Laura Fairrie’s family-sanctioned film praises the author’s personal courage, work ethic and feminism-lite but doesn’t delve very deep
Mega-selling author Jackie Collins enjoyed her big-haired and shoulder-padded heyday with raunchy books like
Hollywood Wives, The Bitch and The Stud; now she is celebrated in this family-sanctioned fan-documentary praising her personal courage in the face of spousal abuse, her work ethic and her feminist-lite celebration of commercial success for sexually attractive
Women. It’s watchable, with some stinging rebukes for the male snobs – including, I’m sorry to say, Clive James, normally a great pop culture ally, shown here in a gruesome TV clip alongside Bernard Levin mocking Collins in her absence.
Collins grew up in the shadow of her more glamorous older sister Joan Collins, she had some cosmetic work done (which she was delighted with) and tried, like Joan, to crack Hollywood. When that didn’t work out, Collins went into fiction with her first novel, saucily entitled The World Is Full of Married Men, was thrilled with her advance of £400, and as the years went by, she had the complex satisfaction of seeing her status rise as her sister’s gradually fell. But Collins had to fight horrible and abusive first and third husbands – though her second was wonderfully supportive.