Welcome back to the Deep Dive. You hand us the
complete file on a subject and we give you the
analysis, the context and, well, the key insights
you need to really be informed. Today, we are
taking a long, luxurious and I think surprisingly
strategic look at the life and the business of
Jackie Collins. It's one of those cases where
the source material reads like fiction itself.
You know, a classic rags to riches, scandal to
success story. But all the numbers, all the facts
are real. Our mission today is to get past that
public image, the leopard print, the glamour,
all of that overt sex appeal and really understand
the sharp business mind and frankly, the ferocious
dedication that kept her career going. Absolutely.
She was a master strategist sort of operating
under the guise of this flamboyant novelist.
She really was. Exactly. Our listener wants the
shortcut to understanding the trajectory and
the truly dual life of the woman who didn't just
write the modern airport novel. She basically
defined it. And when we talk about success, I
mean, we're talking about a commercial machine,
32 novels. And every single one of them, a New
York Times bestseller, global sales passed 500
million copies, translations into 40 languages.
That's not just... writing that is building a
global brand well that kind of consistency over
decades yeah it's almost unheard of it's like
a perfect batting average in the most competitive
market in publishing she never not once faltered
in giving her audience exactly what they wanted
and she never apologized for it did she never
that's what's so crucial she would say you know
i'm not a literary writer her success was built
on this profound almost sociological understanding
of what people really wanted to read no matter
what the critics thought she tapped into the
forbidden the glamorous the intensely sexual
and she did it with total confidence so that's
what we're unpacking this this strategic life,
we're going to dive into the scandalous start
that launched her career because, you know, nothing
works better than a bit of controversy. We'll
trace her critical move to Hollywood and her
genius research method as this quiet observer.
We'll spend a good amount of time dissecting
the literary universe she built, anchored by
her most powerful character, Lucky Santangelo.
And then finally, we'll look at the quiet, devastating
tragedies she was facing while she was writing
about all this endless glamour and liberation.
It really is a study in contrast. The public
spectacle versus the private focus. The writer
who knew everyone else's secrets while keeping
her own so, so closely guarded. That tension,
I think, is the fuel for her entire career. Okay,
let's unpack this journey. Let's start right
at the beginning, in mid -century London. Jacqueline
Jill Collins, born in Hampstead, London in 1937.
And the context of her childhood is just. It's
absolutely vital to understanding everything
that comes later. She didn't grow up sheltered.
Not at all. She grew up in the epicenter of show
business ambition. Exactly. I mean, that family
environment is the first key piece of context.
Her father, Joseph William Collins, he wasn't
just a theatrical agent. He was a top -level
operator. His clients included Shirley Bassey,
The Beatles. The Beatles, right, as they were
becoming a global phenomenon. And Tom Jones.
What does growing up in that kind of atmosphere
teach you? It teaches you about... the business
side of fame. Exactly. The transactional nature
of it, the egos, the high stakes, the money,
and the constant performance that you need to
succeed. She wasn't just near celebrity. She
was completely immersed in the business of selling
spectacle. And we should probably note her mixed
heritage, too, which likely added another layer
to her upbringing. Her father was South African,
born Jewish. Her mother, British Anglican. And
while her older sister, Joan, was, you know,
pursuing the acting path. Right. Jackie was already
showing these signs of rebellion and surprisingly,
this very specific, very marketable talent for
storytelling. Oh, that rebellion defines her
early teenage. year. She went to Francis Holland
School, which is this reputable independent day
school for girls. But that kind of formality,
it just didn't suit her temperament. And the
pivotal fact is that she was expelled at age
15. She later fully embraced this identity, admitting
she was a school dropout and a juvenile delinquent.
She even said she was glad she got all of that
out of her system at an early age. That Early
break with convention, I think it gave her the
perspective of an outsider looking in, which
is essential for a writer. And here is where
we see the direct line, the connection between
that rebellious teenager and her eventual career.
