has sold Joan’s book for a million bucks to, you guessed it, Jackie’s publisher, Simon and Schuster, whereher editor is another superstar, Michael Korda, a novelist in his own right, who—hang on to your hat—also happens to be Jackie’s editor. (Lazar sold it abroad for an additional $2 million—$1 million in England alone—without showing one written word.)
“I get along very well with both of them,” said Korda. “I’m very fond of them.”
There are those who will tell you that Jackie isn’t happy with the proximity, and neither is her superstar agent, Morton Janklow, who long ago moved in on Swifty Lazar’s turf as the agent who got the most bucks for his writer clients. As a reaffirmation of Simon and Schuster’s warm feeling for its massive money-maker, Michael Korda signed Jackie up for two additional books after the completion of her current contract.
“I don’t like to talk figures,” said Jackie Collins in her Beverly Hills home about her new deal, “but I will say it’s a record-breaking contract.”
Michael Korda, from his New York office, added, “If this isn’t the largest amount of money in American book publishing, it sure ought to be. It’s about the same size as the Brazilian national debt.” Then he added, almost as an afterthought, “But I also bought two more books from Joan.”
“Is there a feud going on between them?” I asked.
“Probably so, at some level,” he answered. “Jackie can’t help but feel that Joan is crowding her territory.”
Said Irving Lazar, “Certainly, there is sibling rivalry at times.”
Said Joni Evans, formerly of Simon and Schuster, now publisher of Random House, “Of course, there has to be.”
Said Morton Janklow, “Yes, Jackie and Joan have flare-ups, but since Simon and Schuster has both books, Irvingand I can see to it that they don’t come out head to head. So both sisters will have a couple great months.”
The Collins sisters themselves are quick to tell you that there is no trouble between them at all, although their publicist, Jeffrey Lane, who is actually Joan’s publicist, best pal, and traveling companion, but who doubled as Jackie’s publicist for this article, laid down some ground rules for me to abide by, namely that if Jackie’s name was used first in one sentence, then Joan’s must be used first in the next, and that there was to be equal copy on each sister. Like that.
The fact is, I know both of these ladies. The first time I ever saw Joan was in 1957. She walked up off the beach in Santa Monica, California, where I was renting a beach house, wearing a bikini before anyone I knew was wearing a bikini, and asked if she could use the bathroom. She was then in the first of her two stardoms, the one that didn’t last. Of course she could use the bathroom. In my scrapbooks I have pictures of her from the sixties, at parties my wife and I had in Beverly Hills: with Mia Farrow, before she married Frank Sinatra; with Ryan O’Neal, after he split from Joanna Moore; with Michael Caine, long before he married Shakira; and with Natalie Wood, after her first marriage to Robert Wagner. Joan was then in the second of her four marriages, to the English star Anthony Newley. In every picture she is having a good time.
Jackie I met much later. We sat next to each other at one of Irving Lazar’s Academy Awards parties at Spago. It struck me then how alike the sisters are, and also how different. Last year at the Writers’ Conference in Santa Barbara, Jackie and I were both speakers, along with Thomas McGuane, Irving Stone, William F. Buckley, Jr., and others.Jackie arrived only minutes before she was scheduled to speak, in a stretch limousine with a great deal of video equipment to record her speech. Only, she didn’t make a speech the way the rest of us did. The conference provided her with an interviewer, and the interviewer asked her questions. There wasn’t an empty seat in the hall. “Can you give the writers here
“I get along very well with both of them,” said Korda. “I’m very fond of them.”
There are those who will tell you that Jackie isn’t happy with the proximity, and neither is her superstar agent, Morton Janklow, who long ago moved in on Swifty Lazar’s turf as the agent who got the most bucks for his writer clients. As a reaffirmation of Simon and Schuster’s warm feeling for its massive money-maker, Michael Korda signed Jackie up for two additional books after the completion of her current contract.
“I don’t like to talk figures,” said Jackie Collins in her Beverly Hills home about her new deal, “but I will say it’s a record-breaking contract.”
Michael Korda, from his New York office, added, “If this isn’t the largest amount of money in American book publishing, it sure ought to be. It’s about the same size as the Brazilian national debt.” Then he added, almost as an afterthought, “But I also bought two more books from Joan.”
“Is there a feud going on between them?” I asked.
“Probably so, at some level,” he answered. “Jackie can’t help but feel that Joan is crowding her territory.”
Said Irving Lazar, “Certainly, there is sibling rivalry at times.”
Said Joni Evans, formerly of Simon and Schuster, now publisher of Random House, “Of course, there has to be.”
Said Morton Janklow, “Yes, Jackie and Joan have flare-ups, but since Simon and Schuster has both books, Irvingand I can see to it that they don’t come out head to head. So both sisters will have a couple great months.”
The Collins sisters themselves are quick to tell you that there is no trouble between them at all, although their publicist, Jeffrey Lane, who is actually Joan’s publicist, best pal, and traveling companion, but who doubled as Jackie’s publicist for this article, laid down some ground rules for me to abide by, namely that if Jackie’s name was used first in one sentence, then Joan’s must be used first in the next, and that there was to be equal copy on each sister. Like that.
The fact is, I know both of these ladies. The first time I ever saw Joan was in 1957. She walked up off the beach in Santa Monica, California, where I was renting a beach house, wearing a bikini before anyone I knew was wearing a bikini, and asked if she could use the bathroom. She was then in the first of her two stardoms, the one that didn’t last. Of course she could use the bathroom. In my scrapbooks I have pictures of her from the sixties, at parties my wife and I had in Beverly Hills: with Mia Farrow, before she married Frank Sinatra; with Ryan O’Neal, after he split from Joanna Moore; with Michael Caine, long before he married Shakira; and with Natalie Wood, after her first marriage to Robert Wagner. Joan was then in the second of her four marriages, to the English star Anthony Newley. In every picture she is having a good time.
Jackie I met much later. We sat next to each other at one of Irving Lazar’s Academy Awards parties at Spago. It struck me then how alike the sisters are, and also how different. Last year at the Writers’ Conference in Santa Barbara, Jackie and I were both speakers, along with Thomas McGuane, Irving Stone, William F. Buckley, Jr., and others.Jackie arrived only minutes before she was scheduled to speak, in a stretch limousine with a great deal of video equipment to record her speech. Only, she didn’t make a speech the way the rest of us did. The conference provided her with an interviewer, and the interviewer asked her questions. There wasn’t an empty seat in the hall. “Can you give the writers here
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