Dame Joan Collins is happier than she has ever been
Age is a unclean phrase within the Collins family. Not as a result of Dame Joan’s fearful of her 90 years. Or as a result of her beloved fifth husband is a number of a long time her junior. But as a result of she’s at all times believed the key to ageing properly is to…properly, ignore it in addition to you may.
“Oh! We don’t mention that,” she laughs when requested about The Birthday. “I’m 60… plus however many years!”
It may clarify why, having reached that birthday milestone in May, Dame Joan nonetheless has a piece and social diary to rival Alexis Colby in her prime.
There’s the brand new e book – her nineteenth – Behind The Shoulder Pads, an upcoming tour of her new one-woman present of the identical title, a brand new partnership with Marks & Spencer meals, a ardour venture about Wallis Simpson (which can or might not go down properly along with her Royal associates), and, extra imminently, a bunch of purchasing to do earlier than company arrive for her common poker sport.
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It’s fairly the complete dance card for a display screen icon who might as soon as rely James Dean, Gene Kelly and Marlon Brando as friends, and who has recognized Liza Minnelli since she was a babe in Judy Garland’s arms.
“There’s far too much fuss about ageing,” explains Dame Joan. “You see people in their 90s and 100s doing amazing things – running and jumping on Instagram – there’s no reason to fall apart. I do my stretching exercises each morning and I have a trainer on Zoom three times a week.”
Her routine, she provides, consists of “standing on one leg” for “almost a minute” – an exercise that will defeat many half her age. However, one may recommend the true motive for Dame Joan’s youthful joie de vivre has much less to do along with her balancing expertise and extra to do with the soundness and happiness she’s been having fun with since assembly and marrying her “best friend” – hubby quantity 5 Percy Gibson, 58.
The pair celebrated their Twentieth-anniversary final yr – a bona fide slap within the face to the one-time critics of their 32-year age hole, and maybe the rationale Dame Joan is all of a sudden able to open up about their relationship in a manner she by no means has earlier than.
Dame Joan along with her fifth husband and finest lover Percy Gibson
“It is fifth time lucky,” says Dame Joan, over Zoom, from their grand central London flat. “I’ve been feeling that for years. He’s a wonderful, kind, truly good man. He’s my – what’s the thing he always says? – my accomplice, yes, and my best friend. Plus he’s extremely handsome and he just gets better and better.”
We’re audio-only – Dame Joan has simply acquired out of her mid-morning tub – however you may inform she’s carrying that well-known coy smile of hers. “Everyone says how lucky I am,” she provides. “And how good he’s looking right now.”
The pair first met in 2000 when Dame Joan was 67 and touring the US within the play Love Letters.
Percy – whose father was Peruvian and mom Scottish – was her 36-year-old divorced producer. They bonded over in any other case lonely dinners on the street and shortly, for one of many first instances in her life, Dame Joan fell for the great man.
When a last-minute change of plans saved Percy from being close to the World Trade Center on 9/11, the lovebirds determined life was too brief to not marry – and wed at Claridge’s resort in Mayfair, central London in 2002, and recreated the day for his or her anniversary final yr. So, has Dame Joan lastly discovered a person to deal with her just like the queen she is?
“No, not at all. It can’t work like that,” she tells me. “A relationship is about two people both being there to help and support each other.”
It’s not what I used to be anticipating. Although…“Every morning before he goes for a run he brings me a coffee in bed while I read all the papers,” she provides. “And he leaves me little notes under the kettle.”
So what’s the secret to this marriage? (Dame Joan as soon as refused to be Liza Minnelli’s maid of honour, saying: “I’m always the bride, never the bridesmaid”, below.)
Joan Collins and her friend Liza Minnelli
“I think the difference was, Percy and I became really good friends first,” she says. “So we had this connection. We really knew each other. And separate bathrooms is key! Although we are very lucky. I know that’s not something everyone can have.”
Her level is, that they provide one another house.
“He has his office area and I have mine. I’ll spend time in mine writing or phoning my friends. And he’ll be working, looking after our three properties,” she explains – they’ve properties in London, St Tropez and LA.