She made this incredible claim that even at 13,
while she was still at school, her classmates
would actually pay her. Pay her. To listen to
the sex scene she wrote during her lessons. It's
astonishing, isn't it? Long before she had a
book deal, she had a self -sustaining commercial
venture centered around salacious content. She'd
already found her market. She'd identified that
people were hungry for these kinds of scandalous,
boundary -pushing stories. She discovered her
voice and her audience at the same time, which
confirmed that what she found interesting, other
people did too. That early confidence, that sense
of, I can monetize this, that's the foundation
of her entire publishing empire. And the most,
well... The most eye -opening story that confirms
the kind of fast life she was living at 15 is
the reported brief affair with Marlon Brando.
He was 29 at the time. It's a detail that, frankly,
sounds like it belongs in one of her own novels.
Brando was already a global superstar, a symbol
of this raw, dangerous masculinity. For a 15
-year -old girl to be involved in that kind of
scenario, it just speaks volumes about... the
chaotic high stakes world she was already in.
She later kind of downplayed it, called it a
schoolgirl crush. That was fun. But the sheer
fact that it happened reinforces this idea that
her life was often as dramatic as her fiction.
She wasn't just going to be writing about Hollywood
from the outside. She was gathering real lived
experience, even if it was, you know, tumultuous
and premature. It gave her an authenticity that
critics couldn't just dismiss. And she did initially
try to follow her sister Joan into acting. In
1956, she moved to L .A. to visit Joan, try to
get groomed for stardom at 20th Century Fox.
But that dream was pretty short -lived. She couldn't
get a work permit and had to go back to London.
Yeah, her acting detour was just a series of
attempts that never quite took off. She ended
up in a bunch of British B -movies in the late
50s and early 60s. She was often credited as
Lynn Curtis. You know, things like Barnacle Bill
in 57, The Shakedown in 1960, a few small TV
spots. But then she gave it up. And you have
to ask why. Well, the actress is dependent on
everyone else, right? The script, the director.
The casting agent. The writer controls the entire
universe. And that's the pivot she made. And
that pivot was really catalyzed by some external
validation. But it was validation that saw her
true power. She'd started a bunch of stories
and just abandoned them, found it hard to finish.
It was her second husband, Oscar Lerman, who
made the difference. Right. He owned nightclubs.
He was part of that whole scene. And he saw her
ability to just... captivate people with stories
he was the one who told her to finish that first
novel yeah he just said to her you're a storyteller
and that simple intervention shifted her focus
completely away from the camera toward the typewriter
and the result The world is full of married men.
Published in 1968, it wasn't just a book launch.
It was a cultural explosion designed to burn
down the old way of doing things. It was an absolute
fireball. This is where her strategy of leveraging
outrage really began, whether it was intentional
at first or not. The book was immediately controversial
because it didn't just hint at infidelity and
sex. It dove right in with unflinching detail.
And that controversy launched her career. The
specific response from the romantic novelist
Barbara Cartland It's the stuff of publishing
legend. Oh, it's perfect. Carlin, who was the
queen of this wholesome, chaste romance, called
the book nasty, filthy and disgusting. You can't
buy that kind of marketing. I mean, that critique
coming from the personification of traditional
literary romance, it immediately framed Collins
as this dangerous modern rebel who was writing
the truth no one else dared to. And Carlin didn't
even stop there. She specifically accused Collins
of creating every pervert in Britain. I mean,
if you were a young person in... 1968, looking
for something scandalous to read. What is more
enticing than a book that's been condemned by
literary royalty? It had real commercial impact,
too. The book was banned in Australia and South
Africa. But the scandal, just as you'd expect,
sent sales through the roof in the U .S. and
the U .K. The lesson was clear. Outrage, when
you manage it correctly, is a phenomenal sales
driver. She was instantly established as the
queen of the taboo, the woman writing about the
things of polite society, and the critics pretended
didn't exist. And she cemented that success with
breakneck speed. Her second novel, The Stud,
followed just a year later in 1969, and it also
soared onto the bestseller list. That speed is
so important because it showed the industry she
wasn't a one -hit wonder. Right. She wasn't just
lucky with one controversy. By the 70s, she was...
