Category: Jackie Collins

Lovers And Gamblers

~ Wendy-Marie ~ 2 Comments

It’s Jackie Collins book time! And today’s offering is a thick 1970s tome filled with more sex, drugs, rock and roll and SCANDAL SCANDAL SCANDAL than you can shake a (heeheehee guess what I ALMOST TYPED) stick at. Now in my epic review of The World is Full of Divorced Women, I might have mentioned Tom Jones Al King, English singer stud extraordinaire. Fling those panties at the stage because Lovers and Gamblers is SUPERSIZE AL KING. AL IS KING! LONG LIVE AL!

Okay, so there might be a few other characters than Al King. There’s his hottie younger brother/manager Paul, the brothers Kings wives Edna (dumpy) and Melanie (brittle bitch), Paul’s piece on the side Linda, Al’s dopey, pimply, horny (aren’t those some of the seven dwarves?)  teenage son Evan, lots of groupies, up and coming agent Cody and yeah this chick called Dallas because it ain’t a Jackie Collins novel without a sleek feline beauty with wild hair and cat eyes and a body that makes empires crumble and bikinis say ‘Thank God!”.  Since her name isn’t Lucky Santangelo, Dallas has blonde hair and green eyes but to be honest, nobody is looking at her eyes.

Here’s the basic plot: Al, sales beginning to slip, is gearing up to tour for his AL IS KING album. Al is a giant walking hardon. He sees Dallas in a tv beauty contest and BOING! Dallas got issues. Dallas and Al meet and don’t do it do it for various plot reasons. Then they do hook up, the stars are right, they are IN WUB and then EVERYTHING GOES TITS UP!

True confession. Even with all the sex (remember rock star=groupies), Dallas’ past (runaway turned ho turned lesbian ho turned blackmailing beauty queen), the return of Karmen (Queen of the Freaks) Rush and the utter hotness of brother Paul, my favorite part of Lovers and Gamblers  is EVERYTHING GOES TITS UP!

****SPOILERS AHEAD***** SERIOUSLY****SPOILERS AHEAD***If you read on, it’s on you**********

It’s a Jackie Collins novel and you’re thinking okay where are the gangsters? But then Al’s plane is hijacked by a sexy rebel who wants to ransom the capitalist pig Al to help the shirtless ones and then the plane goes off course and CRASHES IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FREAKING AMAZON! And one person gets eaten by alligators. Another character gets eaten by a jaguar. And another character’s fate makes me not want to go outside without being covered head to toe because EMOTIONAL SCAR is still stuck in my head over 20 years after I read Lovers and Gamblers  the first time.

And the final pages. Oh, those final pages. Those slightly chilling last words that make you want Jackie to sit down at her leopard skin covered laptop and type the sequel until her crimson talons are little stubs. Okay I’m pretty sure that’s not how Jackie really writes her books but a person can dream (the leopard skin covered laptop with bright red keys). Because seriously, I don’t really care any more about the current adventures of Clan Santangelo. But I still want to know what ended up happening with Al and Dallas 30 years down the road. Was AL IS KING Al’s last stand? Did Dallas become a total monster of fame? And most of all! Is Paul still the mega hotttie mchottie King brother? If only, if only…

Sinners

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When you get to my great age (okay I know I’m not THAT old but when you’ve spent the day chatting with a younger coworker old enough to be your son, well…you know), you forget certain things. Turning off the oven (guess who has charcoal briquettes…I mean chicken nuggets for lunch tomorrow?), charging your cell phone, checking the weather report BEFORE leaving the house in cute velvet ballet flats on a rainy day, remembering Sinners has to be the worst 1970s Jackie Collins novel EVER!

Even worse than The Love Killers.

Actually The Love Killers has an interesting story, three women getting revenge for the murder of their friend. But Sinners?

WHISKEY TANGO FROSTED POP TART. Why didn’t I remember how bad this was?!?!

The only thing keeping me from flinging said book against the wall was a) did NOT want to have to buy replacement copy and b) book hitting the wall would have woken up the small children next door leading to their mother yelling for them to go back to sleep. So Sunday Simmons Is An Idiot Sinners ended up on the nightstand.

