And finally, to reflect on the first day of the not at all media-obsessed celebrations celebrating the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, a clearly inebriated Mark Austin introduces reactionary right-wing snob Joan Collins as “the Queen of Hollywood”.
Hang out the bunting because — huzzah! — fake news is alive and well. As if Britain wasn’t confused enough already.
I used to quite like Austin when he was anchoring at ITV. His flak jacket reports from Kiev after he switched sides to the thankfully Murdoch-free satellite TV were pretty gripping too, but now, is he Sky or just plain high?
Who’s suffering from early onset Alzheimer’s here, him or me? Because I can’t think of a single great Hollywood movie Joan Collins starred in. Not a one.
Did I imagine that this tepid Tory was a two-bit talent in a succession of B movies like the utterly-hysterical-for-all-the-wrong-reasons schlock-horror flick Empire Of The Ants, and she only bagged that role because insect warrior Adam was too busy making an album… probably.
With no particular claim to great acting or great beauty, Saint Joan was largely forgotten about until she appeared in the film versions of sister Jackie Collins’ books The Bitch and The Stud.
Both movies featured eyebrow-raising nudity (it says here) — OK, she got fucked on a sex swing flying over a swimming pool in the midst of a swinger’s orgy — though that’s about the only things that were raised, as by then Collins was in her late forties and the baps were so saggy they were almost on first name terms with her ankles.
Though the pair were certainly risqué for their time, by today’s standards they’re more likely to provoke more spilling of cinzano than man milk. Still, the movies paid a few bills, and JC lived to crack open another bottle.
That this five-times-hitched harridan of haughtiness has been besties with Shirley Bassey, Cilla Black, Christopher Biggins, Piers Morgan and Jeffrey Archer — oh, and is happy to cavort with Boris Johnson at any bash where there’s a sniff of free champagne — should tell you everything you need to know about arch Conservative Collins and her objectionable Brexit-supporting personality.
But the 1980s were enormously kind to her and threw her a much needed lifeline. Les we forget, Joan Collins was a washed up also-ran who suddenly hit the big time — just the once, dear — in a tacky OTT television programme called…. oh, what was its name again?
Ah yes, Dynasty!
Back in 1985, I was such an avid watcher of the preposterous American soap that when it came to name our family’s brand new puppy (a beautiful white West Highland terrier), I suggested Krystle, after Linda Evans’ character Krystle Carrington. Camp? Whaddya mean?
“She’s got a face like a wet sponge,” my college lecturer Alex Ward said about her (the actress, not the dog) but let’s face it, she was goody two-shoes bland because the frequently ridiculous scripts demanded it.
We named the pup Sacha, by the way.
Still, where would Evans’s screen rival be without Dynasty?
But trash TV ain’t what it used to be. I did attempt to watch the recent Netflix remake but gave up after the opening episode. As throwaway as the original series was it just ain’t Dynasty without Joan and Linda trying to rip each other’s wigs off.
Then again, there ain’t no bigger fan of Joan Collins than Joan Collins, who remarked in an interview that she’s been watching old episodes of the show while in lockdown amid the COVID-19 pandemic: “I was impressed by myself,” the Dynasty dame said. “Quite frankly, I think I should have got more [money].”
As the scheming empress of spite Alexis Carrington Colby, Collins was brilliantly bitchy, but that’s because she was merely playing an exaggerated version of herself, and if that wasn’t within the confines of her narrow range then what the hell is?
Like Alexis, Joan Collins isn’t naturally a very warm character: what she lacks in earthy talent and empathy she more than makes up for in droll, opinionated camp and cutting cattiness. Gosh, that sounds familiar.
But what has the imperiously grand dame done since? Once you hit peak role, the only way is down. Ultimately, Joan Collins will be remembered as a mediocre performer and second-rate human being famous for shoulder pads and disco soft porn films — hardly a great legacy.
Let’s put it this way, this glitzy omnipresence is now regarded as a national trinket so relentless in rent-a-quote ubiquity that she was made a Dame of the British Empire in 2015 for being glamorous showbiz person Joan Collins — or, officially “in recognition of her services to charity” — certainly not for her acting.
And certainly not her politics. Now 89, in recent years the befuddled Brexiteer has been better known for fannying about with her fascist friend Nigel Farage while voting Leave from her luxury villa in the south of France, a 90 minute drive from Nice, where I write this.
Overflowing with sumptuous vacuity, Joan’s Spanish-style hacienda is in a hillside village south of Saint-Tropez called La Croix-Valmer, which is presumably why she bagged an oh-so-fleeting cameo in the Absolutely Fabulous movie rather than because of any CV citing any great performances in Pinter, Shakespeare… or, hell, even one acclaimed Hollywood movie with her in the lead role.
Still, the old ham has a contract with Sky since the network broadcast some satin and tat vanity project of hers a while back, so perhaps that famously titanic ego insisted Austin’s woefully fake news introduction was included in clause form as a condition for appearing. Notice how she doesn’t flinch or attempt to correct him in the slightest. No false modesty for this low-grade lady.
Anyway, enduring the footage all I can say is there must be one helluva flatter filter on the camera lens as I’ve witnessed Joan Collins up close in person on three occasions*, and wonky-eyed scary would be an understatement. Actually, she looks embalmed. I wonder if her beautician moonlights as a mortician.
Oh gawd, that was probably as funny as a funeral — Lex Dex the Dexter spectre is so gonna kill me!
But would Joan cry at my demise?
Nah, that would ruin her make up.
Steve Pafford
*That includes being in the audience for the Graham Norton Show (above) where Joan was incongruously paired with Marc Almond
