Blake C.
2007-07-28 23:20:02 UTC
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/femail/article.html?in_article_id=468304&in_page_id=1879
Joan Collins: Why I'll never work with Linda Evans again! - Part II
by JOAN COLLINS
Take two of TV's most demanding divas - and deadly rivals. Lock them
together on stage for 30 weeks.Let them simmer until they reach
boiling point. Now read Joan Collins' eye-poppingly hilarious account
of why she'll NEVER work with Linda Evans again
November 7: Hartford, Connecticut
A simply horrible review in the local paper, almost as bad for me as
it is for Linda.
November 11: Last day in Hartford
Am beginning to think that maybe Linda isn't as much of a devious
bitch as I thought - more of a ditzy blonde.
Then she invites the entire cast out to dinner - without Percy and me.
We've invited her to every one of our parties and dinners. This is
exactly what used to happen during Dynasty: I'd ask her to my parties
but she never reciprocated.
Scroll down for more...
November 15: East Lansing, Michigan
What a dump! Freezing cold - so, of course, I get sick.
My legs and arms feel like cotton wool during the show and I'm
distressed by an e-mail from Ben, the producer, saying he's "very
upset and depressed" because I'm "changing all kinds of lines and
dialogue".
The stage manager is obviously mis-reporting again.
I tried one new line because something wasn't working - and that was
with the stage manager's blessing.
By Thursday, I'm feeling worse.
I stagger to the theatre after spending the day in bed and have the
most horrible first act.
I can barely stand or walk or say my lines and, towards the end, I
almost faint. Then I collapse after the first-act curtain and my
dresser half-drags me back to my dressing-room. My understudy is
thrilled to go on for the second act.
The doctor says I'm suffering from a viral infection, probably brought
about by utter exhaustion and stress. Frankly, I feel Ben Sprecher has
contributed to this.
Why doesn't he let some steam off on Dame Edith, with her endless
pauses, slow delivery and tiny little voice that no one can hear?
November 24: Washington DC
Dame Edith decides to put in an extra line at the end of the play -
without telling anyone!
I don't care about extra lines during the show, but I like to be told
ahead of time. Unlike her, I always inform stage management of my
intentions.
However, adding a line at the end without warning is unforgivable
because of everything that needs to happen right after my final line.
Everyone's preparing to take their bows, the music starts, the lights
dim and I have to walk downstage so I don't get hit in the head by the
curtain.
But Linda prevents all this by holding her ground and saying an
unscripted line. I complain bitterly to stage management afterwards.
This evening - same again!
Not only that, but this time Linda even speaks over my last line. When
I come off stage, I call to her but she ignores me.
So I yell: "Linda, you can't say an unscripted line before curtain
without telling anybody."
She has the gall to respond: "Well, you're putting lines in all the
time."
"That is not true," I say - then we have a contretemps in front of the
entire company.
When I say: "I think we should sort this out now," she replies: "I've
got better things to do," and stalks off.
As she goes, I say: '" don't think that's very professional."
She screws her head around - like Linda Blair in The Exorcist - and a
demonic croak comes out of her mouth: "Well, you're unprofessional!"
Everyone around us is agape.
I'm furious. It's one thing to describe an actor's specific behaviour
as not professional, but quite another to call the actor
unprofessional.
She obviously hates me and is jealous of my happiness with Percy.
The stage manager says he's never seen this side of her before - so
bitter and nasty. But that's the real Linda, when you force her hand.
She's a Scorpio - beware the sting in the tail...
At the following week's press conference, I'm asked for the umpteenth
time: "What's the difference between you and Linda?"
This time, I chirp: "I have three lovely houses in London, New York
and the south of France, I'm happily married to a great guy, I have
three wonderful children and three gorgeous grandkids; Linda lives in
Seattle with lots of horses."
Bitchy, perhaps, but true.
November 26
After a couple of tense days on stage (I can't bear to look at that
plastic face), I find I suddenly can't remember the word "ruthless" in
one of my speeches - so I pull the word "devious" out of thin air and
continue with my line.
You'd think World War III had broken out.
The stage manager and producer are on the phone immediately to Percy,
screaming: "How dare she change lines and make up dialogue." Percy
protests: "She forgot one word, one word, Ben!"
I've never been treated so horribly in all my years in this business.
