Jackie Collins, who was famed for novels such as Hollywood Wives and The Stud, has died in Los Angeles of breast cancer. She was 77.
“It is with tremendous sadness that we announce the death of our beautiful, dynamic and one of a kind mother, Jackie Collins, who died of breast cancer today,” her family said in a statement said.
“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 four decades.”
The statement concluded: “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.”
Some of her most successful novels included Hollywood Wives, which
charted the glamorous lives of women behind the scenes of the film
industry, and 1985’s Lucky and Lady Boss in 1990 from her series focused
on the ravishing and ambitious character Lucky Santangelo, who was born
into an organised crime family.
“I’m a storyteller. I’m not a literary writer and I never pretended to be,” Collins said of her books.
Collins, the younger sister of the actor Joan Collins, was born in London and entered showbusiness as a teenager, winning small parts in British B movies.
Although she wanted to give up acting and become a writer, she said she received no encouragement as a youngster until her second husband Oscar Lerman told her she could write.
“I got no encouragement. They just sent you to school – nobody would say: ‘How did you do?’ I was top in English composition. Everything else I was two out of 100,” she told the Guardian in 2011.
She went on to sell more than 400 million books and all 32 of her novels appeared on the New York Times bestseller list, with several being made into films or adapted for television.
Collins faced controversy early in her career, writing novels so steamy they outraged political figures from Britain to China.
Her debut novel, The World is Full of Married Men, was reportedly
deemed “filthy and disgusting” by the author Barbara Cartland and was
banned in Australia and several other countries.
The book, which is a tale of a woman who cheats on her husband and another who likes sex with married men was “way before its time”, Collins later said.
Once she moved to America, Collins promised readers unrivalled insiders’ knowledge of Hollywood and said that she wrote about “real people in disguise”.
“If anything, my characters are toned down - the truth is much more bizarre,” she wrote on her website.
She said people in Hollywood trusted her with their stories because she knew the rules the town lived by.
She described writing as her lifelong obsession, and confessed to rising at dawn to write out pages in long hand. She also received emails from teenagers who said reading her novels taught them about sex.
But Collins said her life lacked the scandal of her novels. Collins
was married to her second husband, Oscar Lerman, for more than 25 years
until his death in 1992.
Joan Collins, reacting to her sister’s death, told People magazine that Jackie was her best friend. Earlier this month, Jackie told People she had only recently informed her older sister of her diagnosis with breast cancer.
“I admire how she handled this. She was a wonderful, brave and a beautiful person and I love her,” Joan Collins told the magazine.
Collins was married twice and is survived by three daughters.
“It is with tremendous sadness that we announce the death of our beautiful, dynamic and one of a kind mother, Jackie Collins, who died of breast cancer today,” her family said in a statement said.
“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 four decades.”
The statement concluded: “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.”
Some of her most successful novels included Hollywood Wives, which
charted the glamorous lives of women behind the scenes of the film
industry, and 1985’s Lucky and Lady Boss in 1990 from her series focused
on the ravishing and ambitious character Lucky Santangelo, who was born
into an organised crime family. “I’m a storyteller. I’m not a literary writer and I never pretended to be,” Collins said of her books.
Collins, the younger sister of the actor Joan Collins, was born in London and entered showbusiness as a teenager, winning small parts in British B movies.
Although she wanted to give up acting and become a writer, she said she received no encouragement as a youngster until her second husband Oscar Lerman told her she could write.
“I got no encouragement. They just sent you to school – nobody would say: ‘How did you do?’ I was top in English composition. Everything else I was two out of 100,” she told the Guardian in 2011.
She went on to sell more than 400 million books and all 32 of her novels appeared on the New York Times bestseller list, with several being made into films or adapted for television.
Collins faced controversy early in her career, writing novels so steamy they outraged political figures from Britain to China.
Her debut novel, The World is Full of Married Men, was reportedly
deemed “filthy and disgusting” by the author Barbara Cartland and was
banned in Australia and several other countries.The book, which is a tale of a woman who cheats on her husband and another who likes sex with married men was “way before its time”, Collins later said.
Once she moved to America, Collins promised readers unrivalled insiders’ knowledge of Hollywood and said that she wrote about “real people in disguise”.
“If anything, my characters are toned down - the truth is much more bizarre,” she wrote on her website.
She said people in Hollywood trusted her with their stories because she knew the rules the town lived by.
She described writing as her lifelong obsession, and confessed to rising at dawn to write out pages in long hand. She also received emails from teenagers who said reading her novels taught them about sex.
But Collins said her life lacked the scandal of her novels. Collins
was married to her second husband, Oscar Lerman, for more than 25 years
until his death in 1992. Joan Collins, reacting to her sister’s death, told People magazine that Jackie was her best friend. Earlier this month, Jackie told People she had only recently informed her older sister of her diagnosis with breast cancer.
“I admire how she handled this. She was a wonderful, brave and a beautiful person and I love her,” Joan Collins told the magazine.
Collins was married twice and is survived by three daughters.
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