Now I read some awful books as a young lass (see review of June Flaum Singer novels, Rae Lawrence’s Satisfication) so what makes the divine Jackie’s Sinners stand out? Hmmm…

-over the top names: our Brazilian/French heroine SUNDAY SIMMONS, robo-bimbo aka Gold Digga DINI SYDNE…honestly, my brain HURTS just typing that last name let alone reading it…my brain was “ummm Didi, Dimbo….DINDI? Like Cindi? Whiskey Tango Frosted Poptart!”. Almost makes himbo actor Branch Strong sound refreshing versus a bi-curious porn star.

-Queen’s English to Americun English: thank the deity of your choice I gobble old British gentle read novels because if not I would have been the spouse asking “what’s a box-room?”. (very long story for another day).

At this stage of the game Jackie was still split between America and the UK. And it shows. Not so bad you need an annotated Jackie Collins (how COOL would THAT BE?) but still.

-Sunday Simmons: our golden skinned/haired lioness heroine with luscious knockers that can poke out your eye in a totally hot but classy way (Blacklight; “keep talking” Me: “Pervert!’) makes you LONG for Lucky Santangelo. Because Lucky has BALLS. Big, clanking, how can she walk brass ones.

Sunday Simmons? She has ethics about been exploited on a film in the first few chapters. Go Sunday, git yours. She manages to avoid getting too involved with man-ho actor Steve Magnum (they’re engaged but she finds out he’s cheated on her with her so called friend Dimbo DAMNIT DINDI before they do the deed).

But the divine Jackie sure makes up for it. By the last seventy five pages Sunday’s gotten raped or nearly raped by creepy hot French director/utter bastard Claude, the two actors in Claude’s film who do a rape scene BY RAPING THE LEAD ACTRESS WHILE THE CAMERA ROLLS, a group of twisted bleepers who can only get off on having sex at “black magic parties” (I dare you, I triple dog DARE YOU to get this far into the book) and lastly by her stalker/chauffeur Herbert Lincoln Jefferson.

And the last page?

Guess what’s most likely to happen to Sunday now that’s she’s escaped to England with her new boyfriend Charlie Brick? EWWWW….

In one of the earlier HP Lovecraft Literary Podcast episodes, hosts Chad and Chris mention that a story has an opening that feels like a first draft/trial run for a truly classic opening. British comedian Charlie Brick might seem like a rerun of Charlie Dollar but his quirky comedian with an outrageous former showbiz mother feels like a dry run for Lenny and Alice Golden in Lucky.

Same goes with a cameo featuring two strippers (one beyond skinny, one hugely plump) brings to mind George I’s two mistresses from Hanover AND the groupies who hook up with Al King’s doomed son in Lovers and Gamblers. Sorry…spoiler alert I guess…

And yes, I DID just make a historical reference about a Jackie Collins novel. 

Ramblings aside, Sinners lives up to it’s name. It’s full of sin/scandal/sex. It’s also a difficult read if you’ve only read Jackie Collins 1980s and after.

Read Sinners if you MUST, but don’t come crying to me or asking for the $8 to replace the paperback at your local library.

 

 

Blast From The Past: Lucky

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What’s next for the Santangelo clan now that Lucky’s avenged her father and the slain Dario and Marco? Well, if you think Gino the Ram is going to shuffle off to The Villages and play canasta while waiting for the Early Bird dinner or that Lucky’s going to renounce men and Marvin Gaye records you’re a) insane or b) Blacklight. Actually Blacklight would be all “What? Lucky who? Papa Gino’s pizza? Huh?”

Luckily…heeheehee…Jackie Collins doesn’t leave us hanging. Because Lucky, the next book in the Santangelo saga named after everyone’s favorite feline dusky beauty is a peach! Gino the Ram gets ensnared in the gold digging claws of Susan Martino (widow of the comedian Tiny Martino who loved to lose his salary at the Mirage tables in Chances). If Dlisted.com had existed back in the 1980s Susan Would have been Hot Slut of the Day AND in the Gold Diggers Hall of Fame. Because girl brings a wheelbarrow AND shovel.

Think Miss Lucky DOES NOT LIKE THIS? Do I have a Starbucks addiction? Is Stephen Thompson (creator of The Onion’s AV Club, Pop Culture Happy Hour panelist and raised by nerds) my secret, don’t tell Blacklight NPR boyfriend? (Blacklight: “Umm…it’s NOT A SECRET! Wait…he’s the one with the vintage video games and from The Onion? Cool….”).

