Joan Collins

The Sixty-Pound Salary

Joan Collins signed her first film contract at seventeen for a weekly salary of sixty pounds. The Rank Organisation was looking for a face that could compete with American stars, and she accepted the challenge without hesitation. But London quickly felt too small for her. In 1955, she arrived in Hollywood under the wing of 20th Century Fox to shoot Tierra de faraones.

The press called her the Elizabeth Taylor of the poor.

She didn't like that nickname, but it didn't slow her grueling work pace in major productions such as Elizabeth and Essex. Studios typecast her in roles as a femme fatale or an exotic woman because of her striking features. She worked nonstop for a decade until the studio system collapsed. Then came the years of B movies and low-budget British horror.

The Business of Flesh and Paper

By the late seventies, her career seemed over. She appeared in B-movies such as El imperio de las hormigas in 1977. But her sister Jackie Collins wrote The Stud, and Joan convinced the producers to star in the film adaptation in 1978. The movie made massive profits thanks to its strong erotic content.

And the phone rang again.

She repeated the formula with The Bitch in 1979. These high-voltage productions kept her on the public radar just before television changed her life forever. Collins understood that the industry was changing and that her image as a mature, dangerous woman was a valuable asset in the international market.

Broad Shoulders and Million-Viewer Audiences

In 1981, she joined the second season of Dynasty to play Alexis Carrington. The series was about to be canceled due to its low ratings. Her arrival boosted the numbers, and the show stayed on the air until 1989. She demanded a salary of $120,000 per episode, a figure that exceeded the standards for any television actress at the time.

Won the Golden Globe in 1983.

During the 1980s, her image was used to sell just about everything, from perfumes to sunglasses. But after the show ended in 1989, she had to find new sources of income because producers feared audiences would only ever see her as the TV villainess. She turned to the theater and to writing novels and memoirs, which proved very profitable.

Legal Battles and Longevity on Screen

In 1996, she took on a media trial against the publisher Random House. The company demanded the return of a million-dollar advance, claiming her manuscripts were not of sufficient quality. Collins won the legal battle and kept the money. It was a show of strength in an industry that tends to write off women once they turn fifty.

She kept accepting small roles in genre productions. In 2018, she appeared in the eighth season of American Horror Story, playing several different characters. Her net worth was estimated at $50 million after decades of tight management of her personal brand and image rights.

In 2015, Queen Elizabeth II named her a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire for her charity work. Her last major big-screen appearance was in The Time of Their Lives, released in 2017. Filming for this road comedy took place entirely on location in France during the summer of 2016.