Screen legend Joan Collins is having The Time Of Their Lives — even at 84

AT 84, Dame Joan Collins is a showbiz survivor. She reveals her tricks of the trade and the message of her new movie, The Time of Their Lives.

DAME Joan Collins caught glimpse of an old black and white movie on the telly one afternoon not so long ago, and briefly stopped to watch.

“I was looking at it and I was thinking, ‘Oh, that’s Laurence Harvey. Oh he’s dead. Oh, Gloria Grahame, she’s dead. Richard Basehart. Oh, he’s dead ... Oh my god, they’re all dead!’

“Then I saw this young girl and I thought, ‘Who’s that? She looks familiar ...’ Then I realised it was it was me, aged 18, in this movie called,” she gives an ironic little chuckle, “The Good Die Young.”

THE TIME OF THEIR LIVES: Diva determined to age disgracefully

At 84, Collins is a show-business survivor.

In her 20s, Dame Joan Collins was told her career would soon be over. She’s still going at 94. Picture: Rialto

While her nine years of shoulder pads and stinging quips on Dynasty in the 1980s remain the most infamous of her career, she had already made 50 films prior and has made dozens since. (Not to mention her countless TV guest roles, cameos and regular returns to her first love, the stage.)

And although actors might be expected to slow down in their 80s, Collins appears to be picking up speed: along with recurring roles in UK comedy series Benidorm and E! drama The Royals (alongside Elizabeth Hurley), she popped up in last year’s Absolutely Fabulous movie and spent several years working with her husband Percy Gibson to find funding for her new headline movie outing, The Time of Their Lives.

Actresses! @TheRoyalsOnE pic.twitter.com/uFwEZEXM4Y

— Joan Collins (@Joancollinsdbe) August 2, 2017

(She’s also, she tells Hit, “in the middle of starting a movie that’s top secret at the moment ... It’s along the lines of La La Land and that’s all I can say”.)

Brought to her by writer-director Roger Goldby, The Time of Their Lives teams Dame Joan with Pauline Collins (no relation) in an unexpected later-in-life adventure, a la Ladies in Lavender or Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.

They play two very different women who strike up an unlikely and eventful friendship.

“Helen is a washed-up actress and Priscilla is a washed-up housewife with no future,” Collins explains.

“It has everything — it has pathos, it has comedy, it has a lot of fun, a lot of sadness. It’s a feel-good movie and I think people can identify with one or other of the women.”

Pauline Collins and Dame Joan are unlikely friends on an unexpected road trip in comedy The Time of Their Lives. Picture: Rialto

With Priscilla caught up along in the scheming Helen’s wake, the pair cross the water to France where Helen is intent on making it to a funeral — not to pay her respects but to lobby the bigwigs in attendance for a shot at a movie comeback.

“Hollywood is littered with Helens,” says Collins. “She had it all and she threw it away because of her dissolute lifestyle. You have to understand that for every actor who becomes successful, for every Eddie Redmayne or Helen Mirren, there are 10,000 people who fall by the wayside. Stardom doesn’t last very long.”

Along the road, Priscilla rediscovers her worth and Helen finally confronts the fallout of that dissolute lifestyle and faces a future without stardom — symbolised by a scene where she wipes off her make-up and throws her wig into the ocean.

Collins is Helen in The Time of Their Lives, a faded movie star who wants to wind the clock back to her heyday. Picture: Rialto

“First of all, it was a hideous, hideous wig,” Collins says. “It was supposed to be hideous! I used to tell my hair stylist, ‘It doesn’t look hideous enough — make it look worse!’

“So yes, Helen was very happy to (throw it away). And it was so funny because after about the third or fourth take, the waves brought the wig back to the shore. We thought: not even the sea wants this horrible old thing!”

To Collins’ mind, The Time of Their Lives carries the message that it’s never too late for second chances, to do right by yourself and others, or to find your purpose in life.

While Collins has known her purpose in life since childhood, she has also long known this career would come with its peaks and troughs.

Collins in 1957, the early days of her film career. Picture: Supplied

Collins (far right) with the Dynasty cast in the ’80s. Picture: Supplied

Her father Joseph, a theatrical agent, drummed into her as a child the pitfalls and discipline required of being an actor. And a more mystical adviser drove the point home.

“Oh, I have nine lives,” Collins says, matter-of-factly. “I was told that once by an astrologist, when I was in my 20s. ‘You will always land on your feet; everything will be difficult to attain but you will always be successful.’”

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Originally published as Screen legend Joan Collins is having The Time Of Their Lives — even at 84