May 23

Joan Henrietta Collins' Birthday
 

If you are over 40 and someone asks you to play a word association game and the name Joan Collins comes up, the most common response would be the word "bitch." The term best defines Joan's iconic role as Alexis Carrington in the long running 1980s prime time television soap opera Dynasty,  and in her starring role in her sister Jackie Collins' trashette novel adapted to the film titled  The Bitch (1979). It is also the opinion of her by the producers of Dynasty  when Joan refused to return to work at the beginning of the 1985-1986 season until she was given a raise, forcing the writers to write her out of the first episode of the season, and again during the final season of Dynasty (1981) when appeared in 13 of 22 episodes  ecause the producers told her they couldn't afford to pay $120,000 salary per episode her every week. The same word was used by the producers of the TV mini series SINS (1986)  when Joan insisted on 85 costume changes inet a record for most costume changes in one production.

Joan has also been called a bitch by Random House, the publishers of her second volume of her autobiography s called Second Act areleased in 1996, following her successful court battle.  Random House had demanded that Joan return the $2-million advance it had given her for two novels, and claimed her submissions were substandard. A New York judge ruled in her favor.

 Some of her fellow actors have also used the bitch word to describe her such as Russell Crowe who refused to accept a British charity award after he discovered that a previous winner was Joan Collins. She is often referred to by some of her equally bitchy British colleagues as "The British Open" because of her her numerous affairs and marriages, many of which are detailed in her autobiographies. Her bios are a source on fascinating information about her many marriages, affairs,and rumors including the allegation that her first husband Maxwell Reed tried to sell her to an Arab sheik for £10,000 seven months after their wedding. She allegedly had  affairs with Dennis Hopper, Arthur Lowe, Sydney Chaplin, Ryan O'Neal, George Englund (Cloris Leachman's husband), and Warren Beatty. Her affair with Beatty lasted a year and a half, and led to a brief engagement and an abortion. She said of Beatty,  "I don't think I can last much longer. He never stops; it must be all those vitamins he takes." When someone later inquired if they really had sex seven times a day, she answered, "Maybe he did, but I just lay there." A few of the men allegedly Joan turned down for sex were  Frank Sinatra, Robert F. Kennedy, Darryl F. Zanuck, and Dean Martin.

Joan met her fifth husband, theater manager Percy Gibson, when she appeared in a touring production of the play Love Letters in the United States. Gibson helped edit Joan's novel, Star Quality. So raise a toast to the super bitch on her birthday with a Nasty Bitch Cocktail while watching her topless in The Bitch. (1979).
 

Nasty Bitch Cocktail

Chill the tequila and the Cointreau and serve in a shot glass straight up

© 2011 Gordon Nary and Tyler Stokes