Tonight is our only night off, so we go to a movie - yet Ben calls
Percy on his mobile to have a yelling match.
I'm intensely angry, can't sleep well and feel my health is being
compromised. It's time to put in a call to Actors' Equity - our trade
union - to ask them to stop Ben from ever addressing another word to
me.
{R}
Christmas
After long discussions, Equity have invoked a clause in my contract
that says no one but the director is supposed to give an actor notes
(if only I'd known sooner!)
I've found out one of the reasons that Ben and the director are being
so aggressive. Linda is angry that I'm sitting upstage of her during
her "moment" - a speech in which she talks about how she contracted
breast cancer.
So now John and Ben want me to sit downstage for it. Why didn't they
just say so from the start? I'd only been getting out of Linda's way
so she could take the stage.
January 14, 2007: San Diego, California
Our first big rehearsal since the Christmas break - and I'm more than
a little apprehensive.
I'm sure Ben is furious that I've again complained to Equity about him
(this time, about not providing 'doubles' for my stage clothes, not
paying for required alterations and not agreeing to send my outfits to
a proper dry cleaner's...after 12 weeks!)
January 26: Los Angeles
Two weeks of relative peace until the director and stage manager
summon me to Linda's dressing-room because I'm apparently p***ing her
off again.
I've discovered a funny piece of slapstick (I careen into the
mantelpiece, slowly slide down on to a stool and then fall off it)
which has been seen by everyone over the last two weeks. No one's
complained - on the contrary, I've received a lot of laughter and
praise for it.
But Linda's been silently fuming because, again, it "cuts into her
moment".
Actually, it has nothing to do with her moment, as it's before I hand
the stage over to her, yet the "powers that be" have decided that
mollifying Linda is more important than getting the audience to laugh.
Almost as soon as I step into Linda's dressing-room, she gives me a
bollocking. I'm not one to take kindly to that, so it quickly turns
into a screaming match. Again, she shrieks that word "unprofessional"
at least four times.
I suggest she uses that same fervour and passion on stage, because
I've seen nothing but the same low-key performance - the same
inflections, the same gestures - since Toronto, and it's very boring.
She simply can't understand that to keep a performance fresh, you need
to renew it every night - within the boundaries of what was originally
directed.
Then I ask her the only pertinent question at this point: "Why did you
do this play? You hated me on Dynasty - were you so desperate for
work?" She just gapes at me.
I've been asked to play a role in Desperate Housewives, which I sadly
can't do because of this show.
February 11: Denver, Colorado
At the matinee, during my tender aria about the day my mother caught
me looking at my bottom in the mirror (hard to do tenderly), Dame
Edith keeps craning her scrawny giraffe neck to look at my backside.
Of course, when coupled with that perma-startled look of the
surgicallyenhanced, this causes great titters and guffaws in the
audience. Complete upstaging of the kind she accuses me of!
Finally, I turn to face her and say the unscripted line: "Had a good
look?"
She improvises by slapping me in the butt.
Typical Linda - she isn't smart enough to think of a retort, so she
resorts to physicality. Back in LA, she poked me on the chin with her
witch finger a few times.
It's a good thing I'm extremely resilient. Nevertheless, I'm finding
it a massive chore even to look at Linda's face and hear her deliver
her lines over and over again in the same monotonous way.
March 20: Cleveland, Ohio
My knee aches. My finger throbs and has swollen to twice its size.
I've got indigestion due to stress, I look horrible, I've gained 7lb
and I'm too exhausted even to contemplate exercise. This experience
has almost cured me of my love for live theatre.
May 1: Raleigh, North Carolina
Ben 'The Specter' Sprecher sends Percy an e-mail inviting us to a
celebration dinner for the end of Legends. There is no way we'd break
bread with that man.
When my agent tells him this, tiny Ben bleats: "I've never been so
insulted in my life." Good!
A few days before closing night, 'Lips' Evans tries some of her
onstage antics again. She's started mimicking my gestures - I suspect
she thinks it's naturalistic acting. If I put my hands behind my head,
she does. If I stand up, she does. If I sit down, she does. It's like
some bizarre game of Simon Says. Perhaps she's finally trying to vary
things, poor dear.
One of the other irritations, which has become worse over the run, is
that she smirks or giggles after (and sometimes during) some of my
lines, and before she starts hers.
