Joan Collins Was ‘Haunted’ by Her ‘Dynasty’ Reputation: ‘They Have This Image of You’

Joan Collins has had a career spanning more than seven decades, but according to the actress, one offhand comment from a powerful producer permanently shaped the way the world saw her.

In a new interview with British Vogue, Collins, 92, opened up about the lasting impact of Dynasty producer Aaron Spelling‘s public declaration that she and her iconic character were one and the same.

“When Aaron Spelling said, ‘Joan is Alexis,’ that haunted me for so long,” Collins told the magazine. “I said, ‘Aaron, why did you say that? You know that’s not true,’ and he said, ‘Honey, it gets headlines.'”

In a September 2005 interview with The Sydney Morning Herald — one of his last before his death at age 83 in 2006 — the producer acknowledged that Collins brought something irreplaceable to the role.

“We didn’t write Joan Collins. She played Joan Collins. Am I right?” he said. “We wrote a character, but the character could have been played by 50 people and 49 of them would have failed. She made it work.”

Per the British Vogue profile, the remark cemented Collins’ association with the gloriously ruthless villain she played on the hit 1980s soap, and the actress has never been able to fully shake the “superb***h” persona.

Collins had already been labeled “Britain’s Bad Girl” after playing a few sultry roles as a teen — long before shoulder pads and catfights with Linda Evans defined her public image.

As Collins told the magazine, she once starred in a BBC adaptation of Noël Coward‘s Tonight at 8:30, tackling eight wildly different roles, “ranging from the elderly hag to the socialite to the abused housewife — but it doesn’t matter what you do. They have this image of you.”

Still, Collins isn’t one to dwell on what might have been. “Fame and glamour are ephemeral … I never chased that,” she said. “I always chased being a good actress, and work, because I was the breadwinner for most of my life. I still am.”