Veteran actress Joan Collins never intended to get married more than once. She experienced multiple heartbreaks in her failed marriages and short-lived relationships, though what she feared actually happened.
In the 1950s, when English actress Joan Collins was set to wed Hollywood playboy Arthur Loew, she was thinking about getting married.
Collins revealed in her friends that she was worried about having numerous ex-husbands and needed to be sure before walking down the aisle with Loew.
She remarked, “I’d rather not be one of those gals with four or five husbands.” Sadly, her life played out just as she had thought it would.
Actor Maxwell Reed from Northern Ireland was Collins’ first husband, whom she wed in 1952. In 1956, the former couple got a divorce. She was 15 years older than Reed. Later, the author said that she wed him out of guilt.
Collins had two children, Tara and Alexander, after her 1963 second marriage to actor and singer Anthony Newley. They separated in 1971.
Prior to her second marriage, Collins dated actor Warren Beatty in 1959; however, their relationship ended as a result of his extramarital affairs. Later, the “Dynasty” star admitted in her autobiography from 1978 that she had been pregnant with Beatty’s kid but had aborted it.
Collins promised herself she would never remarry after her second divorce. But when she met Ronald Kass, who would become her third husband, everything changed:
“I was 35 years old and swore off marriage forever. Then, though, a mutual friend introduced me to a tall, dashing American man by the name of Ronald S. Kass.”
After only a few weeks of dating, Kass brazenly proposed to Collins while she was still married and already had three kids. The “The Stud” actor recalled his persistence in asking her to marry him in an article she wrote for the Daily Mail:
He constantly showered me with affection, attention, and marriage offers for a full year.
Eventually, Collins relented, and the couple wed in 1972, welcoming their daughter Katyana as their sole child. After Kass’ addiction to illegal substances, the marriage quickly suffered.
But the final straw came when Collins realized he had falsified her signature on an overdraft paperwork, which caused their marriage to end in 1983.
Later, in 1985, in Las Vegas, the columnist married Peter Holm, a former singer. Collins was managed and co-produced by Holm, who was 14 years Collins’ senior.
While his wife was working on the television series “Dynasty,” he had an illicit relationship with a married woman who was 20 years old. Later, more startling information came to light.
When the divorce process got underway, Holm, who had forced Collins to sign a prenup, claimed tens of thousands of dollars in monthly allowances as well as two of their jointly owned houses.
After some back and forth, Collins demanded that Holm pay over a million dollars for the furniture, food, and holiday decorations he had removed from their Los Angeles home.
When Kass’s new girlfriend Kathy Wardlow stated in 1988 that the pop artist had informed her he had only married Collins for her wealth, it was a shocking discovery. He had been unfaithful throughout their relationship, she continued, “because she was elderly and wrinkled.”
Collins had hoped that her fourth marriage would be her final union, but she had no idea what Holm’s “murky history” would entail for her. With her fourth marriage, she vowed to avoid more divorces, saying: “Divorces are no longer permitted. I can’t and won’t ever go through that again.”
But when Holm and 13 other people were detained and accused of smuggling $1.2 million worth of diamonds from Belgium into Sweden, in 1975, her world was flipped upside down.
Additionally, the police believed that he and a former girlfriend operated a call girl business and brothel. Collins had no reason to have any doubts about Holm because, when they were out in public, he appeared to be madly in love with her.
Soon after he moved in with her, she gave him power over her finances. She fired all of her advisors, including an agent, an accountant, and a lawyer, once Holm took over as her manager. Collins overspent on all of their living expenses, leaving her heartbroken in the process.
Those close to her expressed alarm as one of her friends acknowledged that they were all aware of Holm’s negative traits, but Collins wouldn’t budge:
“She was deaf to the flaws that were obvious to us. He merely wanted her money.”
But when she eventually made up her mind that she would not put up with Holm any longer, the Golden Globe Award winner threw a huge party to mark the occasion. In 1987, she served him with divorce papers.
Collins finally found her “forever husband” after a journey marked by numerous heartbreaks. She met Percy Gibson, her sixth spouse, in San Francisco in 2000 while performing in a play for a business he oversaw.
Gibson’s wife is 31 years older than he is. Collins once told The Sun that she did not care about their big age difference:
“We didn’t care that I was older because we were close. It was exhilarating, wonderful, and Percy and I fell head over heels in love.”
“I’ve at last discovered my actual soul partner. Collins remarked, “And my hubby forever. He’s the best. Life without him is unimaginable to me.” The couple exchanged vows in London’s Claridge’s Hotel in February 2002.
She has been married five times, whereas Gibson has only been married once; he was previously wed to Cynthia Bauer for more than ten years. Gibson is a Hollywood producer best known for producing the TV series “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,” “The Time of Our Lives,” and the movies “Banksy’s Coming to Dinner” and “The Time of Our Lives.”
Because he is younger than her, his wife once said that questions regarding their age difference used to come from people. Well, if he dies, he dies, Collins jokingly said.
Collins expressed relief at being married to a younger man in an interview with The Sunday Times in October 2021, claiming that if they had been age matched, everything would have fallen apart:
“Thank God I married someone who was 30 years my junior. Being married to someone my own age was too much for me to handle.”
Gibson, she gushed, is the “glue” that keeps their family together. He is a stepfather to her children from prior marriages despite the fact that they are not parents together.
In February 2022, Collins and Gibson marked their 20th wedding anniversary. A pre-anniversary party was held to celebrate the event, and Collins shared a group selfie from the event on her Instagram page.
The two-time Soap Opera Digest Award winner tweeted a throwback picture of herself and Gibson from their wedding day, in which they were cutting a cake as newlyweds. She added, “#ahubby and I got married 20 years ago today and have been blissfully married ever since.
Collins uploaded a picture of the unique earrings Gibson had made for their wedding anniversary two days after the noteworthy event. Before that, she posted a picture of herself and her spouse cuddling while holding a card that said, “Mr. and Mrs. Fabulous.”
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