LOS ANGELES – Jackie Collins, the best-selling author of dozens of steamy novels who depicted the boardrooms and bedrooms of Hollywood’s power crowd, died on Saturday of breast cancer at age 77, her family said.
The British-born Collins, younger sister of actress Joan Collins, died in Los Angeles, said her spokeswoman Melody Korenbrot.
“It is with tremendous sadness that we announce the death of our beautiful, dynamic and one of a kind mother, Jackie Collins, who died of breast cancer today,” the family said in a statement.
Collins, who wrote about characters driven by lust, power and greed, sold more than 500 millions copies of her books in 40 countries and has some 30 New York Times bestsellers, according to her own website.
Collins followed her older sister to Los Angeles when she was just a teenager. She did not only write about Hollywood, she also enjoyed great success in the entertainment industry with several of her stories adapted for television.
“I’m a storyteller. I’m not a literary writer and I never pretended to be,” Collins told Reuters in 2008.
Some of her most successful novels included the 1983 Hollywood Wives, about women living glamorous lives behind the scenes of the industry, and the 1985 Lucky and 1990 Lady Boss from her series focused on the ravishing and ambitious character Lucky Santangelo, who was born into an organised crime family.
Collins faced controversy during her career, writing novels so steamy they outraged political figures from Britain to China.
Collins was married to her second husband, Oscar Lerman, for more than 25 years until his death in 1992.
Joan Collins, reacting to her sister’s death, told People magazine that Jackie was her best friend. Earlier this month, Jackie Collins told People she had only recently informed her older sister of her battle with breast cancer for over six years.
“I admire how she handled this. She was a wonderful, brave and a beautiful person and I love her,” Joan Collins told the magazine.
Jackie Collins is survived by three daughters. (Reuters)