Then, during a speech in which I gesture with a chiffon scarf, she
suddenly grabs the other end and won't let go. At the same time, she's
glaring at me with a maniacal expression. When I try to wrest the
scarf from her, she hangs on for dear life - so I finally have to
lunge towards her and pull it away really hard. She's angry about
something again - but I neither know nor care what or why.
Percy and I throw our own farewell dinner for the company at the best
restaurant in Raleigh. Everyone has been asked to "dress glamorously"
- and even "the guys" in the crew have made a big effort. Everyone,
that is, except Linda, who wears a drab, ill-fitting black
trouser-suit.
I make a witty speech and address every single member of the cast and
crew (even Linda, with a rather gracious: "You are one brave beautiful
bitch" - a line from the play).
Finally, Linda stands up and thanks everyone effusively. She turns to
me and grins. "I must say, Joan, I've never been bored."("I have," I
whisper to Percy.)
May 6: Final performance
Freedom! Hurray, hurray and yippeekayyay.
New York: May 10 - four days after closing
The fourth finger on my right hand is so swollen and painful that I
haven't worn a ring on it for six months. An eminent specialist tells
me I've developed a huge cyst - right where Linda kicked me. There's
only one thing for it: a steroid injection right into the knuckle.
This is the most painful thing I've ever experienced. In front of the
doctor, Percy, three internists and one nurse, I let out a God-awful
shriek that probably reverberates across the hallowed halls and makes
the ECG machines jump off their marks.
News that Linda hurt me has hit the gossip columns - but it's been
denied by Ben Sprecher. And Linda's manager, the Toad, added: "(Joan
Collins) is a bleeping piece of bleep and the most unprofessional
actress working in Hollywood today."
A charming end to a sorry saga - because, as everyone knows, the
opinions of an actor's representatives are always those of the actor.
Thanks, Linda.
The south of France: This week
Until the final weeks, Ben was asking me to reconsider my refusal to
go to Broadway with Legends. But there's no way I could work with Lips
Evans again.
Thank God it's over!
Well, not quite - because every time my finger throbs or my knee
hurts, I find I'm visualising a spectral, rubber-lipped grin.
No prizes for guessing whose...
Joan Collins 2007. Joan Collins' new autobiography, A Passion For
Life, will be published in autumn 2008.
Joan Collins: Why I'll never work with Linda Evans again! - Part II
by JOAN COLLINS
Take two of TV's most demanding divas - and deadly rivals. Lock them
together on stage for 30 weeks.Let them simmer until they reach
boiling point. Now read Joan Collins' eye-poppingly hilarious account
of why she'll NEVER work with Linda Evans again
November 7: Hartford, Connecticut
A simply horrible review in the local paper, almost as bad for me as
it is for Linda.
November 11: Last day in Hartford
Am beginning to think that maybe Linda isn't as much of a devious
bitch as I thought - more of a ditzy blonde.
Then she invites the entire cast out to dinner - without Percy and me.
We've invited her to every one of our parties and dinners. This is
exactly what used to happen during Dynasty: I'd ask her to my parties
but she never reciprocated.
Scroll down for more...
November 15: East Lansing, Michigan
What a dump! Freezing cold - so, of course, I get sick.
My legs and arms feel like cotton wool during the show and I'm
distressed by an e-mail from Ben, the producer, saying he's "very
upset and depressed" because I'm "changing all kinds of lines and
dialogue".
The stage manager is obviously mis-reporting again.
I tried one new line because something wasn't working - and that was
with the stage manager's blessing.
By Thursday, I'm feeling worse.
I stagger to the theatre after spending the day in bed and have the
most horrible first act.
I can barely stand or walk or say my lines and, towards the end, I
almost faint. Then I collapse after the first-act curtain and my
dresser half-drags me back to my dressing-room. My understudy is
thrilled to go on for the second act.
The doctor says I'm suffering from a viral infection, probably brought
about by utter exhaustion and stress. Frankly, I feel Ben Sprecher has
contributed to this.
Why doesn't he let some steam off on Dame Edith, with her endless
pauses, slow delivery and tiny little voice that no one can hear?
November 24: Washington DC
Dame Edith decides to put in an extra line at the end of the play -
without telling anyone!
I don't care about extra lines during the show, but I like to be told
ahead of time. Unlike her, I always inform stage management of my
intentions.
However, adding a line at the end without warning is unforgivable
because of everything that needs to happen right after my final line.
