- Director:Laura Fairrie
- Producer:John Battsek, Lizzie Gillett
- Release Date (Streaming):Jun 27, 2021
- Runtime:1h 36m
New documentary takes a deep dive into Joan’s little sister, and finds a funny, hugely successful feminist icon, says Neil Fletcher
FROM the comfy perch of 2021, when feminism seems like a battle won long ago and big shoulders and big hair seems as dated as the Model T Ford, it’s easy to look back on the remarkable success of author Jackie Collins with incredulity.
And yet our Jackie, the ‘big and dull (to use her own words) sister of glamorpuss actress Joan, is a compelling character in her own right (or should that be own write?)….a woman of unprepossessing background, appearance and talents who reinvented herself into a global publishing phenomenon, selling 500m books and holding, for almost three decades, the unofficial title ‘Queen of the Bonkbusters’.
But Jackie Collins was much more than that, she was also a ground breaking force for feminist, sex-positive lifestyles for women and a chronicler of Hollywood’s debauched demi-monde shrouded in a cape of sisters doing it for themselves.
This welcome new documentary from director Laura Fairrie reminds us just how groundbreaking it was for a best-selling author to create strong female protagonists who were brave and fearless, invariably triumphing over every adversity, and getting lots of sex in the process. On their own terms.
Lady Boss traces Jackie’s life back to the very beginning. The middle of three children born in London in the 1930 to a housewife mum and theatrical agent father who rather evidently favoured his eldest daughter, Joan, who had early and impressive success in films.
Fairrie goes back to the beginning with her film. Jackie was the middle of three children born in London in the 1930s. Their mother was a housewife and their father a theatrical agent who rather evidently favoured his eldest daughter, Joan, who had early and impressive success in films.
When Jackie turned 16, in 1953, she went to stay with Joan in Hollywood and recorded in numerous and engaging diary entries her encounters with the rich and famous in Hollywood’s golden age. Of meeting Marlon Brando at a party she wrote; “he is only my height, and kind of fat.” She was always writing and these observations of glamorous people in a glamorous world would become the basis for many of her novels.
Ventures into acting and modeling failed miserably, and even worse was her short-lived first marriage to the abusive and drug addled Wallace Austin. But second time around proved the charm when she met Oscar Lerman, 18 years her senior and one of the owner’s of London’s leading showbiz nightclubs, Tramp. Their marriage lasted a blissful 23 years before his death from prostate cancer. It was Lerman who encouraged Jackie to write, delighted in her success, and encouraged her to create her own image of big hair, big jewels, and shoulder pads that screamed feminine empowerment.
Jackie Collins was a thorough archivist and documentarian in her own right and all of this material really enriches the film. You don’t have to have had a battered secret copy of Hollywood Wives to appreciate or enjoy this story. However, if you’re of a certain age, it is iconic stuff.
