[16] These included Barnacle Bill (1957), Rock You Sinners (1957), The Safecracker (1958), Intent to Kill (1958), Passport to Shame (1958), and The Shakedown (1960), in which she was credited as Lynn Curtis.

[17] Four decades later, she admitted she was a "school dropout" and "juvenile delinquent" when she was 15: "I'm glad I got all of that out of my system at an early age," she said,[18] adding that she "never pretended to be a literary writer.

[2] After the publication of her first novel The World Is Full of Married Men, romantic novelist Barbara Cartland called the book "nasty, filthy and disgusting",[21] and charged Collins with "creating every pervert in Britain".

[25] Following this, Collins published The World Is Full of Divorced Women (unrelated to her first novel) in 1975, and then Lovers & Gamblers in 1977, which told the story of rock/soul superstar Al King.

She co-wrote the screenplay for The Stud (1978), based on her second book; the film starred her older sister Joan as the gold-digging adulteress Fontaine Khaled.

[32] While living in the hills above Sunset Boulevard, Collins collected the knowledge and experience to write her most commercially successful novel, Hollywood Wives (1983), which hit The New York Times best-seller list at number one.

Marketed as a "scandalous exposé", the novel sold over 15 million copies[33] and placed Collins in a powerful position, making her a celebrity of near equal status to her sister Joan, whose own career had taken an upwards direction with her role in the television drama Dynasty.

[citation needed] In 1985, Hollywood Wives was made into a television miniseries, produced by Aaron Spelling and starring Candice Bergen, Stefanie Powers, Angie Dickinson, Anthony Hopkins, Suzanne Somers, and Rod Steiger.

[37] Around this time, she wrote and produced another miniseries based on the Lady Boss novel, with Kim Delaney playing the lead role.

Collins's run of best-sellers continued with American Star (1993), Hollywood Kids (1994), and the fourth Santangelo novel, Vendetta: Lucky's Revenge (1996).

[citation needed] In 1998, she made a foray into talk show television with the series Jackie Collins' Hollywood, but this was unsuccessful.

In 2001, she published Hollywood Wives: The New Generation, which was adapted as a 2003 television movie starring Farrah Fawcett, Melissa Gilbert, and Robin Givens.

[41] This was followed by Poor Little Bitch Girl (2009), which stemmed from an idea Collins had worked on for a television series about heiresses that was ultimately never made.

Austin's addiction to drugs prescribed for manic depression ultimately caused their separation, and he died from a deliberate overdose the year after their marriage ended.

[49] In 1965, Collins married again, this time to American art gallery and nightclub (Ad-Lib and Tramp) owner, Oscar Lerman, who was 18 years her senior.

[49] In 1994, Collins became engaged to Los Angeles business executive Frank Calcagnini, who died in 1998 from a brain tumor.

"[30] In 2011, when asked if she were dating anyone, Collins said: "I have a man for every occasion", adding: When I was a kid growing up, I used to read my father's Playboy and I'd see these guys and they had fantastic apartments and cars.

[52][53] Throughout Collins's career she intentionally promoted a flamboyant public image, both to market her books and to protect her quieter private life.

[15] She claimed to have only had Botox once ("I hated it"), and avoided salons and buying new clothes; hobbies were television (Collins owned four TiVos) and Tweeting.

She said she loved Los Angeles and recalled that while growing up in England, she often read novels by Robbins, Mickey Spillane, and Raymond Chandler.

She reportedly informed her sister Joan Collins two weeks before she died[55] and flew from Los Angeles to London to appear on the ITV chat show Loose Women nine days before her death.