Great Women of Soaps

[JackPeyton]

Lauren Fenmore!

[Y&RWorldTurner]

I've always thought of Joan Collins as a very poor man's Elizabeth Taylor...

Side note: Joan auditioned for Cleopatra three different times and almost got the role, until the film's budget was raised and then producers demanded they get Elizabeth Taylor instead.

[Sylph]

I can see how some think so.

However, those are two very different personas and actresses. Whereas Elizabeth Taylor is alluring, mysterious, sophisticated in an aristrocratic way, Joan Collins is much more closer to Earth, "quicker", trashier, doesn't aspire to lofty heights... Both no sh!t about fashion these days. I mean — leopard print?! Baaaaaaad surgery! Then too much make-up, messy hair... Disastrous! Joan knows sh!t.

Nolan Miller's work for her on Dynasty was the peak.

I am much more of a fan of educated-at-top-notch-schools, impeccably dressed, mysterious, magnetic women with understated, breath-taking elegance with glorious skin and hair.

Such exist, yes, but are not actresses. I can't think of any right now.

They are not in the spotlight.

And that is the way things should be.

[Cat]

I am so glad I was a kid in the 80s. SO glad. Not to over-emphasize Joan Collins's role in the world at large, but having the Alexises and Sables in my consciousness growing up, the Golden Girls on my Saturday night TV (too young to date, lol) must have gone someway to making me think that, as a girl, I could achieve anything through hard work and brains and wit. There was never even a question in my mind. I wanted to be as bright and sharp and fun as those women. They did everything with style.

If I were an 11-year old today and turned on the TV to find, say, Miley Cyrus gyrating around a stripper pole (Party in the USA is catchy, though) or Paris Hilton doing... whatever it is she does -- I don't know. I'm probably generalizing and maybe there are some bad-ass "role models" (blech, but I can't find a more appropriate phrase) out there. I just haven't encountered them yet.

[DaytimeFan]

That's a comparison that's made quite frequently and it all comes back to the 50s when Collins was signed by FOX to be their answer to Taylor. Honestly, the only similarities I see between them is a hot body, numerous marriages and dark hair. Otherwise, they could not have been, or be, more different.

Taylor was far better suited to serious drama than Collins will ever be. When it comes to comedy, the inverse is true, Collins is an adept comedienne in the few comedic roles she's snagged over her career. I'd argue that Collins's sense of humor is part of what made Alexis work.

If you follow their respective life paths it really is interesting to see where both have ended up. Taylor is the definition of the reclusive, bed ridden, outspoken movie star. Collins has become what I think she always really wanted to be: a jet setting life of the party who enjoys being a 'star' far more than she ever enjoyed being an 'actress'.

There is a sadness to Taylor and a joie de vivre to Collins that casts them in very different lights.

What's interesting is that the women you admire, Nan Kempner, Fiona Campbell-Walter Thyssen, Lynn Wyatt, Pat Buckley, Babe Paley etc...are all friends of Joan and not Elizabeth.

You put it best, Joan does not aspire to lofty heights. Instead, Joan Collins aspires to whatever she damn well wants, does it and is content being herself. Essentially, she's a very secure woman, something I don't think could ever be said for Taylor and her many frailties.

I think you are absolutely right Cat, Joan Collins and Alexis were role models, not because they flew first class, threw champagne in men's faces and dripped in jewels, but because they were authentic and never gave into the idea that women are in some way inferior.

If you ask me, Joan Collins is a feminist who decided she looked and felt better with her heels on.

[Sylph]

And Nan... Nan is... One.

BINGO! She just oozes, exudes security and does it so phenomenally, there are no words.

She is a-mazing! Love her.

Yup.

Which is why I never quite warmed up to her fully.

[Cat]

Which is why I never understood the argument in the 90s that the reason women "moved on" from Dynasty and those sort of shows was because they could not relate to the "masculine" female characters -- the bitches of the boardroom. Ironically, I was a tween growing up in quiet, surburban Boston and I *totally* got those ladies! I think audiences left Dynasty when the writing jumped the shark (Moldavia, Krystle kidnapped for the eighth-billionth time, boring stories, etc). But the idea that Alexis or Sable or, heck, Blanche Devereux, were NOT feminine? LOL, no.

Collins did play a Cleopatra type in Cecil B. DeMille's Land of the Pharaohs (I think).