wasn't just riding a wave, she was establishing
a market. People were already considering her
a peer of authors like Sidney Sheldon and Harold
Robbins. Her emergence really signaled that a
female writer could command that huge popular
market, not by writing romance, but by writing
about female power. sex and intrigue, often with
more grit than her male counterparts. And you
can see her experimenting as she goes. Her third
novel, Sunday Simmons and Charlie Brick, came
out in 1971. The U .S. title was The Hollywood
Zoo. So she's already testing the waters of that
American celebrity setting that would become
her brand. She realized the unique power of the
Hollywood setting, you know, a place where people
go specifically to become someone they're not.
And then in 1974, with Lovehead, which was later
retitled The Love Killers, she made another pivotal
discovery for her career. Organized crime. Yes.
The sources confirmed that this foray into the
world of gangsters, mixing crime with high society
and passion, it proved to be extremely successful.
This blends of genres, crime thriller, social
expose, erotic drama. That was her key innovation.
She wasn't just writing about sex, she was writing
about power. And that paved the way for her most
iconic creation. She kept up this incredible
pace all through the decade. The world is full
of divorced women in 75, lovers and gamblers
in 77. This machine gun pace just ensured she
was always on the bestseller lists. And crucially,
we see the early synergy between her writing
and film. And again, it's connected to her sister.
She co -wrote the screenplay for the 1978 film
of The Stud, which starred Joan Collins as the
infamous Fontaine Collard. Then she writes the
book sequel The Bitch in 1979, which also became
a successful film with Joan reprising the role
and Jackie writing that screenplay, too. It's
a closed loop media strategy long before we were
all talking about content franchises. Jackie
writes the outrageous story. Joan stars in the
movie. And both of their careers are lifted up
by the joint notoriety of the sexy, glamorous
Collins sisters. They were the ultimate 80s media
partnership. And what's crucial here is that
even when she was co -writing those screenplays,
she was already asserting control over the visual
product. She was setting the expectation that
she was more than just a novelist. She understood
that Hollywood often sanitizes or just misinterprets
the source material. And if she wanted her unique,
edgy vision to be maintained, she had to be in
the writer's room. This mastery of the multimedia
opportunity is exactly what led to her most strategic
decision of all. The permanent move to Los Angeles.
Right. So the move to Los Angeles in the 1980s,
it was not a lifestyle choice. It was a corporate
expansion. She had established herself as a bestselling
author, but she realized that to chronicle the
rich and famous, you needed constant firsthand
access. So she and her family made a strategic
full -time relocation. This is the moment she
starts treating her career like a true business.
She understood geography as destiny, and she
actually codified her thinking with this truly
strategic quote. She said, if you wish to be
successful, there is a place you should be at
a certain time. And Los Angeles in the 1980s
was it. That's pure business strategy, placing
her operational headquarters right in the center
of her product market. And the 1980s were just
peak excess for Hollywood. The rise of the super
agent, the explosion of these expensive primetime
soaps, the obsession with celebrity culture and
all the money fueling it. By moving into the
hills above Sunset Boulevard, she started collecting
the genuine knowledge that would just redefine
her career. But that raises a big question, right?
If you're a glamorous celebrity yourself, how
do you get people's genuine secrets? Everyone
around you is performing. How do you tell the
difference between the public show and the private
trauma? That is the genius of her research method.
The writer Dominic Dunn, who moved in the same
elite circles, he provided the answer. He noted
that while Collins was a great partygoer, always
glamorous, always there, she went to these events
more as an observer than participant. She wasn't
chasing the spotlight. She was gathering data.
She was basically an industrial spy operating
in plain sight. She was listening for dialogue,
for the microaggressions, for the social anxieties
hidden under the designer dresses. She was fictionalizing
the patterns of behavior she saw, which reinforces
her core advice to writers, write about what
you know. This is why her books, even with all
the sensationalism, always felt grounded. They
had the texture and the specific, believable
flavor of L .A. life because she was taking notes.
