'Hollywood Wives' novelist Jackie Collins dies . LOS ANGELES - Jackie
Collins, the best-selling author of dozens of novels including
"Hollywood Wives" that dramatized the lifestyles of the rich and the
treacherous, died Saturday. Ms. Collins died of breast cancer in Los
Angeles, publicist Melody Korenbrot said. Ms. Collins was 77. "She
lived a wonderfully full life and was adored by her family, friends,
and the millions of readers who she has been entertaining for over 4
decades," Ms. Collins's family said in a statement. "She was a true
inspiration, a trailblazer for women in fiction and a creative force.
She will live on through her characters but we already miss her beyond
words. Unlike her older sister Joan Collins, the "Dynasty" actress who
was a direct part of the 1980s Hollywood glitterati, Jackie Collins
chose to document LA lives in her pulpy, page-turning fiction. Ms.
Collins wrote what she knew, and that meant stories of sex, glamour,
power, and more sex, a lot more sex. She began her literary career
saying more than some wanted to hear, and eventually became the kind of
author from whom readers could never get enough, providing a precursor
to the culture of "Desperate Housewives" and "The Real Housewives of
Beverly Hills. Ms. Collins said in a 2011 interview that she "never
felt bashful writing about sex. "As a writer, you can never think about
who is going to read your books. Is it going to be my mom? My children?
A lot of people say to me, 'Oh, I read your books under a cover with a
flashlight when I was really young and I learned everything I know
about sex from you.' . . . I think I've helped people's sex lives. Sex
is a driving force in the world so I don't think it's unusual that I
write about sex. I try to make it erotic, too. Born Jacqueline Jill
Collins in London in 1937, her first novel, "The World is Full of
Married Men," was a story of sex and show business set in the "Swinging
London" of the mid-1960s. It came out in 1968 and became a scandalous
best-seller, banned in Australia and condemned by romance writer
Barbara Cartland. "Barbara Cartland said to me, 'Oh, Miss Collins, your
books are filthy and disgusting and you are responsible for all the
perverts in England,' " Ms. Collins told Porter Magazine in 2014. "I
pause for a few moments and said, 'Thank you.' Ms. Collins followed in
the 1970s with books like "The World is Full of Divorced Women" and
"Lovers & Gamblers. By the 1980s, she had moved to Los Angeles and
turned out the 1983 novel she is still best known for, "Hollywood
Wives," which has sold more than 15 million copies. It came at the same
time that her sister hit the height of her own fame on "Dynasty.
"Dynasty" producer Aaron Spelling would also produce the 1985 hit TV
miniseries of "Hollywood Wives," which featured Candice Bergen, Angie
Dickinson, and Suzanne Somers, among others. It led to follow-ups like
"Hollywood Husbands" (1986), "Hollywood Kids" (1984), and Hollywood
Wives: The New Generation (2001). The book made Jackie Collins a
celebrity in her own right, and she loved the part, looking, living,
and behaving more like an actress than an author. In many ways her own
persona was her greatest character. Ms. Collins embraced Twitter in her
later years, and loved the engagement with her more than 150,000
followers. "I love tweeting. I have so much fun with my fans," she said
in 2011. "I've asked them for reviews. I answer people's questions.
Sometimes I'll do a little survey and say, 'Who is hot this week? "
Many were using Twitter to mourn her Saturday night, including Oprah
Winfrey who Tweeted "RIP Jackie Collins. I always loved our interviews.
Ms. Collins's books didn't stick strictly to Hollywood. She penned a
series of Mafia novels documenting the lives of the Santangelo family,
focusing on its patriarch, Gino, and his daughter Lucky. She wrote nine
novels based on her family including her last, "The Santangelos,"
published this year. Ms. Collins told People magazine, which first
reported her death Saturday, in her final interview Sept. 14 that she
had been diagnosed with breast cancer over six years ago, but had
chosen to keep the news among family, confiding mainly in her three
daughters, 54-year-old Tracy, 48-year-old Tiffany, and 46-year-old
Rory. Ms. Collins was married twice, the second time to art gallery and
nightclub owner Oscar Lerman in 1965. Lerman died in 1992. She was then
engaged to Los Angeles businessman Frank Calcagnini, who died in 1998.
