Great Women of Soaps

[Khan]

IMO, GUIDING LIGHT should have tapped into Alex's backstory and hired Joan to play a von Halkein (perhaps India's mother?), to whom Alex sells her shares of Spaulding Enterprises while she was away in Europe w/ Nick and Susan, thus giving her (Joan's character) a strong power base in Springfield and a reason to tangle with the other Spauldings w/o suspending disbelief and assuming Alex had always had a British accent.

[DaytimeFan]

That's a fabulous idea. Seriously, I wish someone on the GL writing staff had stolen that.

[DaytimeFan]

I just wanted to add that when Piers notes that Joan is 76, the look in her eyes and the way she said "Yes" is so...interesting. She has a light in her eyes that is basically disbelief at the number herself!

[Khan]

Believe me, I felt the same way the first time I was back @ school, a classmate made a reference to some movie or TV show as being "way back when," and I said, "It wasn't THAT long ago if I remembered watching it!"

(BTW, I'm 30.)

[SFK]

I love that idea. Before Joan was cast, my celebrity recast for Alex was Faye Dunaway. Now imagine if they'd managed to get Faye for Alex and Joan as the von Halkein going head to head. Boy would those YouTube clips get a workout. I would have fired down to a cast of ten just to see that.

[Khan]

YES! Dunaway, like McKinsey, is a Southern belle who knows how to speak volumes with just a look. Of course, landing even someone like her would've been next to impossible, but it wouldn't have hurt, either.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

It's funny Joan mentions how the audience wouldn't like it if she came dressed in jeans and tee-shirts.

I remember Joan's guest appearance on Roseanne, where she strangely played Roseanne's cousin, and how she rocked the pair of jeans she wore in that episode.

[Khan]

In a way, though, Joan Collins is right. Through her, and through other larger-than-life divas, we live vicariously. If she were to turn up one afternoon at KMart wearing sweats (and I'm not talking expensive designer sweats, people, I'm talking Joe Frigging Boxer), it'd be like telling your children Santa Claus isn't real.

[DaytimeFan]

I loved that episode of Roseanne because Joan seemed to have fun, she has long maintained that she prefers comedy to anything else and I think it showed. She has never had a problem poking fun at her image.

And yes, she can rock a pair of jeans with the best of them. She's got the legs.

Joan is the kind of actress who gives the public what they want and what they expect. In a way she's like the stars of the 40s who never showed up with a hair out of place. She is immaculate in her grooming and I think her looks show a certain defiance to anyone's preconceived notions about how a woman of 76 should look. Joan is Joan, love her or hate her, above all, she is true to herself.

[DRW50]

Joan still has such an expressive face, I think people discount just how important that is to a career or to charisma. I can't even look at Faye Dunaway or Linda Evans now. Katherine Hepburn didn't get a lot of work done that I can remember but she was still a very striking presence for a long time.

DaytimeFan apparently JMB got some awful cosmetic surgery, she's Lulu on GH. Have you seen anything about that yet? It's disgusting that these young actresses are butchering themselves.

[SFK]

They never show it in syndication, maybe it's on the dvd, I don't know, but when that Roseanne episode originally aired, there was a little tag with Roseanne and Joan at the end. They were walking around the set talking about how the tabloids drummed up stories that they were at each other's throats during the rehearsal and taping of that episode and how they'd really got along fabulously. It was kind of a weird direct response to the tabloid garbage.

I like the part where Nancy (Sandra Bernhard) is like, "Is that a Hermes scarf, is that a Fendi bag, are those Mizrahi gloves??" and Ronnie's (Joan) like, "Would you mind coming back and envying me later?" And Roseanne's, "You've been talkin' all hoity-toity since you did that play in high school, I mean, where did you get that accent from, you're from Illinois!"

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Roseanne's end tags were classic, sadly, a lot are cut for syndication.

Remember the one shortly after Laurie Metcalfe won her second Emmy? Before Roseanne won her only Emmy? LOL! That one is never shown in syndication either.

[DRW50]

Joan talks about the importance of bringing lots of luggage.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1267317/Joan-Collins-Pack-light-I-needed-thirty-bags.html

[DaytimeFan]

Only Joan could make a full length newspaper article about luggage and how overpacking is superior.

Notice how she has 2 women whose specific job it is to pack for her? That's the life.

[DRW50]

My favorite part is about her leather guy in West Hollywood.