And that rigorous discipline observation led
directly to her most commercially explosive novel.
Hollywood Wives, 1983. This wasn't just a hit.
It was a defining cultural moment that just crystallized
the entire era. The commercial metrics are staggering.
It hit number one on the New York Times bestseller
list immediately. It went on to sell over 15
million copies. And the marketing was brilliant.
It was openly sold as a scandalous expose. A
tell -all, promising to rip the velvet curtains
back on the people America was watching on TV
every single week. And the timing, with her sister.
It couldn't have been better. Hollywood Wives
elevated Jackie to near -equal status celebrity
-wise with Joan, who was dominating global culture
as Alexis Colby in Dynasty. They were this joint
phenomenon, defining the global conversation
about glamour, power, and shoulder pads. Naturally,
Hollywood Wives was fast -tracked for adaptation.
In 1985, it became this massive, star -studded
television miniseries produced by Aaron Spelling,
the king of primetime soap. The cast alone tells
you how big the book was. Candice Bergen, Stephanie
Powers, Angie Dickinson, Anthony Hopkins, Suzanne
Somers, Rod Steiger. It was an event. But despite
the success, this is the crucial turning point
where we see Collins start to push back aggressively
against external creative control. She was credited
as a creative consultant, but she later made
it very clear she was never actually consulted.
And this is the strategic insight. She realized
that Hollywood, even when adapting her expose,
would ultimately sanitize the work for network
television. She disagreed with some of the casting,
finding them too bland, too far removed from
the grit of her characters. So the title creative
consultant was meaningless. The miniseries was
a huge commercial success, but for Jackie Collins,
it was a failure in maintaining artistic integrity.
It taught her that to preserve her vision, she
needed deeper executive level involvement. She
couldn't just sell the rights anymore. Exactly.
This is what spurred her to take serious creative
control over all the later adaptations. We'd
seen her co -write screenplays, but now she aimed
higher. And we see that transformation with her
Lucky Santangelo series. In 1990, she didn't
just publish the novel Lady Boss. She actively
wrote and co -produced the television miniseries
Lucky Chances. And this miniseries combined her
first two Lucky novels and starred Nicolette
Sheridan and a very young Sandra Bullock. Moving
from selling rights to becoming a writer and
co -producer, that is a monumental shift in power.
especially in 1990s Hollywood television. She
was now dictating how her characters looked,
sounded, and acted on screen. She was making
sure the tone matched her books, the sharp dialogue,
the explicit sexuality, the real -world power
dynamics. She did it again in 1992, writing and
producing another miniseries based on the Lady
Boss novel starring Kim Delaney. She was proving
she wasn't just a best -selling novelist, she
was an executive producer who understood the
machinery of television production. It connects
right back to her youth. Her father was the powerful
figure connecting talent to the stage. Jackie
ultimately gained that control herself, but through
narrative ownership and self -production. She
learned from the Hollywood Wives experience that
if you want your dangerous, unsanitized vision
maintained, you can't just be an advisor. You
have to be the one holding the contract. She
fully inhabited the persona of a lady boss in
her business dealings. The synergy was perfect.
Living the life, using the life as material,
and then controlling the visual adaptations of
that material. Okay, now that we've seen how
she mastered the business side, we absolutely
have to look deeper into the literary universe
she created, specifically her most important,
powerful character, Lucky Santangelo. If Jackie
Collins had a fictional alter ego, a protagonist
who embodied the glamour, the danger, and the
ultimate unrelenting control she sought, it was
Lucky Santangelo. She was introduced in the novel
Chances in 1981, and this really marks the moment
when Collins moved beyond writing just about
society scandal and into crafting a genuine empire
saga. Lucky is her signature masterpiece. The
initial description is so vital because it establishes
her duality. She's the dangerously beautiful
daughter of a mob boss. This character synthesized
everything Collins had been experimenting with.
