Dame Joan Collins: I’ve avoided the ‘pit of the casting couch’
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Dame Joan Collins says she has “avoided” the “pit of the casting couch” several times throughout her career.
The 87-year-old acting icon has been appearing in movies since the 1950s, and has said she started out in Hollywood during at time when “women were like dolls” to some men in positions of power in the industry.
But Joan has insisted she managed to get herself out of situations involving predatory men by utilising some key advice given to her by her father, Joe Collins.
During an interview with her close friend Piers Morgan for the Mail on Sunday’s You magazine, Piers asked Joan what advice her father gave her, and she said: “Knee them in the nether regions.”
And when asked how many times she’s had to use the top tip, she added: “A lot. I was in a generation where women were like dolls and some men thought of you as just an appendage, not to be taken seriously. But I managed to not fall into the pit of the casting couch. I avoided that many times.”
The ‘Dynasty’ star even believes she lost out on film roles because she “wouldn’t be nice” to the movie bosses.
She explained: “I think I lost Cleopatra. Both the head of the studio and the CEO of the studio promised it to me if I would ‘be nice’ to them, and I wouldn’t be nice to them. It gave me a reputation of being a b**** because being witty and hard was accepted in men like Noël Coward and Oscar Wilde but not in a young woman.”
And whilst her father gave her important advice on dealing with danger, her mother’s best piece of advice has helped keep Joan feeling youthful over the decades.
When asked about her mother’s top tip, she said: “Always wear night cream. I was with Continued on page 24 some women yesterday at lunch, most of whom were younger than me, and I have to say, my skin looked a lot better than theirs because I’ve totally protected it all my life, since I was 15.”