Yeah…so Lucky isn’t a happy camper. Then again, neither is the sexy, dirty blond comedian Lenny Golden. He’s got girl trouble, career trouble and can’t seem to get a sexy, feline like beauty out of his head. And also at the life kinda sucks table is Lucky’s old school friend Olympia (think Christina Onassis). Being a pretty Greek heiress with huge bewbs and millions upon millions might buy you all the coke in the world and get you laid but it can’t buy you skinny.

In best Jackie Collins fashion, there are, scandals, drugs and love triangles galore! Love triangles off the top of my head: Gino/Susan/Paige. Susan/Gino/Money. Lucky/Lennie/Marco’s ghost. Lucky/Olympia’s dad/Lennie. Lennie/Lucky/Olympia. Lucky/Olympia’s dad/Francesca. Olympia/coke/food.

Will Lucky end up with Lennie? Will Olympia and Flash (think Zombie Keith Richards) make it? Will Gino learn Susan is a stone cold GOLD DIGGA? Will Paige keep her legs shut? Will Gino and Lucky reconcile? Will Lucky go to jail for a murder she didn’t commit?

Rest assured everyone bad gets theirs. Lives are changed. Marvin Gaye is grooved to. Drugs are snorted. The booze flows. It’s not Shakespeare. What Lucky is like any good Jackie Collins novel is an escape into a glittering world written by someone who has actually been on a private plane or three and partied with the high and mighty and the people on the slide. You can sit back on Mr Couch and think “wow, I’m glad I’m not Olympia. Or my husband might not be world famous but at least he’s not a junkie monkey like old Flash there…” If you need an escape or just want to reveal in the 1980s goodness Lucky is a helluva time machine!

Chances

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Back in the days lost to memory when I was a very young Gwen, Hollywood Wives seared into my brain, I was scouring the shelves of the S-bury library and stumbled across a brick of book with one of those special plastic library binding covers that feel like the padded parts of a booth at Friendly’s. Durable, sturdy, easy to wipe down. And between those indestructible covers with their cigarette scented pages (my hometown was full of heavy smoking old ladies thanks to a bazillion and one posh retirement communities) was mind blowing.

If Hollywood Wives is Jackie Collin’s slice of Hollywood life circa 1982 masterpiece, then Chances is her War and Peace.

Okay, STOP SCREAMING! Hear me out.

If War and Peace gives you a glimpse into what life was like in Russia, Chances gives you a glimpse at what life is like as a made man. Or a junkie. Or a rich bitch. Take your pick. To me, Chances feels researched more than just sitting in your husband’s nightclub and watching people on the dance floor. I like a little history in my trashy novels. It’s like eating a big juicy burger and having the sweet potato fries vs the onion rings.

Now if Chances is the burger, Gino the Ram Santangelo is the meat. We first meet Gino as a cocky teen, surviving the mean streets of New York on his own. He’s not a total babe but worth a second and third look. He’s a guy whose going places. His daughter Lucky? The cheese and bacon. She’s the dark gypsy Jackie Collins heroine, all feral, sexy and smart as a whip. Don’t mess with this girl. And the side dish of sweet potato fries with just the right blend of salt and pepper? Carrie, the young prostitute turned society hostess.

Now check in with these characters over a span of sixty years and you have a trash classic epic. Gino, young thug turned made man turned businessman turned mafia legend with fingers in everything. Young Carrie, forced into prostitution after a brutal rape by her Uncle Leroy, goes from turning tricks in shabby room to Welfare Island to head girl in a brothel to junkie to locked in mental ward to madame of her very own brothel. Lucky, beloved daughter to exiled school girl to child bride to business mogul with every bit of the Santangelo cunning her younger brother Dario lacks. Add some murder, sex, drugs, rackets, world wars, Hollywood, the jet set and sit back to enjoy the ride.

