Dame Joan Collins is looking back at the wild drama behind the scenes of Dynasty, which rivaled the scripted drama fans saw on the screen.
The celebrated English actress and author recently sat down with ET's Matt Cohen, where she dished on her new book, My Unapologetic Diaries, and opened up about some of the high-profile fights she got into -- both when the cameras were rolling and when they weren't.
According to Collins, she and Dynasty co-star Linda Evans -- who played Krystle Carrington on the megahit primetime soap -- never really got along on set, which lent some authenticity to their on-screen cat fights.
"It was a very interesting relationship because Linda and I are opposite ends of the spectrum," Collins shared. "She loves doing her stunts and I was informed by Gene Kelly when I first came to Hollywood, 'Do not do your own stunts, honey. First of all, you're putting a stunt gal out of work, and second, it's dangerous.' So many actors have had serious problems and I know a lot of actors today who have got hip replacements and things like that because they're doing their own stunts."
So Collins refused to shoot scenes that would risk her health, while Evans was adamant about doing everything herself, regardless of the risk.
The one stunt Collins did do was the famous fight in a pond between Alexis and Krystle, where they threw each other into the water as they fought.
"When you see, if you freeze frame, I did go into the water and the water was only about this deep. It was really scary... and we did several takes," she recalled. "Then, when Linda went to hit me and the director said cut, he didn’t say cut early enough and she did connect a little bit with my chin. So that’s not acting, when you see that bit."
And it wasn't just her co-stars whom Collins eventually clashed with. As the show began one of its later seasons, Collins said she'd finally negotiated a raise that put her in the same league as the series' star John Forsythe
"I did feel that, since I'd been on every magazine cover and talk show and everything, that I deserved a little more," Collins said. However, getting more per episode ended up costing her in a way she didn't expect.
While celebrating in her trailer after the raise, she anticipated being in around 20 episodes of the upcoming season
"One of the producers comes in and he said, 'Joan, you're only gonna be in 10 episodes,'" she recalled. "I said, 'What?!' And he said, 'We can't afford you!'... And I thought, just, what a stab in the back!"
These tales, and many other stories of her life in front and behind the camera, are detailed in her book, My Unapologetic Diaries -- which is made up of Collins' actual voice-recorded diary entries from that time in her life, and marks her 17th book to date.
"These diaries were never intended to be printed. These diaries, that I talked into in my little tape recorder that I don't think exists anymore, came after the last day of Dynasty," she shared. "They were unapologetic because I didn't care what I said. And sometimes I'd come back from an event, and I'd be a little bit drunk somehow, sometimes, and I would say things and I didn't have to apologize for them because it was just me writing to myself."
Collins is also the subject of the documentary This Is Joan Collins, streaming now on BritBox.
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