Growing up, our mom always had two dedicated spaces in our house: her writing desk and her dressing table.
From our eyes, they were magical places where change happened. As kids, we'd slip into his working wonderland and sit at his desk as he read us a child-friendly passage from his latest draft, in an instant Lucky Santangelo, becoming his favorite kick-ass character who Revealed all his wildest dreams. His most essential work tools were the blue or black felt-tip pens he used - writing each of his 32 novels by hand. Those pens were all over our house, in every pocket and in every purse, but the pride of their place was in the leopard-print pen holder on her desk. If her imagination was never going to dry up, she would have made sure that the pen didn't work either.
The second dedicated space—her dressing table—was where she kept pens and picked up makeup brushes, mascara, shimmery lip gloss. It was here that he traded jeans for jewelry and created the world for Jackie Collins. His public persona in Our Mother was bold and dazzling, in a 1980s sexy shoulder-padded suit with glittering diamonds on his cleavage and an equally bright sparkle in his eyes. While this personality may well have developed into a shield at first, it has become a brilliant and vibrant part of his character, allowing him to fully articulate himself and show his strength in public.
It was between her writing desk and her dressing table that our mothers taught us perhaps the biggest lesson: A woman has every right to define her life in her own terms and in her own words.
We're often asked what it was like to grow up as Jackie Collins' daughters and our response doesn't always reflect what one might imagine. Having been a wild teen herself, our mom decided that we should have a little more upbringing. Despite hating the strict girls' school, she sent us to the same school - and at pickup she'd rock in a silver Mustang with oversize sunglasses and a rebellious attitude! She was a cautious parent, often warning us of the dangers of the world and guiding us to be wary of men with agendas. When she was a young girl in Hollywood, after experiencing her share of violent behavior, she became extremely protective of the three women she was raising.
We didn't talk politics at the dinner table, but the politics of traditional male and female dynamics in our family was always under scrutiny. Our mom was cooking dinner—no one will ever be able to replicate her roasted potatoes—while literally bringing home the bacon, creating an unparalleled career for her voice, her skills, and a female writer. using the. Our father, Oscar Lerman, didn't belong to the generation that changed diapers and embraced stay-at-home parenthood, but he ignited a mark in his own right, enthusiastically supporting our mother every step of the way, and shunning her never-ending toxic masculinity. not interrupted. She often wrote about
They both led by example, and while our childhoods were sometimes bonkers - how many kids got to say that their godfather was James Bond? - It was also incredibly loving, warm and unexpectedly frozen.
At home she was Mrs. Lerman to our friends, driving us back and forth between friend's houses, bringing watermelon and soda to the swimming pool. At home she was a working mom, writing with a golden lab under her feet and a cup of peanut butter for breakfast. And at home she always freely encouraged our creativity, creating every childhood drawing we presented to her, sharing her passion for photography and making mixtapes.
When the limo pulled up to the door and she was back in the public eye, she showed us that women are complex creatures and don't need to be limited to just one aspect of themselves. She disregarded cultural norms and refused to dictate, the gaze of the man who often objected to her in her youth and the gaze of the men who interviewed her. One time, we saw her on TV flirting abusively with an Australian late-night host, so convincing in her pranks that we worried she was about to leave our father and run away with this TV personality. Of course later that night she came back to the hotel and assured us that she was not running with anyone! From that time on, we understood that there were many dimensions to our mother like the diamonds she wore, and it was very important for daughters to know.
With an epic 45-year career, our mom was forever a teenager at heart. Every time she sat down to write, she rediscovered herself on the pages of her novels, and she brought millions of grateful readers along for the ride.
She was never going to be defined by a single label, including the cancer she was diagnosed with at the end of her life. He taught us to write our own stories and find our voice over and over again. And when the plot gets tangled around your feet and you feel like you can't move on, it taught us — and all of its readers — to take a breath and turn the page.