Sure Chances is a brick, will eat up a good chunk of the weekend even for a faster reader and isn’t Shakespeare but when it’s good Jackie Collins, it’s a good read. Try not to cheer when Lucky manages to get the Magiriano (a top notch Vegas casino named for her late mother Maria and Gino the Ram) built and a huge success. It takes big brass ones and luckily Lucky’s got them. Or want to scoop up the collapsed Carrie, sprawled naked on the floor of Clementine Duke’s fancy dan party while the party guests stare in shock. Little moments like this make all the Lucky is the sexiest feline offbeat beauty ever stuff worth the read.

The World is Full of Divorced Women

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When a certain husband saw the title of this book, his eyebrows shot right up. And then he read the author’s name and muttered something about “pink books” “waste of time” and “can’t I read something important and intelligent?” Mind you, this is coming from the guy who has been reading Stephen R. Donaldson latest Thomas Conventant series. Stephen R. Donaldson is the suck and a half! BOOOO! HISSS! BOOO! Donaldson wishes he had a tenth of Miss Jackie Collins book sales!

Now what book could have possibly gotten dearest Blacklight all riled up worse than walking in on me watching a marathon of RuPaul’s Drag Race Season One and hearing me proclaim my lurve for Miss Nina Flowers? The World is Full of Divorced Women…the third novel from the pen of one Miss Jackie Collins.

This is the Jackie Collins novel that feels like a classic Jackie Collins novel. Cleo, a magazine writer has just visited her husband Mike at his office and found him banging her bestie Susan on the couch. Cleo stomps out and the action begins. Miss Cleo is not going to stand for a cheating husband. Can you smell the impeding divorce?

While Cleo is deciding to ditch Mike, in London, everyone’s favorite glamour model (no NOT JORDAN! Jeez Louise people! Jordan wasn’t even BORN YET!) Muffin (oh yes, M-U-F-F-I-N, like the thing you get at Dunkin Donuts with a large coffee in the morning) is on the brink of even greater stardom thanks to a possible calendar deal. But what does Muffin want more than a calendar deal? For her photographer boyfriend Jon to get a divorce and make her Mrs Jon Clapton!

Now just how are the worlds of Cleo and Muffin going to collide? Because it certainly isn’t a Jackie Collins novel unless they do! Cleo is jetting around the world doing a magazine series on sexy man hunks. Miss Muffin, calendar deal secured, meets tween music sensation (NOT JUSTIN BIEBER WHATEVER HIS NAME IS….GOD NO!) Little Marty Pearl. Now mixed in with Little Marty Pearl’s entourage is man ho Mike who just doesn’t get why his Cleo left him and thinks he can get her back.

But Cleo, sensible gal she is, eludes Mike’s plans and becomes the live-in girlfriend of beach stud actor Butch Kaufman. While Cleo spends her days chilling at the beach, Mike beds everything in sight. And what about our Miss Muffin? She’s become Mrs Jon Clapton but she’s just another pair of tits in California. Exit Jon. But Muffin isn’t in the day old bakery bin yet! She does have one asset left…and our heroines Cleo and Muffin come face to face when Cleo, now a television presenter, interviews America’s new hot porn star for her show…

And that’s just a taste of the plot. I didn’t even touch on the whole Little Marty Pearl subplot or the Butch and Vinnie thing or what actor I think inspired Daniel Neal (I’m getting Michael Caine and Woody Allen vibes). Or the boinking. Or the glimpses of characters to come (Al King! Karmen Rush!). The writing is tighter than The World is Full of Married Men, the plot is wilder and the adventure/power/sex sex sex of the Jackie Collins world is in bloom. You get a glimpse of what it was like to live in California back in the early 1970s when good vibes and better grass was the way to go. There’s the “ohhh naughty naughty” backstage glimpses of pop music and acting icons. Hunt it down and gobble it up. It’s a deep fried Twinkie of awesome!

The World is Full of Married Men

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No, that’s NOT what Blacklight says to me when I’m jumping up and down on Mr Couch shrieking like a mad thing because my movie boyfriends Colin Firth and Christian Bale are now Academy Award winners. For that little stunt, Blacklight muttered something about “married” and “who cares” and “not in a million years”. Whatever…

However, Blacklight’s meanness aside, The World is Full of Married Men! Well, at least that’s what the late 1980s reissue of Jackie Collins first novel proclaims. Remember this is out feline goddess taking her first baby steps as a big bad writer. It’s 1968 and the Jackie rocking the book charts is Susann not Collins. The Santangelo clan is light years away. What we have is a morsel of a novel, all big print and simple themes. Married men aren’t faithful, Even the best wife can stray and girls called Claudia are sluts! And girls called Shirley…well, can you say ho-ho-ho children?