The high stakes crime element from the 70s and
the high society Hollywood glamour of the 80s.
Lucky is the perfect blend of street smarts and
high class polish. And the longevity of the Lucky
Santangelo saga is just incredible. It's a 10
book series that anchored her writing career
for over three decades. running from Chances
in 1981 all the way through to her final novel,
The Santangelos, in 2015. She gave a sense of
conclusion to her most famous creation right
before she passed away herself. And what's fascinating
about a series with that kind of lifespan is
the character's evolution. It mirrors the growing
power of women in business and culture during
that time. Lucky doesn't just age. She acquires
power. She goes from being the daughter of the
powerful figure Gino Sant 'Angelo to essentially
wielding his influence herself. Right. Running
Las Vegas casinos, navigating vendettas, dominating
her universe through sheer will. She's often
ruthless, but always justified, you know, within
the terms of her world. The titles alone tell
the story of escalation and control. Chances,
Lucky, Lady Boss, Vendetta. Lucky's Revenge,
Dangerous Kiss, Drop Dead Beautiful. She just
keeps escalating. She ensured that Lucky always
had the final word, always got her revenge, and
always maintained control over her financial
and her emotional life. And this is where we
return to those subtle details that really cement
her technique. We have to talk about the Lucky
Santangelo cookbook. The cookbook, yes. Published
in 2014, a cookbook for a gangster's daughter
who runs casinos. It sounds like a ridiculous
marketing tie -in, but it is pure Collins genius.
It does seem absurd on the surface, but it reinforces
the immersive nature of her fictional universe,
and more importantly, it lets her embed those
little nuggets of darkness we mentioned. It has
recipes alongside the character's narrative,
but here's the detail from the source material
that is just so profound. Included in this cookbook
is a flashback of Lucky watching her father throw
a plate of food at her mother as a child. That
moment of domestic violence and trauma of volatility
and fear tucked into a recipe book celebrating
high -end cuisine. It's the ultimate example
of her signature technique. She puts trauma and
dysfunction right beneath the surface of the
spectacle. It reminds you that even Lucky, the
ultimate lady boss, comes from a messy, volatile
background where power dynamics were learned
through fear. It proves her interest was never
purely in escapism. She was exploring how people
survive and even thrive in environments defined
by chaos and danger. And it connects directly
to that thematic evolution we saw earlier. From
simple sexual scandals in 68 into organized crime
with Lovehead in 74, which was extremely successful.
The Sant 'Angelo saga just fully capitalized
on this powerful combination of money, crime,
and high -stakes relationship. But Lucky wasn't
her only empire. Beyond the Sant 'Angelo saga,
she maintained and expanded her other core franchise,
the Hollywood universe, which acted as this ongoing
decade -by -decade snapshot of L .A. power. That's
right. The Hollywood series isn't just a sequence
of books. It's a structural analysis of the L
.A. power ecosystem. You start, of course, with
Hollywood Wives in 83, which focuses on the women
whose status comes from their famous husbands.
But then she immediately followed that with Hollywood
Husbands in 86. Which shifts the focus. It's
about the male ego, the infidelity, the desperate
maneuvering of men clinging to youth and power
in this ageist, hyper -sexualized industry. And
then came Hollywood Kids in 1994. And this book
is arguably the most poignant. It focuses on
the children who inherit the fame, the trauma,
the money, and the dysfunction of growing up
in that goldfish bowl. She was looking at intergenerational
celebrity damage. And then, as the new millennium
dawned, she updated the franchise, Hollywood
Wives. The new generation in 2001 looked at how
power was being redefined in the post -internet
celebrity landscape. And finally, Hollywood Divorces
in 2003 centered on the inevitable fallout, the
legal battles, the financial carnage. So these
novels weren't just light reading. They were
a continuous critique. Each book in the Hollywood
series tackled a different specific facet of
the power structures and pathologies of L .A.
celebrity culture. She was showing us the system,
the wives, the providers, the inheritors, and
the inevitable dissolution. It's an incredibly
comprehensive study wrapped in an accessible
page -turning package. And she also introduced
another distinct heroine, Madison Castelli, to
expand her universe even further. Madison was
an investigative journalist, a professional observer,
a lot like Collins herself. Right. Madison first
appeared in this four -part serial called L .A.
