Despite dominating our TV screens throughout the 1980s, Dame Joan Collins, Linda Gray and Donna Mills – aka Alexis Carrington from Dynasty, Sue Ellen Ewing from Dallas and Abby Cunningham from Knots Landing respectively – have never done a joint photoshoot together until now, for HELLO!'s exclusive chat. While they may have played competitive women in touch with their inner divas on screen, in reality they have always been on friendly terms, meeting up at ceremonies such as the Oscars or Golden Globes as well as each other’s house parties. There was never any rivalry, they insist.
"Not in my case at all," says Joan, 89. "I wasn't concerned about that. "I played a totally different role to the roles they played and there wasn’t time to see their shows – I didn't even see mine!" Linda, 82, adds: "I think the press loved to think that we were always fighting and tearing clothes off each other, which was ridiculous but made good stories. "We were working women and there just happened to be a camera in the room – this is what I told my children and it's true."
Donna was in Knots Landing until 1989, when she gave up showbusiness to raise her daughter Chloe. "The Eighties for me were fabulous," she says. "I had the most success in my career. There were magazine covers and photoshoots and paparazzi and all that kind of fun stuff, which was divine. Then the Nineties was when I decided motherhood was what I wanted to concentrate on, so I did that for about 20 years."
More recently she's enjoyed a career resurgence with roles in film and TV. "If I have a purpose now, it's to inspire women to say: 'Hey, it's not over,'" she says. "You reach 60, 70 or 80 and it's not over – you still have a lot to give and there's a lot you can do." It's a sentiment echoed by Linda. "When people say: 'You're over 40,' or whatever, you can either say: 'You're right, I'm old,' or you can think: 'Who the hell are you to tell us we're finished?'"
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