Interesting ET/JC comparison. I love them both, but for very different reasons. At her height, Elizabeth Taylor was THE definition of "Mega Star." She had violet-colored eyes, for crying out loud! She was SO beautiful and SO tied up in the Hollywood star system (and divorced from real life from a very young age) that when her looks started to fade, when she gained weight, when her second marriage to Richard Burton broke down forever, and when the studio system collapsed in the late 60s, Taylor had a tough time coping. She also suffered the most appalling physical calamities and that wore her down, too. But PROPS to her for selling perfume and jewels in the 80s, turning her life around and, most importantly, spearheading and raising money for AIDS research at a time when it was NOT popular to do so. She breathed life into that campaign. She shocked America by posing with a condom on the cover of Vanity Fair in 1992 -- never done before.

Joan always was scrappy and she never forgot what life was like beyond the movie-star fringe. Her career went through ups and downs -- in the 70s she starred in The Bitch (dismissed as soft-core porn at the time) in order to pay the rent and medical bills for one of her little girls who was sick (she was divorced by then and essentially raising her kids on her own). She was also physically much tougher (Anthony Newley, her second husband, had home videos of her doing the twist by their pool in LA a mere two days before giving birth! He said Joan was always as strong as an ox and just popped those babies out). No wonder she enjoyed the glory days when they arrived -- she could better appreciate them in light of the lean years. And, as she always said, she knew she wasn't a great acting talent, but she did know her own strengths. She was never the great movie star -- "Britain's Elizabeth Taylor" -- that she was billed. But an iconic TV star? Oh, yes.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

To be fair, I think a lot of that stems from Elizabeth's lack of a childhood and how she was made a product of the studio system at a very young age. She was essentially a vulnerable child in a very adult world, like many of her contemporaries at that time. I think that's baggage that's seeped into all corners of her life and psychologically damaged her forever. It may also be apart of her persona and why the public still cannot get enough of her and her personal life. She's lead a very interesting life.

Yes, I think very few Hollywood actresses have become what Elizabeth is - a first rate actress (in essence, Hollywood royalty), style and glamor icon, camp icon, and social activist all rolled into one. Though she may be frail these days, she will always be fabulous.

At her peak, she was also the most in-demand, powerful, and highest paid actress in Hollywood. She also had this raw and alluring presence in her work that we've rarely seen from most actresses since.

It's fitting I should mention her in this thread, she was a big supporter of the soaps and we all know of her now legendary cameo on GH, and I think she made an appearance on AMC as well...

[DRW50]

Liz Taylor's screen persona was much trashier than Joan's. Joan did have the sleazy roles in the Jackie Collins movies but generally she's known more for her austere, controlled Alexis persona. Liz's big roles were blowsy, in-your-face women, drunk, loose, out of control.

They represent very different sides to a gay man and a gay man's tastes. Liz is one of those who was never a huge icon to gays the way Judy Garland or Streisand are/were, but she had a very strong connection to gay men, not only in her onscreen persona and her larger than life public persona, but also in her daily life, her relationships with Rock Hudson, Montgomery Clift, etc. She was there for them through good times and bad, and not in the "I love my gay friends!" or, "Look, I'm going to a gay club!" type of way you sometimes see with stars now.

[Sylph]

Well, not always. And trashy does not = drunk & loose. In my dictionary at least.

[DRW50]

True, but a lot of her defining roles were in that vein (Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Butterfield 8).

[Y&RWorldTurner]

She sold the hell out of those roles though, and I don't think she ever veered into campy theatrics with them. As DaytimeFan mentioned, she was a superb dramatic actress.

Her personal life on the other hand? That's been pure camp to many.

[DRW50]

I thought Virginia Woolf almost had to be camp. That was the character.

Camp isn't always a bad thing, it just depends on how its handled.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

The character itself? Definitely.

But I don't think Elizabeth's acting on itself ever came off as humourous for all the wrong reasons.

[DaytimeFan]

I absolutely agree with you. Taylor's complete lack of a childhood damaged her in ways that I'm sure even she doesn't know about, though I think this damage strengthened her skills as a dramatic actress. I would also argue, however, that her adult life has been equally tumultuous. Addictions to pills and booze, yo-yo weight issues, severe physical problems, a string of unhappy marriages, definite problems with her children, aging in Hollywood...they've all done a number on Taylor.