Connections in 1998, which was released in a
newspaper every six weeks. That serialized release
strategy just shows her continued savvy understanding
of media using a popular format to introduce
a new character to a mass audience outside of
a traditional book launch. And Madison, the journalist,
later got her own full novels like Lethal Seduction
and Deadly Embrace. And she made it to the screen,
too, with Paris Connections in 2010. Collins
was a co -producer on that one as well. The commitment
to franchising was total. If you look at the
common thread between Lucky Santangelo, The Hollywood
Wives, and Madison Costelli, it's clear. They
are all powerful, resilient women navigating
these treacherous patriarchal systems, often
using their sexuality, their intelligence, and
their money as deliberate weapons. She was crafting
the ultimate feminist fantasy of the era, not
a polite empowerment, but a ruthless, unapologetic
control. And she gave us her philosophy on writing
these characters, too. She said, I loved writing
about them and you love reading about them. With
age comes experience. And she was specifically
referring to the bad boys of Hollywood. That
phrase, with age comes experience, is key. It
implies her writing wasn't just imagination or
rumor. It was informed by a life lived fully,
maybe even recklessly in her youth, and then
observed critically in her adulthood. She was
always the knowledgeable guide, assuring the
reader, I know the secrets, I know the trauma
behind the spectacle, and I'm going to share
them with you. But that public persona, the one
who knew everyone else's secrets, was intentionally
hiding a very different private reality. This
is where the deep dive gets really interesting
because it reveals the tension between the fantasy
she sold and the life she actually lived. The
person who wrote relentlessly about endless glamour
and control and sex appeal was, at the same time,
dealing with intense personal loss and genuine
profound tragedy behind the scenes. And she managed
this extreme duality with, well, surgical precision.
The source material is very clear that this duality
was intentional. She deliberately promoted this
flamboyant public image, the bright clothes,
the witty, slightly scandalous interviews, specifically
to market her books. But that persona also served
as a protective shield, allowing her to write
about Hollywood's most guarded secrets while
keeping her own life, which was marked by significant
grief, intensely private. When you look at the
three major romantic relationships in her life,
the pattern of loss is just. It's striking. All
three ended tragically. It's an overwhelming
amount of emotional chaos for someone whose professional
life was dedicated to crafting narratives where
chaos is ultimately controlled by the heroine.
Let's trace that path, because the nature of
the loss really matters. Her first marriage was
to Wallace Austin in 1960. They divorced four
years later, in 64, after their relationship
collapsed because of his addiction to drugs prescribed
for manic depression. So the separation itself
was painful, but the tragedy escalated the following
year. Austin died from a deliberate overdose,
a suicide, just one year after their marriage
ended. They had one daughter, Tracy, whom she
then had to raise alone. That level of darkness,
self -destructive addiction, and then suicide,
it must have been an immense burden, especially
for a young woman trying to launch a career and
raise a child. It's the complete antithesis of
the glamorous, fun world she was writing about.
Absolutely. Then came her second relationship,
which was really the stable center of her life,
with Oscar Luhrmann. They married in 1965 and
were together for 26 years until he died. Luhrmann
was a big figure in his own right. He owned London's
famous nightclubs Adlib and Tramp, which provided
her with continuous access to that high society
world she loved to observe. Luhrmann formally
adopted Tracy and they had two more daughters
together. Tiffany and Rory. So this was her period
of greatest professional output and her greatest
domestic stability. But then tragedy struck again
when Oscar Lerman died of prostate cancer in
1992. Losing her longtime partner, the man who
encouraged her to finish her first novel, just
as she was peaking in Hollywood, must have been
devastating. And just two years later, she found
love again, becoming engaged to a Los Angeles
business executive, Frank Calcanini, in 1994.
