Jackie Collins, the legendary novelist who redefined Hollywood glamour, joins Christopher and Eric for this fabulous livecast, and the guys are practically besides themselves with excitement the whole time. Jackie shares her advice on writing, social media and meeting men on Grindr. Critic-at-large Jordan Ampersand tries to get in on the action as well.

I've had so many people say to me, "Oh, you taught me everything I know about sex." And I think my books were very sexual before women were writing about sex at all.Jackie Collins

The Dinner Party Show Podcast — Ep. 103: Jackie Collins Interview Transcript

{This transcript is the Jackie Collins interview portion of Episode 103}{This transcript is provided as a courtesy and was transcribed as best as possible. Any errors or omissions in the transcript are unintentional. The recorded audio file of the podcast episode is considered the master of what was said.}

Announcer:

You are listening to The Dinner Party Show with Christopher Rice and Eric Shaw Quinn. Let's Dish.

Christopher Rice:

Welcome back to The Dinner Party Show. I'm Christopher Rice,

Eric Shaw Quinn:

And I'm Eric Shaw Quinn.

Christopher Rice:

And our guest has sold over 500 million books in-

Eric Shaw Quinn:

Today-

Christopher Rice:

Over 40-

Eric Shaw Quinn:

Just this afternoon, when they heard she was going to be on the Dinner Party Show. 31 consecutive New York Times bestsellers. Jackie Collins, welcome to the Dinner Party Show.

Jackie Collins:

It's so good to be here. You guys are great.

Eric Shaw Quinn:

It's such an honor to have you.

Jackie Collins:

Hello, Eric. Hello, Chris.

Eric Shaw Quinn:

The place is more glamorous just because you're here.

Jackie Collins:

Aha.

Christopher Rice:

During the break, you were already called a bad boy by Jackie Collins, which is very exciting.

Eric Shaw Quinn:

I didn't get it on tape. I'm just broken hearted.

Jackie Collins:

I said he deserved a spanking.

Christopher Rice:

Because he did not record Graham Norton.

Eric Shaw Quinn:

I didn't record Graham Norton.

Jackie Collins:

I know. And everybody loves Graham Norton. It's the best talk show on television.

Eric Shaw Quinn:

It is so funny. It is so funny. I wish there were more. Although I have to say, I think Jimmy Fallon is actually doing-

Jackie Collins:

No, no. Jimmy Kimmel. Jimmy Kimmel. It's all about Jimmy Kimmel.

Eric Shaw Quinn:

Nice job. I love all of those games that Jimmy gets-

Jackie Collins:

Oh my God.

Eric Shaw Quinn:

Jimmy Fallon gets-

Jackie Collins:

No, Jimmy Kimmel. You have to... That Jimmy is the one you have to follow.

Eric Shaw Quinn:

The one where Matt tied him to a chair.

Jackie Collins:

Yeah, that was very, yeah, that was great.

Eric Shaw Quinn:

That was insane.

Jackie Collins:

Did you see Jimmy Kimmel's acting school after the Oscars -

Eric Shaw Quinn:

No.

Jackie Collins:

Why? What's wrong with you? You're not watching the right television.

Christopher Rice:

Eric. Do what Jackie says.

Jackie Collins:

It's a fantastic show.

Christopher Rice:

Do what Jackie says.

Jackie Collins:

He did an acting school.

Eric Shaw Quinn:

I will absolutely do it. I will. Absolutely, I will watch it. I will watch him.

Jackie Collins:

He was fantastic. He had a black beret and black glasses and he had all these actors and he was hitting Sean Penn over the head with a rubber thing.

Christopher Rice:

That's fantastic.

Jackie Collins:

And then he was telling Jennifer Aniston what to do, and they were all an acting school. It was great.

Christopher Rice:

This is wonderful.

Jackie Collins:

You can catch it on YouTube.

Christopher Rice:

This brings me to my first question.

Eric Shaw Quinn:

I'll look for it. I will change my ways, I promise.

Christopher Rice:

You are a big Twitter user.

Jackie Collins:

I am. Yes.

Christopher Rice:

You love Twitter and you are very generous and positive on Twitter, which is not something I can say for everyone. You talk about what you like, you talk about what you enjoy seeing, whereas most people on Twitter, maybe sometimes me included, are very snarky and we go after people we don't like and blah blah blah. But you're very sort of supportive. I love that. It's like-

Jackie Collins:

Well, I said something today and I try to do this once a week. I say something about bullies because I hate bullies. And whenever I do, I get such a huge response. I think one of the things I said today was, "If you're a bully, you're a coward." And I get this huge response from it because it's so shocking that people are bullied. And I traveled around the country a couple of years ago with one of my books, Married Lovers, in a bus, a rock and roll bus.

