Joan Collins Quotes

I'm older than my sister so I started writing first. I started writing at school. I was always top of my class in composition, essays, English Lit and all of that.

I have a lot of male friends.

I think health is another exceedingly important thing.

The clothes were a huge part of what made 'Dynasty' fun.

I'm a bit shy, I suppose, and a bit lazy.

Certainly there are dozens of over-50 actresses who look great: Sophia Loren, Susan Sarandon, Ursula Andress, Stefanie Powers, Raquel Welch, Barbara Eden, Joanna Lumley, Linda Gray - the list is endless, and these are just the actresses! I have many friends in their 60s, 70s and 80s, not in the limelight, but who all look absolutely stunning.

My grandmother spoiled my father rotten and he grew up expecting women to do whatever he wanted. When he married my beautiful mother, Elsa, he expected her to give up her career as a champion ballroom dancer and become a good wife and mother, which she dutifully did.

I've three children, three grandchildren, I work, I travel, and I'm very happily married. I'm very satisfied and happy with my life and there really isn't anything I want.

I consider you as old as you look and feel. And in that case I feel - I feel I'm about 39, like Jack Benny.

When I finish dressing before a night out and have put on all the accessories, I usually look at myself in the mirror long and hard and then end up removing something. Whether it's a belt, bracelet or a bauble, less is always more.

I really feel now like a native New Yorker. And I'm very happy here.

And I used to write novels and little stories and compositions and I - but I put them away because I started acting when I was 17. So there wasn't much time.

I have the absolute utmost respect for soap opera actors now. They work harder than any actor I know in any other medium. And they don't get very much approbation for it.

If life throws you a lemon - make lemonade.

I was voted the most beautiful girl in the world in 1958, and courted by every young, available man in Los Angeles, most of whom I didn't go out with, by the way.

Only fine cigars are worth smoking and only men who smoke fine cigars are worth kissing.

I do it because I love acting, I love working, and whether it's radio, television, films, theater, I don't care as long as I can get out there and do it.

I think, Larry, one of the things is I'm a very active person.

I don't believe in eating junk and I protect my face all the time from the sun, even in the winter with base and makeup.

The cosmetics industry has much to answer for. It's a multi-million- pound confidence trick based on giving women endless hope, courtesy of overpriced little pots.

We live in a quick-fix society where we need instant gratification for everything. Too fat? Get lipo-sucked. Stringy hair? Glue on extensions. Wrinkles and lines? Head to the beauty shop for a pot of the latest miracle skin stuff. It's all a beautiful £1 billion con foisted upon insecure women by canny cosmetic conglomerates.

And sometimes when I would get in the morning, when we'd go out - we'd see shrapnel and bits of stuff in the streets and bombed buildings, and - but I was evacuated a lot. Every time the blitz got heavy, my parents would take us off to the country.

I have to say that those nine years were full of turmoil and drama and trauma to me, in actual fact.

Isn't three quarters of life a guilty pleasure?

I think it is shocking that 15- and 16-year-olds leave school unable to add up and with the reading ability of a four-year-old.

I received an OBE from the Queen, which probably doesn't mean anything in America but is quite nice in England - the Order of the British Empire for services to drama.

I think you always have to use certain parts of yourself in any role.

I have girlfriends who've had Botox and been left with lumps in their faces. And the lips, don't even get me started.

I was so fortunate to work closely with the designer Nolan Miller whilst on 'Dynasty' to create the wardrobe for Alexis Carrington Colby, and we had great fun sourcing outfits.

Life is not life unless you make mistakes

In fact, the 20th century I think was the most fascinating century and the whole of man civilization because so much happened.

I've spent years when I've not been in the limelight at all and I'm perfectly happy living my life without being swooped on by paparazzi.

All of a sudden I found myself with the reputation of being a swinger and a home-wrecker. Beverly Hills wives were supposed to live in fear in case I cast my green orbs in the direction of their men. Ninety-nine per cent of this was total fabrication.

I don't seek to be in the tabloids but I suppose sometimes I go out and I'm wearing something and they take a picture and it's in.

I'm a fiend for costume jewellery and have countless pairs of rhinestone or diamante earrings, which are so flattering when they catch the light. I love the designers Alexis Bittar and Kenneth Jay Lane, and I always go to jewellers Butler & Wilson.

Of course it does on opening night, but I've never had that devastating stage fright that some people get, but apparently, you can develop it.

I'm extremely happy in my life. I consider myself to be very blessed.

But I have had to give up certain things in my life. One is shopping. Two is lunch with the girls. Three is cocktail parties, and four is studying my lines.

If you feel well and happy, your face will reflect this, but if you are down in the dumps and having a miserable time, your face will soon show this, too. In fact, you get the face you deserve by the time you're forty, and one of the keys to looking and feeling younger is being active.

Age is just a number. It's totally irrelevant unless, of course, you happen to be a bottle of wine.

And I have a special cream that I use that I made myself that I invented, that I put on at night and during the day.

Every time an article is written about me or any of my contemporaries who's had the fortune and discipline to look good at a certain age, I am struck by the tone of astonishment, and the certainty that something is being done secretively to beat the devil.

Loneliness is the universal problem of rich people.

There are very few designers in Hollywood today who know how to really flatter a woman's body, and Mark Zunino is at the top of my list.

I mean, I'm a war baby, and we had rationing, and we didn't have sugar and sweets, which is very good for you in actual fact. Because when we had a piece of fruit, we'd gulp it down. It was just great.

I've always maintained that there is a very fine line between a daring, sexy older woman and mutton dressed as lamb.

Well I've written four beauty books as well.

Most ankle strap shoes are seriously unattractive, cutting the line of the leg as well as cutting off the circulation! Try dancing in them - your feet will look like a pair of overdone hotdogs afterwards.