Again, the relationship was cut short. They were
engaged for four years before tragedy intervened
a third time. Calcanini died from a brain tumor
in 1998. Three profound, uncontrollable losses.
A suicide, a long battle with cancer, and a brain
tumor over three decades. It's just, it demands
an incredible internal fortitude to carry that,
particularly while you're maintaining a public
facade that required constant energy and wit
and sparkle. And here is where we see her innate
resilience. and her incredible capacity for compartmentalization.
When she reflected on these tragedies, she shared
this remarkably positive outlook. She said she
chose to deal with the grief by celebrating their
lives as opposed to dwelling on their deaths.
It speaks to an incredible inner strength that
allowed her to just keep creating and maintain
her positive, focused trajectory. She simply
refused to let loss define her. And as she got
into her later years, her independence became
a source of great pride, a symbol of her self
-made power that matched her literary heroines.
In 2011, when somebody asked her about dating
and marriage, she delivered this truly famous
quote that just sums up her whole attitude. She
said, I have a man for every occasion. It's a
statement of ultimate control, right? turning
the tables on traditional power dynamics. But
she followed it up with an even more insightful
comment that connected back to her childhood.
She said, When I was a kid growing up, I used
to read my father's Playboy, and I'd see these
guys, and they had fantastic apartments and cars.
I have all of that now. Why would I want to hook
myself up with one man when I've had two fantastic
men in my life? That is so profound. She realized
she had acquired the trappings of masculine power
that she'd admired as a kid. The financial independence,
the fantastic apartments, the cars, the autonomy.
And she didn't need a man to provide them. She
became the provider of the lifestyle, the true
lady boss in her own right, both in fiction and
in life. She reached the status that Lucky Santangelo
achieved. And this independence, coupled with
her quiet focus, defined her later personal life.
She held dual citizenship. And we get these great
little authentic details about her personal habits
that delightfully contrast with the Hollywood
image she projected. Right. She was the chronicler
of extreme cosmetic surgery in Hollywood, but
she claimed to have only had Botox. And she hated
it. She avoided elaborate salon routines, excessive
shopping, which is almost unbelievable for someone
constantly in the public eye promoting glamour.
And those quiet hobbies. Yeah. They are wonderfully
domestic. This international novelist whose books
are in 40 languages, whose characters are jetting
between continents, she owned four TiVos. And
focused on television and tweeting, the irony
is perfect. The person writing about nonstop
action and chaos was maybe seeking quiet predictability
in her own viewing habits. It grounds her. It
pulls her back from the fictionalized glamour
and makes her feel like this disciplined, focused
worker who prioritized her craft. And that dedication
to her craft and her public service was eventually
recognized. In 2013, she received an OBE officer
of the Order of the British Empire for services
to fiction and charity. A far cry. from the juvenile
delinquent expelled from school at 15. That recognition
acknowledges the full journey, from scandalous
provocateur to established, respected cultural
figure. But all of this context, the resilience,
the private loss, the commitment to the job,
it makes the final, hidden chapter of her life
all the more astonishing. The level of control
she exerted over her final years is perhaps the
greatest testament to her character. The story
of Jackie Collins' final years is one of almost
unimaginable discipline and secrecy. It is perhaps
the most shocking secret she ever kept, and it
fundamentally reshapes how we view her entire
life of public performance. She died in 2015
from breast cancer at age 77, but the timeline
of her illness, it's astounding. It requires
us to reassess the last decade of her career
completely. She was diagnosed with stage four
breast cancer more than six years before her
death, and she managed to keep her illness. almost
entirely to herself during that entire period.
Six years. Six years of writing bestsellers,
promoting books, traveling the world, giving
interviews, maintaining that glamorous, witty
public persona. all while fighting a terminal
illness that she refused to share, what extraordinary
mental and emotional armor must that have required?
