One might think that, after selling 500 million books, Jackie Collins would change some things in her life. However, sometimes ( as the saying goes ), "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."
"After all these years, I still write in longhand," Collins said during a recent conversation at Chicago's Ritz-Carlton Hotel. "However, I love the Internet. I do my research on the computer and I [tweet] my own photos, and I'm all over Pinterest. I'm very hands-on."
Collins' latest work ( her 30th! ) is Confessions of a Wild Child, a prequel. "Confessions" is about Lucky Santangelo when she is 15"ready to discover life, love and independence," as the press release related.
"I wrote this as a young-adult book," Collins said. "And I sent it to the publisher and they said, 'Oh, no, no; this is for everyone. It's not as raunchy as my other books. ... I wanted to show how Lucky became the woman she is today. She really is a fabulous character; I've written seven books about her, and two miniseries."
Upon hearing about the miniseries, Windy City Times mentioned seeing the one starring actress Nicollette Sheridan. "She's beautiful, and an old soul," Collins said. "She brought Lucky's aura to the camera."
Regarding a movie based on "Confessions," we talked about casting the character of Marco, Lucky's brooding, handsome bodyguard. "We can't have Channing Tatum; he's a little too white-bread for the role. What about someone who looks like Bobby Cannavale?"
Something else in the book is the presence of gay charactersincluding Lucky's brother, Dario. "Do you like that Dario comes out to Lucky?," Collins asked. "He can't come out to Gino [their father]; he'd pop a button. Gino is a macho man. A gay son? Forget about it. He wants Dario to take over the business, even though Lucky is the one who wants to."
As for Lucky, she "is a chip off the old block; she's got Gino's balls. ... She murders her godfather [in another book] and makes it look like self-defense because he was responsible for [some family] murders."
"Confessions" is partially based on Collins' life, but she said, "I didn't know it when I was writing it, but when I finished I said, 'Wait a minute. I was in the south of France; I was playing ping-pong with those guys; I was on that beach."
Collins also based at least one other characterLucky's friend Olympiaon someone she knew. "I had a best friend when I went to school," Collins said. "She was an American; she and I were, like, the two outcasts and we bonded immediately. We started skipping school and running wild. But her father wasn't a Greek shipping magnate [like Olympia's]."
When asked where she gets the ideas for her books, Collins said, "When I wake up, I don't know what I'm going to write. I usually don't know until I sit down to write. People say they can't put my book down, and I usually say, 'That's because when I start writing, I can't put my pen down."
Then, there are Collins' personal interests, which include a healthy dose of television. "I'm really into The Blacklist right now," she said. "I also like The Following, Parenthood ( it has great family values ). Of course, I love Dexter. I also like [the gay HBO series] Looking; there are certain aspects I love. And then there's Boardwalk Empire and Orange Is the New Black. I love Scandal and I love Veepand then you have House of Lies and House of Cards.
"Shameless is my new favorite program. Now Emmy Rossum [the lead actress of Shameless] would make a great Lucky."
When asked about reality TV, things took an interesting turn. After inquiring if she gets any ideas for her books from the shows, she said, "Oh, nothey got their ideas from me. Rich kids from Hollywood? Give me a fucking break. Hollywood Wives, Hollywood Husbands..." However, she does watch a few of them, including Shahs of Sunset ( "I think it's hilarious." ) and the Orange County, New York and New Jersey series of the Real Housewives franchise.
An interesting point is that Collins has achieved incredible success despite leaving school. ( She was expelled at 15Lucky's age in her latest book. ) "You know how many successful people never went to college? However, I think school today is much better than it used to be, and I'm a huge proponent of educationespecially in areas where kids are just running wild. However, I do get 14- or 15-year-old boys saying, 'I never read until I read Chances' or girls saying they've learned everything about sex from me."
By the way, the extremely busy Collins also has a couple other side projects, including an impending autobiography that promises to be full of tantalizing details. There's also the Lucky Santangelo cookbook ( coming out in April ) and another book, The Santangelos.
As a parting gift of sorts, Collins revealed something involving her sister, Joan Collins. Joan's Dynasty character, Alexis Carrington, was based on someone in one of Jackie's books. "That character was taken straight from The Stud [which Jackie wrote and had Joan starring in the movie role]," Jackie said. "[Producer] Aaron Spelling stole the character and put her in Dynasty, but she was originally Fontaine from The Stud."
Talking with Jackie Collins can be just as dishy as one of her booksand that's a very good thing.
Follow Collins on Twitter @JackieJCollins. Confessions of a Wild Child is available everywhere. Also, the book is available as an audiobook from Macmillan Audio.