Let's Spend the Night Together
Joan Collins on Her New Feinstein's Show, One Night With Joan
By Angelo Pitillo
Joan Collins may be best known for scheming and clawing her way through nine seasons of the '80s prime time soap Dynasty as the ruthlessly conniving Alexis Morrell Carrington Colby Dexter Rowan, there's a lot more than shoulder pads and catfights to this lady. She's not only maintained a stage and screen career spanning five decades, she's also taken significant side trips as a best-selling author with a gaggle of amazingly candid memoirs and racy novels. She's also established herself as something of a lifestyle guru with books and TV shows on how to live the glamorous life. Along the way she's been married five times, dated some of Hollywood's most eligible bachelors, stirred up her fair share of controversy with her sometimes contrarian views on politics, showbiz, and the world beyond. And through it all she's somehow managed to stay looking as drop-dead gorgeous as ever. No doubt about it, Collins has had a fabulous life, and now she is telling us all about it in her one-woman show One Night With Joan, currently in a two-week at Feinstein's Ballroom at the Loewe's Regency.
We're very excited about One Night With Joan. What can you tell us about it?
Basically it is the story of my life, and of survival in a business which certainly doesn't promote longevity. I tell a lot of stories of the stars I've worked with from Bette Davis to Richard Burton, from Bing Crosby to Paul Newman. Gene Kelly, and of course the Dynasty people.
It's my ups and my downs. It's done hopefully with wit and with humor and wry tongue in cheek.
In a career as long and varied as yours, was it hard to decide what to leave out!
It was hard, actually, Angelo. It was very hard. Because there is so much, and as you know - well you probably don't know - I've written two autobiographies with a lot, lot, lot of things in them, and because I've had a long and productive life. So it was, yes.
Even though it's a cabaret show, we understand that you won't be singing, just talking.
Although I don't actually sing in person, you will see me singing because there is a screen behind me with a lot of stills and clips and movies,. and I do sing on the screen, You see me singing with Shirley MacLaine and Debbie Reynolds and Bing Crosby and a number by myself.
It sounds like a multimedia extravaganza!
I wouldn't call it an extravaganza. But it's certainly multimedia because there is a nonstop screen showing clips, photographs, newsreels, and pieces from films.
Did you write the material yourself?
Yep. Absolutely. We had somebody take a crack at it when we first started, and quite frankly Percy [theater director Percy Gibson, Collins's husband] and I both thought we could do a lot better with it ourselves with all the material we've got.
Are there any surprise shockers?
Yes, there are several shockers, but I'm certainly not going to tell you them.
You've been getting a lot of attention for your role in the new short film Fetish. In fact, we read that you received the Best Actress award at the NYC International Film Festival. What's that all about?
Thank you. That was very exciting, very nice. It's a half hour short, sort of a Grand Guignol film that kind of starts off perfectly normally with somebody being interviewed and then it gets into the very dark side of the very dark side of this particular actress that I play. Again, I'm not going to tell you anymore. I hate any review where they tell you the plot, so I'm not going to do that.
With your books and your UK TV program Joan Does Glamour you've sort of established yourself as an expert on how to live a glamorous life, haven't you?
I'm not really an expert. This is how I was brought up. This is how I was told to be as I was coming up as a young actress. Everybody was glamorous. We all wanted to look like Vivienne Leigh or Ava Gardner, and I guess that I haven't embraced the blue jeans and dirty t-shirt philosophy.
You've made it plain that you feel people today are sorely lacking in the glamour department.
I think everybody knows that. It's become almost a cliché. And I think one of the problems is that clothes have become unbelievably expensive if you want to wear decent clothes today. And I think that people have also become very busy and they're always rushing and have so much to do that it's accepted to wear blue jeans. I think it's a little sad because everybody looks identical. They think they look so individual, but they all look the same. From the waist down anyway.
So we won't be seeing you in blue jeans in One Night With Joan?
