Chapter 1
Their first meeting promised to be highly charged. They were glamorous, exciting individuals. Both were headstrong, talented and sure of themselves. Both were fearless, daring and willing to risk anything for what they loved. Or for the person they loved.
Each also had needs.
And on this day, Jackie Collins and the Reporter needed each other very much.
The twice-married daughter of a London theatrical agent and the sister of Joan Collins, the Hollywood actress, Jackie was the author of 13 novels. In her late 40s, she was statuesque and extremely alluring, if not classically beautiful.
Her home was in Beverly Hills, but she had flown to Chicago to promote her latest novel, ”Lady Boss” (Simon and Schuster, $21.95).
She wrote about characters who were rich and famous and often immoral. They were show-business giants, business tycoons and crime syndicate chieftains.
Her books were enormously popular, selling by the millions. They were filled with steamy sex and raw language. Some were made into movies.
”Hollywood Wives” was a successful TV mini-series. On Oct. 7-8-9, NBC was to telecast ”Lucky/Chances,” a mini-series she wrote and produced that is based on two of her novels.
Some critics persisted in depicting her work as trash. Good trash, they would concede, but trash nonetheless. She had been called ”the grande dame of trash” and ”gleaner of great celebrity rubbish.” Her detractors accused her of turning out superficial soap operas in print, pop pap that had no grounding in reality. Her over-sexed heroes and villains, they said, were overheated and overdrawn.
Others praised her ability to write a driving, page-turning narrative and to puncture Hollywood hype with delightful, tongue-in-cheek irreverence.
She treasured the acclaim, banked the money and shrugged off the insults. But the attacks hurt because she felt they were so undeserved.
Some of her friends may have wondered whether deep inside her heart she yearned for someone from the Fourth Estate who would defend and protect her, someone who would become her journalistic champion.
Within the next few hours, she would meet such a man.
Chapter 2
That morning, Jackie was appearing as a guest on Oprah Winfrey`s TV show, taped at Winfrey`s opulent Harpo Studios just west of Chicago`s Loop.
That afternoon, the Reporter was to interview her in her plush suite in a luxurious hotel east of the city`s ultraswank Michigan Avenue.
She knew he was coming, but she had never heard of him or seen him. She didn`t know what to expect. Indeed, neither Jackie nor the Reporter was sure what would happen when they were finally alone.
Right now, the twice-married, silver-thatched Reporter was seated in the audience at the ”Oprah” taping, calmly studying the scene with his piercing, ocean-blue eyes.
They were eyes that had seen a great deal in his storied career. Despite his affable openness, he was considered something of an enigma at the Chicago Tribune, the great metropolitan newspaper that employed him but never really owned his soul.
He would often sit at his desk and stare at the walls for hours. His awe- filled editors would watch him and wonder what he was thinking and when he was going to begin writing the story he was supposed to have already turned in.
His colleagues envied him for his shockingly handsome face and lean, muscular physique. They also revered him for his masterful skills as a reporter and writer.
They knew he was a marvelous athlete as well, that he had once been torn between pitching in the major leagues or playing quarterback for the Chicago Bears but had decided he could do more for humanity by fighting injustice through the written word.
Right now he was thinking about his interview with Jackie Collins four hours from now, which he would then transform into one of his typically penetrating, spellbinding articles.
Suddenly it occurred to him that something was different about this story, for he felt his heart begin to pound. He was startled. This didn`t happen when he was to interview an alderman or a CTA official. It was hard to identify the emotion that was sweeping through him.
Could it be passion?
He forced himself to focus on the show.
” . . . and I found that producers treat women so badly,” Jackie was saying.
She and Oprah were talking about Jackie`s new book. The heroine is
”thrice-married” Lucky Santangelo, who ”headed a billion-dollar shipping company-left to her by her second husband, Dimitri Stanislopoulos.”
In ”Lady Boss,” Lucky buys Panther Studios from Hollywood magnate Abe Panther for her husband, Lennie Golden, a superstar comedian and actor. Before the deal is final, Lucky disguises herself as a studio secretary so she can get an idea of what the two slimeballs who are married to Abe`s
granddaughters-his sole heirs-are up to. Abe is convinced they are engaged in criminal activities.
Lucky discovers they are. She also finds that discrimination against women is pervasive at the studio and vows to end it when she becomes boss.
It is not easy for Lucky to transform herself into a dowdy stenographer. She is described on page 12 as ”darkly, exotically beautiful, with a tangle of wild jet curls, dangerous black eyes, smooth olive skin, a full, sensual mouth, and a slim body.”
Oprah asked Jackie if she were the real-life Lucky.
”I think she`s my alter ego,” Jackie said. ”I`m not her, but I`d like to be her.”
To the Reporter, Jackie was every bit as lovely as Lucky.
Her back-combed heap of hair was the color of fine Belgian chocolate. Her emerald green eyes were intelligent, mischievous, sultry.
She wore a white silk jacket, black slacks and black stiletto heels. There was a faux leopard inset at one shoulder of the jacket. The profile of leopards ringed her gold choker. Her earrings matched the leopard design of her silk blouse.