Our tale starts off with a bang…well the first paragraph is “When I was fifteen I was amazing, absolutely amazing! Dear Mummy was terrified to let me out on my own; she felt I was bound to come home pregnant, or something silly like that.” The actual banging is a few pages away. Our amazing girl? One Miss Claudia Parker, possible face of Beauty Maid soap. Will she get the job? Will she boink the ad agency guy David until he begs for mercy? This is a Jackie Collins novel what do you think? Honestly…

While David is romping with the luscious and loose Claudia, his wife Linda is going through her own adventures. The perfect wife and mother has an affair with a younger man which goes so very wrong. And then she catches David with our Beauty Maid Claudia on a terrace. And the next thing you know, change the locks and D-I-V-O-R-C-E (side note: had to sing the Tammy Wynette song to myself to make sure I spelled that particular word correctly).

Does David notice or care? Hard to tell because he’s living a glamorous life with Claudia in a penthouse. Only Claudia has more on her plate than David, she wants more including a film career and will do anything to get it. David gets tired of the parties and leaves. Claudia stays on the ho stroll. David boinks his very plain secretary. David and Linda’s divorce goes through. Linda starts seeing an old friend of David’s. Claudia’s ho stroll takes a dangerous turn while Linda finds happiness and David finds himself trapped in a web of his own making.

It’s a quick read. People get theirs. Secrets are revealed (pssst Claudia’s done PORN! I know, clutch the pearls child! Blacklight “You might wanna cut back on the RuPaul Drag Race thing a little honey! NEVER I SAY NEVER! Team Raja 4EVER!). There’s no roman a clef. it’s a a tale that can play out anywhere at any time. Cheating husband, neglected wife, slutty side piece, secretary in love with her boss. For a first effort it’s not too bad and compared to certain later works…a gem! How many best selling novels from 43 years ago can you say THAT about?

Blast From The Past: Hollywood Wives

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In the 1980s how did you know a book was huge? Mini-series! And what could be more made of awesome than a Jackie Collins novel turned mini-series Hollywood Wives? The actual book itself because no matter how talented Candice Bergen is, the Elaine Conti (long suffering wife of fading movie star Ross Conti) is not an elegant second generation Hollywood royalty blonde beauty. And Angie Dickinson as Sadie La Salle? On what planet was the lush 1980s Angie Dickinson a plain, short woman with flashing dark hair and liquid black eyes? And the final nail in the coffin of the could have been, should have been awesome of the Hollywood Wives minseries, no sane network could put the full, no holds barred story on television. Sure now in the 2010s, Hollywood Wives could be put on HBO or Showtime with nary a bink, but back in the 1980s? No way!

And what makes Hollywood Wives classic, in the Jackie Collins canon? Hmm, let’s see. It was the spark that spawned Hollywood Husbands, Hollywood Kids, Hollywood Wives: The New Generation and Hollywood Divorces. It’s a perfect glimpse into a world of glamor, power and celebrity that we’ve lost in our Internet age. It’s Beverly Hills, Rolls Royces and champagne. And there’s a fading movie star with a winkie so huge that even Tigger would be all shy. (Yes I said winkie! I could have said “jingle and the bits”, “meat and two veg”, “trouser snake”, etc…deal with it!). And his Hollywood royalty piece on the side Karen Lancaster who freaky nipples (according to the book huge, brown, like radio dials) still creep me out over 25 years after I first picked up the paperback as a very young Gwen at Bradlees. Sure Jackie Collins isn’t Jane Austen but I sure can remember things like Karen Lancaster’s nipples and the Neil Grey/Gina Germaine incident (and it stays “incident”! you want to learn more, you march into Barnes & Noble or Borders and read what happens on page 316 & 317!) better than that whole “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” (that I had to look up at Yahoo! Answers). And that my friends is writing.

