Legendary actress Joan Collins has revealed her life-long secret to maintaining her hourglass figure… dieting.
The 79-year-old star has told how she spent her whole life switching between one punishing eating regime to another, the Daily Mail reports.
Collins said she spent her whole career trying to please directors who said she was too fat.
She even claimed she was once prescribed amphetamine (speed) to speed up her weight loss for a film role.
The actress spoke out at the launch of her one-woman show, One Night With Joan, in the UK on Saturday night.
She said: “The added incentive about not acting nowadays is not having to diet any more.
“Your hips always had to look slimmer, your face thinner. As an actress you are always on a diet when working.
“I was told to take speed to help get the weight off. At times I was told I wouldn’t even get work because I was too fat.”
Seventy-nine-year-old Collins revealed she was never but on a diet.
Collins said it was a part of the job that directors would insist she lost weight before giving her a part.
She said: “As soon as they saw me in the flesh they insisted I go on a diet and exercise every day.
“It was tomatoes and cottage cheese, lettuce and cottage cheese and cottage cheese and cottage cheese.
“I was told I needed to lose eight pounds from my nine stone immediately. But I cheated and my doctor put me on a series of little green slimming pills which did work.
“I lost eight pounds in two weeks and two weeks’ sleep, because I finally found out those little green pills contained speed.”
Collins made her film debut in 1951 but said it only became tougher to get roles.
“In Hollywood you’ve flowered in your 20s, peaked in your 30s and it is rare for an actress to be a leading lady in her 40s and rarer still in her 50s.
“After that it is character parts if you’re lucky. After 60 a woman is like Africa.
“Everyone knows where it is but nobody wants to go there.”
And a small piece of trivia? Joan’s favourite hobby now is lying on her bed with a few Snickers bars watching Downton Abbey…