It underscores the ultimate power of that intentional
dual identity. She created the flamboyant public
image to market her books and protect her private
life, and in her final six years, that public
image became a protective armor that shielded
her from pity, from distraction, from unsolicited
advice. She made sure that her legacy and her
final work were not defined by her illness, but
by the glamour and narrative control she was
known for. She was determined to write her own
final chapter. And the ultimate dramatic detail
is the timing of her final disclosure. She only
told her older sister, Joan Collins, with whom
she shared so much history and career synergy,
two weeks before she died. Think about the profound
implications of that secrecy for six years, especially
from family members. It implies this profound
desire to live her final chapter exactly as she
chose, on her own terms, without the emotional
weight and distraction that a public illness
would bring. It allowed her to maintain focus
and continue working until the absolute last
moment. That dedication to her craft superseded
almost every other relationship in her life during
that period. this dedication to the performance
of Jackie Collins. She flew from Los Angeles
to London to appear on the ITV chat show Loose
Women just nine days before her death. Still
on stage, still promoting her brand, still delivering
the witty soundbites and the confident persona
until the curtain absolutely had to fall. She
didn't want her final image to be one of frailty.
She wanted it to be one of unstoppable glamour
and energy. So synthesizing all of this, the
question remains, why does she remain so relevant
to the learner interested in quick, impactful
knowledge beyond just the sheer sales figures?
Well, firstly, the commercial mastery. She was
a self -aware, strategic powerhouse. She never
claimed to be a literary writer, yet she achieved
this massive global commercial success, placing
her in the same peer group as authors like Sidney
Sheldon and Harold Robbins. Her success defined
a generation of popular fiction and demonstrated
that market appeal could completely override
critical dismissal. Secondly, her impact demonstrated
the commercial power of embracing scandal and
writing about subjects that might be considered
taboo at the time. She didn't shy away from sex,
power, or infidelity. She dove headfirst, and
the outrage only fueled her sales. She capitalized
on controversy better than almost anyone. And
finally, that narrative closure. Her final novel,
The Santangelos, in 2015, wrapped up the entire
Lucky Santangelo saga, providing millions of
readers with a definitive sense of conclusion
before she herself passed away. She was meticulous
in ensuring her fictional family's story was
complete. She was a cultural architect who understood
the media machine intimately, from her father's
agency clients to the Hollywood casting couch
to producing her own miniseries, right down to
using her social life as research. Her work was
a reflection of the power, money, and ambition
she saw every day, filtered through the lens
of strong, often vengeful female protagonists
who, unlike herself, always had control over
their destiny. And that contrast The fictional
control versus the real -life chaos is what makes
her story so compelling. Her heroines always
win, always get revenge, always find stability.
But the woman writing those narratives was repeatedly
struck by devastating, uncontrollable personal
loss. So what does this all mean? I think the
most profound realization is that Jackie Collins
managed to merge intense personal tragedy, losing
three significant partners in such devastating
ways, with professional spectacle. She used that
flamboyant persona not just to sell books, but
to shield a life marked by profound grief and
extraordinary internal discipline. She proved
that sometimes the most successful chronicler
of Hollywood secrets and hidden It's an incredible
act of emotional control, especially over those
final six years. The final provocative thought
we'll leave you with, based on her admission
that she was an observer who used her life for
material. Was the creation of Lucky Santangelo,
the dangerously beautiful gangster's daughter
who commanded massive empires? Was that her way
of embodying the power and ultimate control she
desperately sought in a life that was so often
marked by unexpected, tragic loss? I mean, consider
that the fictional Lucky always had the upper
hand, always dictated terms, always secured her
family. Meanwhile, the real Jackie had to endure
the chaos and finality of death three times over.
What are the other real -world secrets and personal
struggles hiding behind the most dazzling, confident
public careers we admire today? It suggests that
sometimes the greatest glamour is simply the
ability to keep working and keep smiling, no
matter the private battle. Something profound
to mull over until our next deep dive. Thanks
for listening.