My Friends' Secrets Book

Those who pick up My Friends' Secrets expecting Ms Collins to dish the dirt on her Hollywood chums will be sorely disappointed. Although Collins' enviable literary career--in both autobiography (Past Imperfect and Second Act) and fiction (most recently Too Damn Famous) -- has been founded on her rich insider knowledge of that gilded cage, this, her ninth book, is a more wideranging political intervention. Inspired by the success of her personal beauty regime exposé My Secrets, Collins here delves into the secrets of almost 30 of her female peers, from Shirley Bassey to Betsy Bloomingdale--all over 40 and thus well Over The Hollywood Hill. But it's not all chitchat. Collins' introduction is a passionate polemic against cultures which sideline women beyond childbearing age--and a tirade against women who let themselves go, those "whose diet consists of junk calories and fizzy drink, and ... spend their free time .. lolling in front of a TV" (perhaps watching Dynasty?) To Collins, degeneration, infirmity, illness and declining good looks are avoidable: it just takes effort, she insists. She praises and probes her chosen glitterati with that trademark hybrid of post-war starlets who went west--half pull-your-socks-up no-nonsense austerity-era England, half psychobabbling 90s California. But the superficial among you may take heart: despite Joan's uncompromising moral, My Friends' Secrets is as stunningly photographed, gushingly gaseous and fabulously frivolous as you could possibly wish. --Alan StewartRead More