A Look Back At Joan Collins' Tense Relationship With Her Sister Jackie

Jackie Collins was four years younger than her big sister, Joan Collins, and both women forged remarkable careers in acting and writing. During her lifetime, Jackie was a celebrated author whose book sales surpassed half a billion copies by the time of her death in 2015, while Joan's best known as an actor, particularly for her iconic role on the long-running primetime drama, "Dynasty." However, since Jackie also worked as an actor, and Joan has also written books, these shared pursuits exacerbated the idea of a conflict between Joan and Jackie. "Their relationship was complicated," filmmaker Laura Fairrie, who made a documentary about Jackie, explained to Vanity Fair. "They had this deep love for each other, but they also competed with each other."

According to Joan, Jackie was one of her biggest fans when she started acting in the early 1950s. After Joan moved to the U.S., the sisters' close bond was evident in the letters they frequently wrote to each other. Jackie soon followed in Joan's acting footsteps, and she ended up moving overseas to live with her big sister. 

With their parents still living in the U.K., Joan took on an even bigger role in teenage Jackie's life, and she was particularly sensitive to Joan's unkind remarks. "Joan says I look awful," Jackie wrote in her diary when she was a teen (via Vanity Fair). "I feel so inferior." Soon after, Jackie was motivated to get cosmetic surgery to change the shape of her nose. 

After Joan Collins' stunning transformation to acting fame, Jackie Collins made an extra effort to achieve her own independent success. While Jackie started out as an actor, it was happenstance because she was living with Joan. "I always wanted to be a writer," Jackie informed The New York Times in 2007. When she pivoted to writing, Jackie contemplated using her married name, Lehman, in the hopes that the media wouldn't be constantly mentioning her big sister. However, although Jackie disliked living in Joan's shadow, their famous last name was too good a marketing tool. Even so, it was Jackie's steamy subject matter that made her stick out from the crowd and cemented her success as an author. 

Jackie's books were naturals for adapting to the screen, and in the late 1970s Joan starred in movie versions of two of Jackie's novels. Around this time, Joan also began working as a writer, starting with a memoir. In 1988, Joan published her first novel, igniting media claims of friction between her and Jackie. "I was never jealous of my sister," Jackie asserted in 2011 (via The Times). "Newspapers have tried to make out that we didn't get along, but we've always gotten along."

Joan had displayed her own writing talents when she was in school, so her efforts weren't a move to encroach on her sister's career. In addition, during their childhood, the two sisters approached book creation as a team, with Jackie penning the text and Joan providing the illustrations.

While their overlapping professions weren't a problem for Joan and Jackie Collins, personal issues did hurt their bond. One of their biggest sources of friction was Jackie's dislike of Joan's fourth husband, Peter Holm. "[Jackie] could see through him for what he was — a user and a philanderer," Joan later admitted in a piece for the Daily Mail. "She begged me not to marry him." The marriage lasted about two years, and they split after Holm cheated on Joan. Jackie also didn't approve of Joan's longtime boyfriend, Robin Hurlstone, who Joan started dating soon after her marriage to Holm ended. Joan dated Hurlstone for over a decade. In addition to not getting along with Jackie and Joan's daughter, Hurlstone was hypercritical and controlling during their relationship

Fortunately, the sisters were able to resume their close connection during Joan's fifth marriage to Percy Gibson. Jackie was wary of Gibson at first and didn't go to the couple's wedding, but she later formed a tight bond with her brother-in-law.

When Jackie died from breast cancer in 2015, Joan was shocked. Jackie felt protective towards Joan and decided not to tell her about her diagnosis until weeks before she died. Joan continues to write about her love for Jackie, describing "our bond over an entire lifetime, and the deep abiding love that always existed between us and that I still feel," in her memoir "Behind the Shoulder Pads" (via People).