‘Future husband raped me when I was 17’

Joan Collins in her younger days.

Joan Collins in her younger days.

Published Nov 27, 2014

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WITH a lifetime in showbusiness behind her, Joan Collins rarely allows herself to appear rattled on screen.

But as the actress recalled being raped as a teenager by the man who would become her first husband, her famous composure almost deserted her.

She was close to tears as she started to speak of the traumatic event 64 years ago.

Miss Collins, 81, told of how Maxwell Reed slipped a date-rape drug into her drink and took her virginity. At the time, he was a matinee idol and she was an unknown, having just signed to RANK film studios.

On the evening of the rape Reed – who was 14 years older than her and died of cancer in 1974 – went to take a bath, leaving the actress with a drink and some books.

She said: ‘The books were porn, which I’d never seen before. Hardcore porn.’

Her eyes filling with tears, Miss Collins added: ‘I was raped when I was 17 years old. He said, “Do you want a drink?” and I said, “Yeah, rum and coke.”

‘And next thing I knew I was out flat on the sofa in that living room and he was raping me. What he had given me was a drug.

‘It was what was called in those days a Mickey Finn. Which I think today would be Rohypnol. It felt so horrible that I’d done this thing and I’d?.?.?. it wasn’t my fault, but I went out with him and maybe I shouldn’t have.

‘He was much older than me, and he was a famous star. Anyway, the bottom line is that he called me and I went out with him again. After I’d been going out with him for a few months he asked me to marry him.

‘I thought, “I’d better, because he took my virginity”. I really hated him, but I was so filled with guilt it took a long time to be able to really trust any man.’

Miss Collins speaks in a new film, Brave Miss World, for which Israeli model and campaigner Linor Abargil travelled the world meeting fellow rape victims. Miss Abargil was raped in 1998, six weeks before she won the Miss World beauty pageant.

It is the first time Miss Collins has spoken of her ordeal on film, although she wrote about it in her autobiography last year.

She said she was one of the Irish actor’s ‘biggest fans’ at the time of the rape, and married him two years later in 1952 on her 19th birthday. She said she wiped the rape from her mind and agreed to date him because ‘nice girls’ were then expected not to have sex outside marriage.

They divorced in 1956. Miss Collins knew the marriage was over when a ‘Middle Eastern gentleman’ offered Reed £10,000 to sleep with her. She was horrified – he was ready to accept.

Since then, she has been married four times, to actor Anthony Newley, record executive Ron Kass, singer Peter Holm and her current husband, the theatre executive Percy Gibson.

Miss Abargil, 34, said: ‘It was very emotional to hear how Joan felt so guilty about losing her virginity to this older man who had drugged and raped her that she felt she had to marry him.

‘She was so young at the time, and she entered into an abusive marriage. The post-rape circumstances are very different for a rape victim than for any other crime.

‘We automatically try to minimise the impact of the abuse, which is something that is often not understood by police or society. A rape victim may not feel safe or able to report for a very long time.’

Brave Miss World can be seen on the online service Netflix. - Daily Mail

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