyone to tell my story, I want it to be me.

Interviewer: So are you promising me you’ll write an auto biography?

Jackie Collins: Maybe in 10 years I’ll write my autobiography. I definitely know I’ve got at least another 25 novels in me.

06/03/08 12:18am