Listen I can tell you that 90% of the audience would be disappointed if I came on in torn jeans and a t-shirt. I had to pay a lot, lot, lot of money for the dress that I'm wearing in One Night with Joan. That is a theatrical gown , and I think that's what people expect when you see me on the stage. There's two acts. In one I'm quite sort of casually dressed, and in the other I'm doing the full monty. Not the full monty [as in] taking off my clothes, but you know what I mean.
One of your books is titled Health, Youth and Happiness: My Secrets. If you had one piece of advice to the rest of us to stay as fit and fabulous as you are, what would it be?
One piece of advice? Don't get fat.
One Night with Joan Collins is at the Feinstein Regency Theater through Saturday, Nov. 27th. Prices are available here.
We're very excited about One Night With Joan. What can you tell us about it?
Basically it is the story of my life, and of survival in a business which certainly doesn't promote longevity. I tell a lot of stories of the stars I've worked with from Bette Davis to Richard Burton, from Bing Crosby to Paul Newman. Gene Kelly, and of course the Dynasty people.
It's my ups and my downs. It's done hopefully with wit and with humor and wry tongue in cheek.
In a career as long and varied as yours, was it hard to decide what to leave out!
It was hard, actually, Angelo. It was very hard. Because there is so much, and as you know - well you probably don't know - I've written two autobiographies with a lot, lot, lot of things in them, and because I've had a long and productive life. So it was, yes.
Even though it's a cabaret show, we understand that you won't be singing, just talking.
Although I don't actually sing in person, you will see me singing because there is a screen behind me with a lot of stills and clips and movies,. and I do sing on the screen, You see me singing with Shirley MacLaine and Debbie Reynolds and Bing Crosby and a number by myself.
It sounds like a multimedia extravaganza!
I wouldn't call it an extravaganza. But it's certainly multimedia because there is a nonstop screen showing clips, photographs, newsreels, and pieces from films.
Did you write the material yourself?
Yep. Absolutely. We had somebody take a crack at it when we first started, and quite frankly Percy [theater director Percy Gibson, Collins's husband] and I both thought we could do a lot better with it ourselves with all the material we've got.
Are there any surprise shockers?
Yes, there are several shockers, but I'm certainly not going to tell you them.
You've been getting a lot of attention for your role in the new short film Fetish. In fact, we read that you received the Best Actress award at the NYC International Film Festival. What's that all about?
Thank you. That was very exciting, very nice. It's a half hour short, sort of a Grand Guignol film that kind of starts off perfectly normally with somebody being interviewed and then it gets into the very dark side of the very dark side of this particular actress that I play. Again, I'm not going to tell you anymore. I hate any review where they tell you the plot, so I'm not going to do that.
With your books and your UK TV program Joan Does Glamour you've sort of established yourself as an expert on how to live a glamorous life, haven't you?
I'm not really an expert. This is how I was brought up. This is how I was told to be as I was coming up as a young actress. Everybody was glamorous. We all wanted to look like Vivienne Leigh or Ava Gardner, and I guess that I haven't embraced the blue jeans and dirty t-shirt philosophy.
You've made it plain that you feel people today are sorely lacking in the glamour department.
I think everybody knows that. It's become almost a cliché. And I think one of the problems is that clothes have become unbelievably expensive if you want to wear decent clothes today. And I think that people have also become very busy and they're always rushing and have so much to do that it's accepted to wear blue jeans. I think it's a little sad because everybody looks identical. They think they look so individual, but they all look the same. From the waist down anyway.
So we won't be seeing you in blue jeans in One Night With Joan?
Listen I can tell you that 90% of the audience would be disappointed if I came on in torn jeans and a t-shirt. I had to pay a lot, lot, lot of money for the dress that I'm wearing in One Night with Joan. That is a theatrical gown , and I think that's what people expect when you see me on the stage. There's two acts. In one I'm quite sort of casually dressed, and in the other I'm doing the full monty. Not the full monty [as in] taking off my clothes, but you know what I mean.
One of your books is titled Health, Youth and Happiness: My Secrets. If you had one piece of advice to the rest of us to stay as fit and fabulous as you are, what would it be?
One piece of advice? Don't get fat.
One Night with Joan Collins is at the Feinstein Regency Theater through Saturday, Nov. 27th. Prices are available here.
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