Hollywood Wives is Jackie Collins coming out of the 1970s and fully into the 1980s. The worst thing that you can catch from the luscious piece you’ve picked up as you cruise down the road in your Rolls, Maserati or Ferrari? Maybe the clap? But who cares, you’re a star and there’s a doctor who can take care of whatever you need discreet as can be. And if you’re not a star…oh well…

So what about the Jackie Collins usual suspects?

The exotic dark beauty who loves Al Green? One Montana Gray, writer of the could be classic Street People, wife of director Neil Gray. Doesn’t take any bullshit from anyone…

Aging movie star/legendary stud? It’s hard to know what’s bigger, Ross Conti’s fame back in the day or his…um….well….okay I can do this…deep breath…you are a grown-up…WINKIE!

Hot guy on the make? Who is Buddy Hudson? One smoking studmuffin with liquid black eyes, a dangerous walk, an innocent wife and a not so innocent past.

Angelic blonde? Mrs Buddy Hudson aka Angel. So pure and sweet and untouched your teeth will hurt like you’ve eaten a can of frosting (not like I ever did that!)

Slutty blonde? Gina Germaine, a walking, talking blow up doll of a movie star who eats men alive…think I’m joking…HELLO PAGE 316 & 317 my friend!

Washed up Englishman? Director Neil Gray, husband of Montana Gray. Played by Ciaran Hinds or Alan Rickman in my head.

Big Party? Shoplifting Elaine and cheating on Elaine with her best friend Ross Conti’s bash for the Lancasters. Oh things go do my friends. Things GO DOWN! There’s fights, a director caught with his pants down but not in the way you’re thinking!, reunions, exposures and more drugs and champagne then you can shake a stick at. People would kill and have screwed anyone to get to this party.

Damaged individual? Let’s face it. Just about every character is this book has some deep dark secret except for boring Angel Hudson. A little being groped by her landlady Daphne on a Hawaiian vacation is nothing compared to the things that oh her husband Buddy (coughcoughrentboypartyboyfortheladiesonlycoughcough) or Bibi Sutton (coughcoughfrenchcallgirlwhosnaggedheramoviestarcoughcough) or Sadie La Salle (coughcoughrosscontibabymamacoughcough) have endured. But the winner of the damaged individual award is one Deke Andrews. And oh man…he was chilling over 25 years ago and he’s still chilling even in our beyond jaded to violence times.

Sex? Excuse me? Do I EVEN HAVE TO ANSWER THIS? IT’S A JACKIE COLLINS NOVEL. PEOPLE NOT HAVING S-E-X IS SHOCKING.

Druge? See above. Switch out s-e-x for drugs and/booze.

Scandal? Cut me a break! Okay okay okay…how about cheating spouses, on the ho stroll, pictures that belong in Hustler and videos that Vivid Video would kill to release, drugs, murder, and shoplifting…is that exciting enough for you?

So crank up that charge card, pop open the champagne, lay out a rail or seventeen of cocaine, get some girls from room service and party. Or if you’re me, crack out the diet ginger ale, snatch your bag of Hershey Kisses from the freezer, curl up on Mr Couch and enter a time machine set for HOLLYWOOD circa 1983. Either way enjoy the ride!

 

Blast From The Past: Hollywood Husbands

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Some days you just want to curl up on Mr Couch with a lovely cup of hot tea, a cinnamon scone and a book that features bracing walks with the dogs after Sunday lunch with the vicar before evening services.

Other days you want to smear kohl around your eyes, slam back a drink and shake your money maker to some Al Green while having wild, mindblowing S-E-X with a lean hipped bad boy with killer green eyes.

Enter Jackie Collins’ 1986 masterpiece Hollywood Husbands. It’s 1985. Everyone is snorting back a line of coke or sipping champagne. Shoulder pads are huge, the hair even huger. All the classic Collins elements are here.

Smoking hot feline sexy young heroine? Top model Jade Johnson (big twist! she doesn’t have wild black gyspy curling hair that falls to her waist. Our Jade is a copper top who gets down to Bruce Springsteen versus Al Green! I know! Shocker right?).

Old Hollywood legend? Movie star turned prime time soap star Silver Anderson. A little big real life sister Joan, a little Shirley Mclaine, a little Liz Taylor. All awesome from the top of her amazing wigs to her Gucci clad toes.

