Joan Collins arrives at the V&A 2023 Summer Party at The V&A on June 21, 2023 in London, England.Photo:Karwai Tang/WireImage
Karwai Tang/WireImage
Joan Collinsis standing her ground when it comes to describing her character onDynasty.
“My agent told me about the show,” Collins, now 90, tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue. “I’d never heard of it. I said, ‘What is it? A Chinese restaurant?’ I was in Mallorca at the time. He said it was about to finish its first season and lagging in the ratings. And they needed a character to spice it up.”
Collins read some scripts. “I thought, ‘This is great. And it will be a, what, six, seven, eight-week gig?'”
It would become, of course, an eight-year gig.
Heather Locklear, Pamela Bellwood, Linda Evans, John Forsythe, Joan Collins, and Pamela Sue Martin in ‘Dynasty’.ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content/Getty
ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content/Getty
Alexis was a villain. The scenery chewing, can’t-take-your-eyes-off-her character would come to define the series — andfashion— as much as any other. The character was also, many times, called a “bitch.” In fact, in a 1983 episode titled “The Threat”, the word was used for the first time in a prime time network series. (It also featureda fight between Evans and Collinsin a lily pond.)
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Collins did not agree, she says. “But, you know, you don’t argue with Spartacus.”
Joan Collins on ‘Dynasty’.ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment
ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment
Collins would not become any more comfortable with the word in the coming years. And certainly never found it fun — or funny — to be called that.
“I think it’s a misogynistic word,” she explains. “I never came to embrace it. It’s an all-encompassing word that I think is quite cruel.”
She also finds it all too reductive to label Alexis as a “bitch.”
She pauses. “They don’t call men bitches.”
For more on Joan Collins, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday, or subscribehere.
source: people.com
