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Jackie’s back, and the cash registers are ringing.   Who else, but Jackie Collins with her 27th novel, Poor Little Bitch Girl, and its cast of Hollywood’s hump-two-three-four players relentlessly screwing around.  Call her the Empress of the Horn Dog Kingdom, Jackie knows her way around the stretch limos, beds, bathrooms and bordellos of the Who’s Who sex addicts in Lotusland and Manhattan.   Jackie claims she listens to those constant salacious currents in the winds, and to girlfriends and roués about town who bare all, in more ways than one.   When interviewed by ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, Jackie discovered that the bitch word was banned from their conversation.

Written in blue ink with her fine penmanship in schoolgirl notebooks, her torrid novels have sold more than 400 million copies in more than forty countries.  The first novel was titled The World Is Full of Married Men, followed by The World Is Full of Divorced Women, then Lovers and Gamblers, and Hollywood Wives, which was adapted into a 1985 miniseries.  Produced by Aaron Spelling, the series starred Candice Bergen, Angie Dickinson, Suzanne Somers, Stefanie Powers, Tony Hopkins, Rod Steiger.  

Jackie’s inspiration comes from real life characters that she meets and befriends, a composite of the many coming and going in her life. “Dangerously beautiful people … if anything, my characters are toned down, the truth is more bizarre,” she shrugs, and makes no bones about being privy to extraordinary observations with the Hollywood elite, sports stars and mega-rich nymphos and satyrs.   Her late husband, Oscar Lerman, encouraged her to write, owned the Tramp nightclubs in Los Angeles and London, where she was shocked with “the scandalous things I’d seen time after time.  

“He also hosted the Ad-Lib Club, where London hotties and naughties fell over themselves to score with the Beatles, who became habitués.”  Dad Joseph Collins agented the Beatles, Tom Jones, Shirley Bassey.

Thrown out of school for truancy at 15, Jackie acted in B-movies during the ’50s, embarked on a brief affair with the 29-year-old Marlon Brando when she was 16.   “I couldn’t stay away from seeing him in The Wild One dozens of times … Marlon was my idol.”  Jackie compares that experience to a teenager today being seduced by Twilight’s Robert Pattinson.

We caught up with Jackie several weeks ago at nephew Sacha Newley’s vernissage of his Prism exhibition at the LA House Art Gallery on Beverly Boulevard.  Sacha’s the son of Jackie’s sister Joan Collins, and his late dad is Tony Newley.  Both Jackie and Joan looked sensational; whatever their secret is, we should all know it.

Count on page upon page of R-rated sexcapades in Poor Little Bitch Girl, as Jackie exposes the insatiably lust-driven characters in her racy narrative.  “Collins is at her seasoned best with this raunchy retro hot-sheets romance,” claims Publishers Weekly, while her St. Martin’s Press executives describe the “raunchy prowls along Hollywood’s streets, $30,000-an-hour hookers, glitzy rock parties, mansions of power brokers, and three twenty-something women, one hot rich guy, two mega-rich movie stars, and a devastating murder.”  Nobody covers this gilded waterfront better.

“How much did you pay for these tickets?” Mitzi Gaynor asked her husband Jack Bean about their orchestra seats when they attended a Bette Midler concert at the Greek Theatre.   “Whatever you paid, you didn’t pay enough.”

They were enthralled with Bette’s performance, as Mitzi was this month with Bette’s concert in Las Vegas, where whispers keep surfacing that Bette may be the honoree this spring at the Professional Dancers Society luncheon on May 16 at the Beverly Hilton.  Mitzi presides over this great organization that looks after dancers in need and has honored Mary Tyler Moore, Angela Lansbury, Cyd Charisse, Donald O’Connor, Dick Van Dyke, Gene Kelly.   Who isn’t aware that dancers careers are short-lived, their bodies pummeled by the fiery toll on their bones and muscles.  When push comes to shove and the gigs become leaner, our blessed PDS is there to offer assistance. 

The fabled Mitzi lost her Best Friend Forever this year.  Tommy Carlino, a gentle and gifted soul, became Mitzi’s hairdresser for who knows-how-many-decades.   Both Tommy and costuming designing genius Bob Mackie “birthed” Mitzi’s grand-slam look for her shows.   Last week, Mitzi invited 28 friends of Tommy’s to join her for a home-cooked feast prepared by Mitzi (a fabulous cook!) to celebrate his wit, kindness, generosity, and love of showbusiness.
 
Not many know that Tommy was a leading player at the Beige Room in San Francisco, a drag club famed around the world that was SRO night after night by locals and tourists from all continents.  He impersonated Rita Hayworth, along with pursuing his hairdressing talents, and turned down hairstyling Mae West who wouldn’t pay him.  Today, the studios and networks shell out thousands of shekels for the stars’ favorite hairstylists and makeup artists for red carpet or television appearances.  In truth, the stars don freebie designer gowns, jewelry, and shoes.  Next thing you know, Joan Rivers will be asking, “What fragrance are you wearing?” 

Mitzi’s on a roll.  Her solo act sells out wherever she plays, as the show recently did at the McCallum Theatre in Palm Desert.  She’s soon off to Chicago, Florida, and Atlantic City.   Michael Feinstein’s begged her to headline his Feinstein’s at the Regency Cabaret in New York, with Mitzi flattered, but noting the venue was not quite the right size for her performance.   Michael took the bull by the horns, and is building a stage for Mitzi in the Regency’s Ballroom.   Bravo, Michael.  Would that there were more impresarios like you!

Giorgio Armani and niece Roberta Armani hosted a pre-premiere party for his friend Marty Scorsese in Manhattan the night before Marty’s thriller, Shutter Island, opened.  Adapted from Dennis Lehane’s 2003 novel set in 1954 about a hospital for the criminally insane on a remote Massachusetts island, the film stars Leo DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo.  Leo, who’ll soon star as Frank Sinatra, concurs that Marty’s movie knowledge is infinite.  Any wonder why Marty’s dubbed “a film encyclopedia with legs.”