“Then we’ll do something together. Like any couple, we have our ups and downs. And we do occasionally argue – it’s normally when we’re working together.”
That bodes properly for the following few months: he’s directing her forthcoming UK tour.
Yet you solely need to learn her new memoir to understand their disagreements are few and fleeting. The pair give “his and her” variations of how they met and their wedding ceremony day, and whereas “some recollections may vary” – as Dame Joan’s idol, the late Queen, would say – they’re clearly besotted with one another. Take this snippet from Percy’s wedding ceremony speech: “Joan is my accomplice, my comrade, my confessor, my confidante. My fearless leader and my most loyal supporter, my very best friend.”
Dame Joan has been a star for decades
Percy’s Peruvian heritage also gives him a refreshing attitude to the age gap. “The age difference didn’t matter to him,” Dame Joan explains. “In Peru, if a woman is attractive, she’s attractive. They don’t think about it.”
Having endured years of ribbing about her “toyboy”, Dame Joan seems pleased attitudes are changing. Even if it’s just that older men are also getting “more of a hard time” lately. We’re discussing her peers Robert De Niro, 80 (whose girlfriend is 45) and Al Pacino, 83 (whose on/off girlfriend is 29).
Both actors have something extra on their plate that Dame Joan does not – a newborn. The thought of having to deal with late-night feeds and nappies again causes much mirth to the mum-of-three and four-time grandma.
“Don’t get me wrong. I adore my baby granddaughter,” she says, of her son’s daughter, 18-month-old Deia. “But a couple of hours with her and that’s enough for me. Not that the men do much of the work, mind you! They do the cooing and that’s it!”
Before Percy, Dame Joan’s love life had been complicated. She was just 19 when she married her one-time heartthrob, Irish actor Maxwell Reed, after he date-raped her on their first night together.
They split after three years and she got engaged to Warren Beatty, only to have to have a then-illegal abortion – she is appalled many states are making them illegal again.
That relationship ended because of Beatty’s infidelity, as did her following eight-year marriage to the late actor-singer-songwriter Anthony Newley – the father of her daughter Tara Newley (59, and a writer and producer) and son Sacha (58 and an artist).
Then in 1972 she married film producer Ron Kass, with whom she had Katy, now 51. By 1983 he had left her broke and was using drugs – something she blames on his cocaine-snorting film protege, and their one-time lodger, Dodi Fayed.
Next came Swedish musician Pete Holm. They split after two years in 1987 and she has no idea, and even less wish to know, what happened to him.
Dame Joan was with The Grand Budapest Hotel actor Robin Hurlstone – who actively hated her family, including best-selling author sister Jackie – when the actress began an affair with Percy. It led to a very messy break-up but one that was worth it. “[Percy] was the best lover I’d ever had,” she raves in her book.
Since then she and Percy have had a few dramas – a fire and a water leak in their London flat, escaping wildfires in the south of France, Dame Joan collapsing in LA (her corset was too tight and her meals too light, doctors said), and three bouts of Covid.
But, for the most part, the only tumultuous love lives that now keep them up at night are the ones they’re binge-watching on TV. So what are they hooked on?
Well, what else… “A lot of TV is so boring nowadays,” says Dame Joan. “Nothing really rocks my boat. So Percy found a box set of Dynasty.
“Back then, we didn’t have videos, so I haven’t seen about three-quarters of them. Percy will be asking what happens next with Blake and Alexis – and I have no idea! I can certainly see why it was as popular as it was.”
Watching her as the formidable Alexis, Percy must also be pinching himself about how lucky he is. No matter how many candles are on her birthday cake.
- Behind The Shoulder Pads: Tales I Tell My Friends by Joan Collins (Orion, £22) is published on Thursday. To pre-order, visit expressbookshop.com or call Express Bookshop on 020 3176 3832. Free UK P&P on online orders over £25. Dame Joan’s Behind the Shoulder Pads tour runs October 1 to 24. For tickets and information, visit amickproductions.co.uk/dame-joan-collins
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