EXCLUSIVE: Dame Joan Collins, 90, reveals she was told ‘not to be glam to get parts’ as a young actress in Hollywood

Dame Joan Collins candidly discussed her own experiences as a young actress in Hollywood during an interview with Louis Theroux.

The actress, 90, is best known for her role in 80s soap Dynasty, but also appeared in movies throughout the 50s and 60s alongside the likes of Hollywood superstars Jayne Mansfield and Paul Newman. 

In an exclusive clip obtained my MailOnline, Joan reveals she was told ‘not to be glam to get parts’. 

Louis asked her: ‘Do you not feel completely appreciated?’

Joan replied: ‘I’m not saying I’m not appreciated. I think I have become more, but there’s a grudging kind of, ‘yeah she’s terrific but she cant act she can just play these roles’ and early reviews only talked about the way I looked.

Candid: Dame Joan Collins candidly discussed her own experiences as a young actress in Hollywood during an interview with Louis Theroux

Talent: The actress, 90, is best known for her role in 80s soap Dynasty, but also appeared in movies throughout the 50s and 60s alongside the likes of Hollywood superstars Jayne Mansfield and Paul Newman (Joan pictured in 1956)

‘The way I swung my hips or the way I made googly eyes at the leading man, they were always half snide.’

Louise asked: ‘Do you care?’

Joan bluntly replied: ‘No. You are bringing it up, I don’t care.’  

She then added: ‘I think I’m identified very much so still with Alexis and all of the movies I’ve done and all the times I’ve played a baddie.’

Film producer Percy Gibson, 58, who is Joan’s husband, said: ‘Then they like to move it on to your personal life as well.’

Louise asked: ‘Do you think it has prevented people from seeing everything you can do?’

Joan responded: ‘Yes it has, no question. Sue Mengers, a big Hollywood agent, after my children were 4 and 5, I said I want to get back in the business. 

‘She said, ‘honey if you want to get back in the business don’t wear makeup, don’t get your hair done and wear some drab clothes so they take you seriously.

‘Really is that what it is going to take, I said that I grew up with a mother and 10 aunts who were all incredibly glamorous, who always had their makeup done and wore nice clothes, even going to the supermarket. 

‘Why should I throw all that up so some ditsy casting director can think that I can act, because I wear no makeup so I decided to be true to myself.’

In an exclusive clip obtained my MailOnline, Louis asked her: ‘Do you not feel completely appreciated?’

Film producer Percy Gibson, 58, who is Joan’s husband, said: ‘Then they like to move it on to your personal life as well.’

Elsewhere in a hilarious interaction between Louis and Joan, he said: ‘My wife told me I’m getting moobs.

‘Do you know about moobs? But this was a few years ago so I started exercising. Feel that.’

Joan then tapped Louis’ chest and said: ‘I don’t want to because it is soft.’

The pair burst into laughter with Louis claiming he ‘wasn’t flexing it’ and asking her to try again.

She was shocked when she then knocked on his abs, saying: ‘Wow that’s impressive, is that a six pack?’

Joan previously described it as a ‘really difficult’ time with producers taking advantage of wannabe stars and said she was even forced to meet one while he was naked in the bath during an appearance on The Graham Norton Show.

She told host Graham, ahead of the release of her new memoir Behind The Shoulder Pads: ‘It was really difficult. Thanks to the Me Too movement it has all come out into the open.

Elsewhere in a hilarious interaction between Louis and Joan, he said: ‘My wife told me I’m getting moobs.’

New: Louis Theroux Interviews… airs on Tuesdays at 9pm on BBC Two and is streaming on iPlayer

‘Now and I think young people are having a better chance of not having to face that’.

She continued: ‘One experience I had was being asked to meet a producer who was in the bath’.

‘He definitely wasn’t playing with his rubber duck when he asked me to get in with him. When I refused, I was asked to leave, and I didn’t get the part!’.

MeToo is a social movement and awareness campaign against sexual abuse, sexual harassment, and rape culture, in which people publicize their experiences of sexual abuse or sexual harassment.

Louis Theroux Interviews… airs on Tuesdays at 9pm on BBC Two and is streaming on iPlayer. 

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