Everyone's preparing to take their bows, the music starts, the lights
dim and I have to walk downstage so I don't get hit in the head by the
curtain.
But Linda prevents all this by holding her ground and saying an
unscripted line. I complain bitterly to stage management afterwards.
This evening - same again!
Not only that, but this time Linda even speaks over my last line. When
I come off stage, I call to her but she ignores me.
So I yell: "Linda, you can't say an unscripted line before curtain
without telling anybody."
She has the gall to respond: "Well, you're putting lines in all the
time."
"That is not true," I say - then we have a contretemps in front of the
entire company.
When I say: "I think we should sort this out now," she replies: "I've
got better things to do," and stalks off.
As she goes, I say: '" don't think that's very professional."
She screws her head around - like Linda Blair in The Exorcist - and a
demonic croak comes out of her mouth: "Well, you're unprofessional!"
Everyone around us is agape.
I'm furious. It's one thing to describe an actor's specific behaviour
as not professional, but quite another to call the actor
unprofessional.
She obviously hates me and is jealous of my happiness with Percy.
The stage manager says he's never seen this side of her before - so
bitter and nasty. But that's the real Linda, when you force her hand.
She's a Scorpio - beware the sting in the tail...
At the following week's press conference, I'm asked for the umpteenth
time: "What's the difference between you and Linda?"
This time, I chirp: "I have three lovely houses in London, New York
and the south of France, I'm happily married to a great guy, I have
three wonderful children and three gorgeous grandkids; Linda lives in
Seattle with lots of horses."
Bitchy, perhaps, but true.
November 26
After a couple of tense days on stage (I can't bear to look at that
plastic face), I find I suddenly can't remember the word "ruthless" in
one of my speeches - so I pull the word "devious" out of thin air and
continue with my line.
You'd think World War III had broken out.
The stage manager and producer are on the phone immediately to Percy,
screaming: "How dare she change lines and make up dialogue." Percy
protests: "She forgot one word, one word, Ben!"
I've never been treated so horribly in all my years in this business.
Tonight is our only night off, so we go to a movie - yet Ben calls
Percy on his mobile to have a yelling match.
I'm intensely angry, can't sleep well and feel my health is being
compromised. It's time to put in a call to Actors' Equity - our trade
union - to ask them to stop Ben from ever addressing another word to
me.
{R}
Christmas
After long discussions, Equity have invoked a clause in my contract
that says no one but the director is supposed to give an actor notes
(if only I'd known sooner!)
I've found out one of the reasons that Ben and the director are being
so aggressive. Linda is angry that I'm sitting upstage of her during
her "moment" - a speech in which she talks about how she contracted
breast cancer.
So now John and Ben want me to sit downstage for it. Why didn't they
just say so from the start? I'd only been getting out of Linda's way
so she could take the stage.
January 14, 2007: San Diego, California
Our first big rehearsal since the Christmas break - and I'm more than
a little apprehensive.
I'm sure Ben is furious that I've again complained to Equity about him
(this time, about not providing 'doubles' for my stage clothes, not
paying for required alterations and not agreeing to send my outfits to
a proper dry cleaner's...after 12 weeks!)
January 26: Los Angeles
Two weeks of relative peace until the director and stage manager
summon me to Linda's dressing-room because I'm apparently p***ing her
off again.
I've discovered a funny piece of slapstick (I careen into the
mantelpiece, slowly slide down on to a stool and then fall off it)
which has been seen by everyone over the last two weeks. No one's
complained - on the contrary, I've received a lot of laughter and
praise for it.
But Linda's been silently fuming because, again, it "cuts into her
moment".
Actually, it has nothing to do with her moment, as it's before I hand
the stage over to her, yet the "powers that be" have decided that
mollifying Linda is more important than getting the audience to laugh.
Almost as soon as I step into Linda's dressing-room, she gives me a
bollocking. I'm not one to take kindly to that, so it quickly turns
into a screaming match. Again, she shrieks that word "unprofessional"
at least four times.
I suggest she uses that same fervour and passion on stage, because
I've seen nothing but the same low-key performance - the same
inflections, the same gestures - since Toronto, and it's very boring.
She simply can't understand that to keep a performance fresh, you need
to renew it every night - within the boundaries of what was originally
directed.
