She is turning 90 next month.
Yet Dame Joan Collins is showing no signs of slowing down, as the soon-to-be nonagenarian continues to work hard, including hitting screens on Joe Lycett’s chat show Lade Night With Lycett on Saturday.
The Dynasty star has been in the spotlight for over seven decades, and during that time has managed to amass a whopping five marriages.
Joan, who is currently married to Percy Gibson, first tied the knot aged just 19 to Maxwell Reed before divorcing four years later and going on to married four more times. So who are Joan’s husbands?
Stunner: Dame Joan Collins is showing no signs of slowing down, as the soon-to-be nonagenarian continues to work hard, including hitting screens on Joe Lycett’s chat show Lade Night With Lycett on Saturday
Out and about: Joan married Maxwell Reed, who passed away in 1874, when she was just 19. They met when she was 17 and he was 31
Maxwell Reed
1952-1956
Joan married Maxwell Reed, who passed away in 1874, when she was just 19. They met when she was 17 and he was 31. She has spoken in depth about the horrors she faced at the hands of her spouse.
In one of her three autobiographies, Joan told how she was drugged and raped at the age of 17 when she was still a virgin and explains how her guilt drove her to marry the perpetrator of the crime.
In one of her three autobiographies, Joan told how she was drugged and raped at the age of 17 when she was still a virgin and explains how her guilt drove her to marry the perpetrator of the crime
She revealed: ‘I was raped when I was seventeen years old’. At the time the actress had just been signed to RANK film studios and was already tipped for success.
Joan then describes how she was on a date with Irish actor Maxwell when he went to take a bath. He gave her a rum and coke to drink and some books to read. She recalled: ‘The books were porn, which I’d never seen before. Hardcore porn…
‘The next thing I knew, I was out flat on the sofa in that living room and he was raping me. And what he had given me was a drug. He had drugged my drink.
‘It was what is called in those days a Mickey Finn. Which I think today would be Rohypnol. It felt so horrible. That I…that I’d done this thing.’
In her naivety, a young Joan Collins felt terrible guilt. ‘It wasn’t my fault but I didn’t know, I went out with him. And maybe I shouldn’t have gone out with him. He was much older than me, and he was a famous star,’ she said.
‘And anyway the bottom line is that he called me, and I went out with him again. And after I’d been going out with him for a few months, he asked me to marry him.
‘And I thought, ‘Well I better because you know, he took my virginity.’ I really hated him, but I was so filled with guilt, that he had done this thing to me.’
Joan filed for divorce from Maxwell and enjoyed the Hollywood lifestyle, partying with Marilyn Monroe at Gene Kelly’s home.
Happy days: In 1963, she married actor and singer-songwriter Anthony Newley, with whom she had two children, Tara, 59, and Alexander, 58, also known as Sacha
Anthony Newley
1963-1971
In 1963, she married actor and singer-songwriter Anthony Newley, with whom she had two children, Tara, 59, and Alexander, 58, also known as Sacha.
They split in 1971 and Anthony passed away from cancer at 67 in 1999.
In 2017, Alexander caused ructions when he alleged that his father was a peadophile.
In an interview with The Sunday Times, he said: ‘He was a paedophile. My father was drawn to youthfulness; he thought innocence was an aphrodisiac. That was his sexual proclivity and it’s a very dangerous, destructive thing.’
Joan was stunned and refuted the claims at the time, saying: ‘I think Sacha’s being extremely naïve and not really knowing the meaning of that word [paedophile], because what Tony admittedly was, is he loved young women, and young women of 17, 18 and 19 years old…
They split in 1971 and Anthony passed away from cancer at 67 in 1999
‘Not children by any means. Never in a million years would I have been married to somebody like that. Categorically, I can say that it is not true, that I never saw any of that kind of behaviour from Anthony . . .’
He also penned a book about growing up with superstar parents, called Unaccompanied Minor, in which he said he regularly witnessed sex.
He wrote: ‘It was Hollywood and all the people were beautiful and gorgeous, wafting in and out of parties. My father put sex front and center. He exposed me to all of that — it was absolutely inappropriate’. ‘.
Sacha then claimed that the reason his parents divorced was because Anthony’s 1969 X-rated musical film Can Heironymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe and Find True Happiness? was ‘a confession of pedophilia.
He said: ‘My mother was destroyed by that film: it was the end of their marriage. My father was a great, flawed talent. He was a classic sex addict.’
Sacha’s sister Tara also refuted the claims, saying: ‘I was shocked by my brother’s comments. From my end, I don’t recognize the man he is describing. I had an incredibly close relationship with my father and am deeply upset by these false allegations.’
Joan moved on, marrying third husband Ron Kass in 1972, and welcoming a daughter, Katy, with the then head of the Beatles’ record label Apple (pictured)
Ronald S. Kass
1972-1983
Joan moved on, marrying third husband Ron Kass in 1972, and welcoming a daughter, Katy, with the then head of the Beatles’ record label Apple.
However the family fell on hard times after Kass moved them to LA for a job as a studio head which fell through.
Joan starred in B-list movies and even once queued for an unemployment cheque. Tragedy struck when Katy, then nine, was hit by a car and suffered a catastrophic brain injury in 1980.
She said: ‘I was told she was going to die and she was in a coma for a long time.
‘Eventually she started to make little sounds and then she took her first faltering steps.
‘She was going to be alright. Katy’s accident was the worst thing that had ever happened to me.’
After Katy recovered, Joan learned the family were almost bankrupt after Kass had taken out a huge loan for their home in LA.
She divorced from Kass in 1983, and went on to meet her fourth husband, Scandinavian singer Peter Holm, at a party.
She divorced from Kass in 1983, and went on to meet her fourth husband, Scandinavian singer Peter Holm, at a party (pictured)
Peter Holm
1985-1987
Joan met Scandinavian singer Peter Holm, at a party. Then at the height of her fame as Alexis in the TV soap Dynasty, said she thought Holm was charming, open and honest.
Joan claimed that he became her manager, sacked all her advisers – accountant, lawyer, agent – installed a powerful computer to keep track of her business affairs, and within weeks had already drawn up a prenuptial agreement in the hope that she would marry him as soon as she had divorced her third husband, Ron.
They wed in 1985, but according to Collins, Peter became increasingly controlling, with Joan saying: ‘None of my friends liked him but I stupidly didn’t listen… The trouble was I was far too stubborn to admit I’d made a terrible mistake.’
Meanwhile Joan said Holm’s behaviour had changed rapidly after the wedding, as though he no longer needed to pretend to love her. He became bossy and dogmatic, criticised Joan in public, sneered at her looks and made snide remarks about her age.
The pair split in 1987. In court he demanded to be given £35,000-a-month living expenses – £60,000 in today’s terms – as well as the LA house and their villa in the South of France.
Dame Joan Collins has revealed how her first husband raped her on their first date as she remembered details of her five marriages in a new documentary set to air tonight (pictured with her husband Percy Gibson)
Percy Gibson
2000-present day
Finally, Joan recalled how she met and married fifth husband Percy Gibson – 32 years her junior – in 2000 when he managed a theatre production she was in.
She said: ‘It was giddy, it was fantastic and Percy and I fell madly in love. I’ve finally found my true soulmate. And my husband forever.’
Meanwhile she continued: ‘I know I’ve had a lucky life but I’ve also had my fair share of disaster and unhappiness.
‘There have been miserable, horrible divorces, the terrible situation when my daughter almost died, bankruptcy, almost, not getting any work as an actor. A lot.
‘But who wants reality? There’s already too much of it in today’s world, that’s not what the public pay for.’
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