Joan Collins, still fabulous after all these years

Joan Collins. —RUBEN V. NEPALES

(First of two parts)

LOS ANGELES—Fun would be an understatement to describe an interview with Joan Collins. At 85, she’s still fabulous, sharp as a whip and witty. She touts the advantage of having a “young husband” (Percy Gibson, 53).

“Time goes really fast, particularly in California for some reason,” said the actress who famously played Alexis Carrington Colby in the hit series “Dynasty” in the ’80s. “Charlie Chaplin said he came here when he was 21 and he turned around and he was 50.”

“I haven’t stopped,” she quipped about working since the 1950s. She confirmed that after playing Evie Gallant in Ryan Murphy’s “American Horror Story,” she will be back playing “multiple characters.”

Excerpts from our interview in LA:

What did it take for you to want to be part of “American Horror Story” and make some sort of comeback on television? I’ve never been away (laughs).  Maybe in this country but I have been working quite a bit in England. I am doing a lot of theater and doing my one-woman show a lot. I had heard of the show and I had seen a couple of episodes. I thought it was fascinating and very original. And then in February, I went for a drink at the Vanity Fair (Academy) party after we had been to another party. Ryan (Murphy) was there, talking to Sarah Paulson whom I had met. He started to talk to me, saying, “I want you to do my show and I am going to write a fabulous role for you. Would you be interested?”

I said, “Of course, you are a genius. Why not? I would love to do your show.”  But I didn’t really think anything of it because a lot of people say a lot of things in Hollywood and it’s not necessarily always true. Then two weeks later, my husband (Percy Gibson) called because he got a call from my agent. He said, “Oh, Ryan has made you an offer.” I was like, “Yay!”

Joan Collins in “American Horror Story: Apocalypse”

You have done the horror genre before. What has your experience been like so far with “American Horror Story”? I was known as Queen of the Horror Films of the ’70s. I did about five or six, like “Tales from the Crypt” and “Tales that Witness Madness.” I worked with the wonderful Christopher Lee several times and I worked with Freddie Francis, a great horror director.

In the Freddie Francis horror film that I did, I was scrubbing up blood from a white carpet.

It was similar to what we did a couple of weeks ago (on “American Horror Story”).  So there isn’t really that much difference except that we shot on film and now we shoot digitally.

One of the things that you will always going to be remembered is as the mean girl on “Dynasty.” I don’t think I was mean. She was early #MeToo, you know (laughs)?

What did you relish about your Evie Gallant character? Being an actress, or an actor, as we are supposed to say today, I really like to inhabit every kind of character.

But this kind of a character—she’s very witty, kind of Noel Coward and Maggie Smith in “Downton Abbey” and has a lot of very wild and interesting lines. She’s a name-dropper because she’s been married to the head of MGM. So she knew everybody in those days … which annoys the rest of the other people. But I don’t think she is particularly mean. She has a very sharp and brittle wit, and she’s able to come up with a repost and they have written me some great lines.

How did you and Linda Evans get along in real life? We got along OK. We are very different people so we didn’t have a huge amount in common and we didn’t really socialize that much. As an example, we had an interesting situation when we first did a rehearsal of a scene. In rehearsal, I always hold back a little. I was having a scene with her in which I have to say, “You just go back to your Blake, take your fur coat and everything, and get out of my house.” And I was yelling, “You get out of here and never show your face again!”

While I was saying that, Linda’s face went red. At the end she said, “Oh my God, did you really mean that?” I said, “No, Linda. It’s called acting (laughs).” This is not negating her in any way, because we liked each other, but we just weren’t alike. I think that she felt that we couldn’t become close because we had to hate each other so much in “Dynasty.”

Do you tend to choose these strong characters? I don’t gravitate to them necessarily. I am offered them more but I just did this short film called “Gerry” and I won best actor for it in the LA Short Film Festival a couple of months ago, playing a part so different from anything else I have played. I loved playing that part but I prefer to play strong women.

How did you use your strength as you were trying to make it in London and then Hollywood? I think one of my strengths for being in this business for as long as I have is that my father was a theatrical agent who was against me coming into the business. Because he told me how tough it was and how you had to be really able to take tons and tons of rejection as an actor.

And that also, if you were a pretty girl, you would probably be finished by the time you were 25 or 26 and that you would be treated not very well by a lot of men.

I started acting in British films when I was 17. I think one of the first things I did was something called “Judgment Deferred.” I played a juvenile delinquent (laughs). I went from juvenile delinquents to bad girls. I guess because of my coloring, being dark.

I was well-prepared for the fact that you had to be tough in this business to survive and not to take it personally.  So I was very lucky. I went to drama school and I was picked to be in J. Arthur Rank films … [then] I was bought by 20th Century Fox, which is ironically where I am now working on “American Horror Story.” I worked there for seven years.

At the age of 27, I thought that was the end of my career. Shortly after that, I got married and had babies …  But I still went to work.

I never liked the star thing.  I never took it seriously enough to go and have the hangers-on … [that] gives you an idea of your own inflated importance.

When you were 18, you were voted the most beautiful girl in England. How did you deal with that? First of all, I didn’t believe it because I came from a family that did not tell you how beautiful you were or how clever you were.  When I was 18 in England, The Evening Standard called my father and said, “Your daughter has been voted the most beautiful girl in England.” He said, “I am amazed. She is a nice-looking girl but nothing special (laughs).” So that was always in the back of my mind.

I wasn’t nearly the star she was but Vivien Leigh, was beautiful, gorgeous. She was never thought to be a very good actress until she became older and she did more serious work. But not even when she played Scarlett O’Hara.

So there was a stigma attached to being beautiful and basically they thought you couldn’t act … hurtful but I overcame it.

 Conclusion on Sunday