Joan Collins Thought Her Iconic ‘Dynasty’ Fights Were ‘Stupid’
Joan Collins is best known as Alexis Carrington Colby, the sharp-witted ex-wife of Blake Carrington on the iconic ’80s show Dynasty. Now at 90 years old, she’s telling it all. She recently released a memoir called Behind the Shoulder Pads: Tales I Tell My Friends and has adapted it into a cabaret performance in England. Collins has been working since she was a kid but her biggest role was when she was cast in the soap opera.
She revealed, “The first time I heard of the show, I said, ‘What’s that? A Chinese restaurant?’ But I was a fan of Dallas, I knew Larry Hagman, because he was living in London when Mary Martin, his mother, was doing South Pacific and he was a chorus boy. We used to see each other at various parties. And when I watched him in Dallas, I thought, ‘I’d love to have a role like J.R. Ewing.’ And, of course, God heard me and gave me Alexis. And honestly, I absolutely loved playing her. I adored her. In fact, if you gave me the scripts of Dynasty and said, ‘What do you wanna play here? Do you wanna play Fallon? Or you wanna play Krystle? Do you wanna play Alexis?’ I’d say, ‘No question. I want to play Alexis.'”
Remind However, there was one part of filming the beloved show that she didn’t really care for. Ever the straight shooter, Collins revealed that she thought many of the show’s fight scenes were “stupid.” Even so, fans ate up the scenes especially the feuds between Alexis and Linda Evans‘ Krystle Carrington.
She said, “First of all, I hated doing the fights. I thought they were stupid. I told [the showrunners], ‘Alexis uses tongue, not her fists, to get the better of people.’ Because Alexis was very witty in many ways.” Even though Alexis usually lost the fight due to her shorter height, Collins says that it never bothered her at all. Turns out, many of the catfights on the show translated to real life. Collins and Evans infamously never liked each other.
Aaron Spelling Prod./Everett Collection
Reports say that Evans, now 80 years old, has tried to reach out to Collins but she has no interest in burying the hatchet.
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June 2017
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