She loved anything with a leopard or panther motif. Her Beverly Hills home was filled with leopard-skin cushions, china leopards, paintings of leopards and panthers.
These animals represented power, sleekness, grace-the qualities she believed were embodied in Lucky Santangelo. And-as far as the reporter was concerned-in Jackie too.
The reporter`s heart began to pound again. ”Drat!” he said to himself.
”I`ve got to get hold of myself. I`ve got to remain objective for the interview.”
But something inside him told him it would be very difficult. Something inside him said that the hour he and Jackie would spend together that afternoon would be embedded in their memories forever.
Chapter 3
The Reporter knocked on the door to Jackie`s hotel suite. A female aide answered and ushered him into the living room, then disappeared.
Jackie Collins rose from a damask couch and extended her hand. Her eyes met his. He felt a sense of urgency in the air.
”Please, won`t you sit down?” she said.
He sat in an overstuffed armchair, the sunlight from the window turning his thick mane a gleaming shade of gold.
Neither spoke for what seemed an eternity.
She broke the silence. ”Do you have any questions?” she said.
He reached for his notepad, his shoulder muscles rippling under his gray, European-styled suit.
”When did you begin writing?” he asked.
Her eyes widened for a moment. What a dazzling question, she thought to herself. This is no ordinary reporter.
The Reporter saw her reaction and smiled crookedly.
She said she began writing as a girl in a London boarding school. ”I used to read everything American. Raymond Chandler, Mickey Spillane, Harold Robbins. I remember reading `Peyton Place` and thinking, `Oh, this is the best.”`
The Reporter was moved as she recounted how she would write weekly serials and sell them to her 12-year-old classmates. ”Then I would get bored and never write the final chapters.”
He chuckled. The imp!
”I was good in English composition but a hopeless student,” she continued. ”I was truant all the time, and when I was 15 I was expelled. I had wanted to be a journalist, but my parents said I couldn`t without an education.”
The Reporter was touched. She had wanted to be a journalist! Poor dear. Instead she had thrown her dreams away by writing blockbuster novels and enduring an empty life of wealth and privilege in California.
Her story was heart-breaking. ”My parents said: `You`re not bad looking. You can go be a movie star like your sister.` Joan was then in Hollywood. So I got on the next plane, and she met me at the airport. She said: `Learn to drive. Here are the keys to my apartment. Goodbye.` And she left for a movie she was making somewhere, and I began researching my books. I had some experiences that were quite wild.”
The Reporter blushed. Jackie`s revelation caused him to recall a passage in her book between Lucky and Lennie:
”No conversation. First, sex. Fast, pure, exciting lust took over as he remembered her smooth body, her silky skin, the tangle of her black hair, the wildness of her lips. . . .”
This was not something Jane Austen would write. But Jane Austen had never conducted ”research” as an unsupervised teenager in Hollywood.
The Reporter decided it was time to get to the really brutal questions.
”Don`t you get angry at those critics who say you write trash?”
She concealed the admiration she surely must have felt for his no-holds-barred approach.
”If I listened to criticism, I wouldn`t be writing 20 years later. I think I entertain people. I don`t believe my books are trash. I don`t think they`re sleazy. I think they`re humorous. I think they`re satirical. My true fans read my books for the humor.
”I think the criticism has something to do with being a woman. They don`t say the same things about Sydney Sheldon, this 72-year-old man who writes very graphic sex scenes.
”I think some people are bothered by the language. It`s strong, but that`s the kind of language the people I write about use.”
The Reporter adored her spunk.
”I`m not literary enough for some,” she continued. ”I don`t write flowery literature. But there`s no violence in my books. If there is, it happens off screen. I think we`re too steeped in violence these days. But sex seems to upset people more than violence does.
”I think my books have good values. Louis Malle, the director who is married to Candice Bergen, calls me a `raunchy moralist.`
”That`s a good description. Some of my characters may be raunchy, but my books have an underlying morality. If you do drugs, you`re going to come to a bad end. If you screw around on your spouse, you`re going to get caught. I often attack the double standard. I stand up for women`s rights.”
The Reporter interrupted. He had to keep hammering away. ”The people in your books resemble people in real life. In the new book, there are characters who could be Madonna, Warren Beatty, the Trumps, Eddie Murphy. Could you tell us who`s who?”
”I`ve made a rule never to discuss this,” she said, smiling. ”And besides, the characters are composites.”
”Would you tell me if I promised not to tell?” he said.
”No,” she said.
The Reporter felt almost overwhelmed by the tension in the room. Perhaps she felt it too. Yet Jackie appeared to mask her feelings by seeming impatient.
She looked toward the bedroom. The reporter`s heart pounded. Then he saw a tall, distinguished man emerge through the bedroom door. His blood ran cold. It was her husband of 21 years, Oscar Lerman.
The Reporter could read between the lines. No wonder Jackie seemed so distant.
”We have a plane to catch,” she said.
”I`ll be going,” the Reporter said, smiling his crooked smile.
He was confident he`d be hearing from this magnificent woman again some day. He knew he would never forget her. Their eyes met at the door. By the expression on her face, he knew she would have trouble forgetting him too.