Then I ask her the only pertinent question at this point: "Why did you
do this play? You hated me on Dynasty - were you so desperate for
work?" She just gapes at me.
I've been asked to play a role in Desperate Housewives, which I sadly
can't do because of this show.
February 11: Denver, Colorado
At the matinee, during my tender aria about the day my mother caught
me looking at my bottom in the mirror (hard to do tenderly), Dame
Edith keeps craning her scrawny giraffe neck to look at my backside.
Of course, when coupled with that perma-startled look of the
surgicallyenhanced, this causes great titters and guffaws in the
audience. Complete upstaging of the kind she accuses me of!
Finally, I turn to face her and say the unscripted line: "Had a good
look?"
She improvises by slapping me in the butt.
Typical Linda - she isn't smart enough to think of a retort, so she
resorts to physicality. Back in LA, she poked me on the chin with her
witch finger a few times.
It's a good thing I'm extremely resilient. Nevertheless, I'm finding
it a massive chore even to look at Linda's face and hear her deliver
her lines over and over again in the same monotonous way.
March 20: Cleveland, Ohio
My knee aches. My finger throbs and has swollen to twice its size.
I've got indigestion due to stress, I look horrible, I've gained 7lb
and I'm too exhausted even to contemplate exercise. This experience
has almost cured me of my love for live theatre.
May 1: Raleigh, North Carolina
Ben 'The Specter' Sprecher sends Percy an e-mail inviting us to a
celebration dinner for the end of Legends. There is no way we'd break
bread with that man.
When my agent tells him this, tiny Ben bleats: "I've never been so
insulted in my life." Good!
A few days before closing night, 'Lips' Evans tries some of her
onstage antics again. She's started mimicking my gestures - I suspect
she thinks it's naturalistic acting. If I put my hands behind my head,
she does. If I stand up, she does. If I sit down, she does. It's like
some bizarre game of Simon Says. Perhaps she's finally trying to vary
things, poor dear.
One of the other irritations, which has become worse over the run, is
that she smirks or giggles after (and sometimes during) some of my
lines, and before she starts hers.
Then, during a speech in which I gesture with a chiffon scarf, she
suddenly grabs the other end and won't let go. At the same time, she's
glaring at me with a maniacal expression. When I try to wrest the
scarf from her, she hangs on for dear life - so I finally have to
lunge towards her and pull it away really hard. She's angry about
something again - but I neither know nor care what or why.
Percy and I throw our own farewell dinner for the company at the best
restaurant in Raleigh. Everyone has been asked to "dress glamorously"
- and even "the guys" in the crew have made a big effort. Everyone,
that is, except Linda, who wears a drab, ill-fitting black
trouser-suit.
I make a witty speech and address every single member of the cast and
crew (even Linda, with a rather gracious: "You are one brave beautiful
bitch" - a line from the play).
Finally, Linda stands up and thanks everyone effusively. She turns to
me and grins. "I must say, Joan, I've never been bored."("I have," I
whisper to Percy.)
May 6: Final performance
Freedom! Hurray, hurray and yippeekayyay.
New York: May 10 - four days after closing
The fourth finger on my right hand is so swollen and painful that I
haven't worn a ring on it for six months. An eminent specialist tells
me I've developed a huge cyst - right where Linda kicked me. There's
only one thing for it: a steroid injection right into the knuckle.
This is the most painful thing I've ever experienced. In front of the
doctor, Percy, three internists and one nurse, I let out a God-awful
shriek that probably reverberates across the hallowed halls and makes
the ECG machines jump off their marks.
News that Linda hurt me has hit the gossip columns - but it's been
denied by Ben Sprecher. And Linda's manager, the Toad, added: "(Joan
Collins) is a bleeping piece of bleep and the most unprofessional
actress working in Hollywood today."
A charming end to a sorry saga - because, as everyone knows, the
opinions of an actor's representatives are always those of the actor.
Thanks, Linda.
The south of France: This week
Until the final weeks, Ben was asking me to reconsider my refusal to
go to Broadway with Legends. But there's no way I could work with Lips
Evans again.
Thank God it's over!
Well, not quite - because every time my finger throbs or my knee
hurts, I find I'm visualising a spectral, rubber-lipped grin.
No prizes for guessing whose...
Joan Collins 2007. Joan Collins' new autobiography, A Passion For
Life, will be published in autumn 2008.