Jackie Collins: Was romance novelist Jackie Collins related to Joan Collins? | Books | Entertainment
[ad_1]
Jackie Collins, who died in 2015, was known as the Queen of the bonkbuster for her highly successful romance novels. The 77-year-old wrote 32 books during her lifetime and sold over 500 million copies. But did you know the late writer was related to Dame Joan Collins?
Jackie Collins was Joan Collins’ younger sister who was born on October 4, 1937 in Hampstead, London.
Her parents were Elsa Bessant and Joseph Collins, a theatrical agent who represented the likes of The Beatles, Sir Tom Jones and Dame Shirley Bassey.
While the Collins sisters grew up with their younger brother Bill who went on to become a property agent.
Jackie attended Francis Holland School, an independent day school for girls, but ended up being expelled at 15.
READ MORE: Inside Joan and Jackie Collins’ turbulent sibling relationship
During this period it’s rumoured that Jackie had an affair with a 29-year-old Marlon Brando.
By the 1950s, she had acting roles in a number of B movies, while her parents sent her to live with Joan in Los Angeles where her sister worked as a Hollywood star.
But by the time she was 18, Jackie had moved back to England and began writing her first novel.
The 1968 book The World Is Full of Married Men was a bestseller and went on to be banned in South Africa and Australia.
Jackie was married twice. Firstly to Wallace Austin, who she had her daughter Tracey with.
The in the early 1980s she tied the knot again to Oscar Lerman, who she had two more daughters with before his death in 1992.
Jackie herself died of breast cancer just two weeks before her 78th birthday on September 19, 2015, having been diagnosed with stage 4 six years previously.
The author kept this a secret and only told her sister Joan two weeks before she died.
[ad_2]
Source link