Forty-something Hollywood big stud actor? Mannon Cable. The looks of Robert Redford, the 1970s Burt Reynolds sex appeal and a hot actress ex-wife Whitney Valentine Cable. Total sexonnastick if you’re into the whole handsome blond guy thing.

Character with abusive past whose identity in revealed in the last 10 pages? Check…this time our damaged individual is a young woman who resolves all her problems with a big can of gasoline and a match…

Struggling talent on the rise? Tie between Silver Anderson’s neglected daughter teenager Heaven who inherited her mother’s vocal talents and scrabbling on the edges of the dark side of life turned trophy husband Wes Money (lanky Brit with the sexy green eyes and lean hips, ROWRRRRRR).

Big event where everything goes tits up? New Year’s Eve party on a yacht. Add one damaged individual and some matches. Can you say KABOOM? Can you say wrap up the storylines. It’s all Grand Hotel up in this thing. Wait you probably don’t know what Grand Hotel is. Google is your friend.

Hollywood Husbands doesn’t pretend to be great literature. It’s the chance to turn off your brain or at least put it on KEEP WARM and pat yourself on the back when you guess a plot point or figured out Silver Anderson=Joan Collins or Mannon Cable=Lee Majors. 

People get laid, wear awesome clothes, live in mansions, drive Rolls Royce and consider a $6000 dress a little nothing from the closet. It’s eating frosting from the can, rich and decadent, awful for your teeth but a whole lot of fun doing it before you pass out from too much sugar.

Will Mannon Cable leave his rebound wife? Will Jade and Jack realize they are in tru wub? Will Heaven find out who her dad is? Is our damaged individual Whitney, Melanie-Shanna, Poppy or Clarissa? The answers are there, just delve into the Giorgio scented depths.

 

 

 

Put on the Pucci & Take A Gulp of Champagne

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***This was originally posted on the Confessions blog***

Have you ever snapped up a shiny book for the beach or a plane trip? Something with gorgeous people doing scandalous things? Maybe a Jackie Collins novel? Maybe a Judith Krantz novel? And thought to yourself: Venus Maria is Madonna? Crystal Anderson is Joan Collins? Al King is Tom Jones? Those examples? Pulled straight from my head.

Back in the 1960s & 1970s you would have been reading Valley of the Dolls, The Love Machine and Once is Not Enough. And just who was the author who seemed to know all the secrets and was the first person to put three books back to back #1 on the New York Times Best Seller list? The person who for many years was listed in the Guinness Book of Records with the best selling fiction book of all time? Ladies and gentlemen, Jacqueline Susann.

Once in an interview Jackie Collins said she learned about the other side of Hollywood by befriending and listening to people. Jacqueline Susann knew about the dark side of fame by living it. Leaving your family to try your luck in New York City? She did it. Getting fired from a desired role? Ditto. Behind the scenes of early television shows? Yup. Putting a family member into a institution? Yes. Along with those pieces of herself, she put pieces of the world around her. The friend who died tragically too young of cancer as Amanda. Another friend, a lovely blonde dead by her own hand as Jennifer. And yes, a certain eternal star as her nothing can hold her back Neely O’Hara.

But Jacqueline Susann was more than the failed actress, turned party girl, turned local television celebrity turned roman a clef author. She loved scifi, fantasy, the weird. What else can explain the last pages of Once is Not Enough, when our heroine January has an strange encounter on the beach? Her last book, the posthumous Yargo is a fantastic voyage to another world. I have this image of a teenage Jacqueline, hair done up in rag curlers, face creamed and curling up in bed with an issue of Weird Tales. Did she ever flop back on the pillows and wonder what it was like to write those things? Did she imagine herself on John Carter’s Mars or reading forbidden things in decaying leather volumes in a Dunwich farmhouse? Is there a fan letter in some uncovered archive to the Old Gentleman of Providence himself?

Curious? Take the time to go to your local bookstore or library. The scandalous doings of Valley of the Dolls, The Love Machine, and Once is Not Enough might not be your thing. But her charming tale of life with a poodle Every Night Josephine might do the trick. Perhaps Barbara Seaman’s compelling biography Lovely Me? Jacqueline Susann deserves so much more than a poorly cast bio-pic and her books moldering on used book stores shelves…
Jacqueline Susann