Eric Shaw Quinn:

Oh, how excellent.

Jackie Collins:

And I went to all these casinos, all the Indian casinos, and I went to like 24 different places, but the audience would be fantastic, but there would be young boys who would say, "I don't fit in here and I'm bullied, because I'm different from the other guys", and stuff like that. And I realize that they need people to be supportive of them.

Eric Shaw Quinn:

Champions, absolutely.

Jackie Collins:

Yeah. So if I can give them a little, because I get so many 14, 15 year old boys writing to me and going, I love your books. Yeah.

Christopher Rice:

Why do you think that is? Do you think they gravitate towards your books?

Jackie Collins:

Well, interestingly enough, I was at the Vanity Fair Oscar party the other night, and I was talking to Baron Sasha Cohen. She said, name-dropping immediately.

Eric Shaw Quinn:

Oh my god, the most glamorous sentence that's been uttered on the show, maybe ever.

Jackie Collins:

And Isla Fisher, his wife was there, who's lovely and a wonderful actress.

Christopher Rice:

She's so funny.

Jackie Collins:

Very pregnant. And she said to me, she said, "I'm from a little town in Australia." She said, "And we had nothing there." She said, "Except I got your books and I read your books. And I said to myself, Isla, you got to get to Hollywood."

Christopher Rice:

Oh, wow.

Jackie Collins:

I know. That's fun.

Christopher Rice:

Absolutely.

Eric Shaw Quinn:

You inspired her journey.

Jackie Collins:

I Inspired her journey.

Eric Shaw Quinn:

How marvelous. Yes I guess that's a wonderful part of writing.

Jackie Collins:

I find I do get emails from people all the time saying that, that they are inspired because I write all different colors, all different sexual orientation, all different ages. And that appeals to everybody. There's something for everybody in my books. And I think that's why I've been lucky enough to be so successful for hundreds of years.

Eric Shaw Quinn:

How many books is it? It's so many.

Jackie Collins:

32 books.

Christopher Rice:

32. This must be Outdated Wikipedia Numbers. 31 consecutive New York Times bestsellers, but now it's 32.

Jackie Collins:

32. Yeah.

Christopher Rice:

I was listening to another interview with you just because I had to look more prepared than Eric. And when you started, you wanted to write sexy books, but when you looked out at what was going on with books that were focused on sort of various sexual relationships, it was Harold Robbins and Sidney Sheldon. And you said in those books, the women were either in the kitchen or the bedroom.

Jackie Collins:

Absolutely. So it was a question of sex or cooking. And I thought, well, my women are going to be fantastic women. They're going to be strong. They're going to be sexually equal. They're going to be out there and they're going to do whatever they can do to be that way. And so I've created some very strong heroines over the years. And the strongest of course, is Lucky Santangelo.

Christopher Rice:

Of course.

Jackie Collins:

Which I did two miniseries for NBC about, which I wrote and produced. And nine books about Lucky now and The Santangelos comes out in June.

Christopher Rice:

Wonderful.

Eric Shaw Quinn:

Lucky 10.

Jackie Collins:

Which is a epic story and one of the family dies. I'm not going to say who. But I know everybody will be furious. However, I don't know what my characters are going to do. I sit down with a pen. I have no outline.

Christopher Rice:

That's the other thing that I was hearing is that you have no outline. You just sort of go with it. And you write out entirely by hand.

Jackie Collins:

Yes, I do. It's so old-fashioned, but I love it.

Christopher Rice:

But I think there are a lot of writers who do that. Nelson DeMille, I believe, writes out entirely by hand.

Jackie Collins:

Oh really?

Christopher Rice:

Yeah. There's a whole school of thought that it allows your mind, I don't do it, so I don't know why I'm speaking with this authority about it. But it allows your mind to sort of slow down and live in the book more, as opposed to your keys can sort of get away from you.

Jackie Collins:

Absolutely. My characters take me over. When I'm writing Lucky, I become Lucky. I'm writing an autobiography and the opening line of the autobiography is something that was actually said to me is, "Don't move bitch, or I'll blow your fucking head off." And that was said to me by a robber with an Uzi in my face.

Eric Shaw Quinn:

Oh my God.

Jackie Collins:

But I was writing the Lucky miniseries at the time, and so I went straight into Lucky mode. I thought, fuck you. How dare you speak to me like that with all that hate in your voice. And I was in a car. I was able to take off and escape.

Christopher Rice:

Good for you. Was this in Los Angeles?

Jackie Collins:

It was.

Eric Shaw Quinn:

Oh my God.

...