Actress Joan Collins. Actress Joan Collins.
She has recently been highly critical of modern parents for over-indulging their children and letting them rule the roost.
Yesterday, however, Joan Collins admitted that when she was growing up her own parents failed to give her any affection.
Asked in an interview if they ever told her she was “fabulous” and that they loved her, a seemingly emotional Miss Collins quietly responded: “No. They didn’t.”
The 78-year-old actress - who starred as Alexis Carrington in Dynasty as well as appearing in Hollywood movies The Bitch and The Stud - was brought up in North London.
Her mother Elsa was a dance teacher and nightclub hostess while her father Joseph was a showbusiness agent whose clients included The Beatles, Shirley Bassey and Tom Jones.
Miss Collins said some modern parenting was “creating a lot of little monsters”, but added: “On the other hand, I think it would have been good for me if I had been told by my parents that I was pretty, or clever, or whatever.
“I think I would have probably done much better in life.”
Asked how much better, she replied: “I don’t know - probably been Prime Minister.”
The actress was being interviewed by Jane Garvey on Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour yesterday to coincide with the publication of her book The World According To Joan, which was serialised in the Daily Mail.
She initially bemoaned parents for over-indulging their children, saying “they [the children] are the bosses”.
She added: “I cannot believe it and I say to my son and my daughter and my daughter-in-law, ‘Why do you not say seven o’clock is bedtime and you go to sleep? Why do you have to tell them stories and placate them and bribe them to go to sleep until they don’t go to sleep until ten o’clock’.
“When I was a kid, and all my friends, seven o’clock, 7.30, eight o’clock - whatever your age was - was bedtime and you go to bed.” - Daily Mail
