Matthew Turner | On 04, Jul 2021

Director: Laura Fairrie
With: Joan Collins, Tiffany Lerman, Tracy Lerman, Rory Green, Barbara Davis, Morton Janklow
Certificate: 15
Where to watch online Lady Boss: The Jackie Collins Story: BBC iPlayer / Curzon Home Cinema / Apple TV (iTunes) / Prime Video (Buy/Rent) / Google Play

Directed by Laura Fairrie, this engaging documentary uses interviews and a wealth of archive material to explore the life and career of novelist Jackie Collins, who sadly died of cancer in 2015. Warm-hearted and well made, the film paints an extremely touching portrait of its subject, noting the often striking contrast between her private life and her carefully constructed public persona.

Fairrie structures the film more or less chronologically, telling Jackie’s story both in her own words – she kept a diary – and the words of those who knew her best. To that end, Fairrie has assembled an extraordinary collection of talking heads, including older sister Joan Collins, her three daughters, her brother, her sister-in-law, assorted friends and seemingly everyone from her literary agent (Morton Janklow) to her business manager (Laura Lizer) and publicist (Melody Korenbrot).

Jackie’s friends include a number of real-life Hollywood Wives (the title of her most famous sexy potboiler), who recall her impressive ability to make mental notes, filing away details for her salaciously saucy books. Other times, she was less subtle about it – there’s an amusing contribution from Gina Furth, who recounts Jackie urging her to go into great detail about her lesbian relationships.

The archive material is extremely impressive throughout, ranging from diaries and letters to home movies and photographs. Similarly, there’s a great deal of material resulting from Joan’s early career success in Hollywood, including a brief snippet of footage of her arriving at Jackie’s wedding with a young Warren Beatty in tow.

The film doesn’t hold back on Jackie’s early unhappiness, all but dismissed by a stern father (who evidently favoured Joan) and constantly insecure about her appearance, although things picked up after she had some work done – “I love my new nose!”, reads one diary entry. The recurring theme of Jackie essentially constructing her public persona is consistently fascinating, especially after her success, when the big hair, big shoulders, heavy make-up and conspicuous jewellery are all described as being like a suit of armour whenever she made her frequent public appearances.

There’s also plenty of insight into Jackie’s three marriages, two of which – the first and the third – were horribly abusive and traumatic, lending insight into why she wrote about such strong, take-charge characters. Happily, her second marriage, to nightclub owner Oscar Lerman, was much more satisfying – he’s even credited with encouraging her to finish and sell the manuscript of what became her first book, The World Is Full of Married Men.

For the most part, Fairrie steers clear of directorial flourishes, but she does allow herself a couple of clever editing moments, notably where multiple talking heads all describe ne-er-do-well third husband Frank Calcagnini as “like a character from one of her novels” and Fairrie cuts them all together.

The film also makes frequent use of extracts from Jackie’s novels, which is particularly effective during the section on the sibling rivalry between Jackie and Joan, with a couple of sentences that leave you in no doubt as Jackie’s feelings on the matter. The film is particularly insightful on their parallel careers, with Jackie jealous of Joan’s early success and then Joan’s film career waning when Jackie’s took off – indeed, Jackie is arguably responsible for resurrecting Joan’s career with The Stud, which lead to her getting cast in Dynasty.

That said, for all the talk of rivalry, a strong bond of affection shines through between the two, right up until the heartbreaking end, when it’s revealed that Jackie kept her terminal cancer a secret from those around her but still did a series of TV appearances, effectively writing her own ending.

 

Lady Boss: The Jackie Collins Story is available on BBC iPlayer until September 2022

 

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