Dame Joan Collins has opened up on what it was really like behind the scenes of iconic US soap opera Dynasty, which catapulted her to global fame back in the Eighties

Dame Joan Collins as iconic villain Alexis Colby in Dynasty(Image: Getty Images)

Dame Joan Collins has claimed she was ‘starved’ on set while filming the iconic 1980s TV series Dynasty.

The screen legend, who played scheming Alexis Colby in the hit US soap opera, revealed what really happened behind the scenes of the show during an appearance on ITV’s Loose Women on Monday. While crew members would eat ‘all these buns and goodies’, the now 91-year-old recounted being offered carrot sticks, so the cast members wouldn’t put on any weight.

She said: “We weren’t allowed to eat anything in between meals. They had all these buns and goodies that all the crew would eat – they put on two stone. But they would say to us, ‘No, no, no, carrot stick!’ If you looked at us, we were like stick insects.”

It comes after Joan finally revealed who she had based her legendary character Alexis on during a candid chat with documentary maker Louis Theroux at the end of last year.

Joan claims cast members were not allowed to eat much on set (Image: Getty Images)

She says the cast ‘looked like stick insects’ while the crew gorged on goodies(Image: Getty Images)

The English actress, who played the iconic villain in the American soap opera for eight years until 1989, opened up about her most famous role. She revealed that one of the show’s biggest fans at the time was none other than former president Donald Trump.

And it was knowing this that gave Joan the inspiration for Alexis’ ‘ruthless’ character. She shared that when preparing for the role, she based it on a “mixture of Donald Trump, who was not President then, he was a businessman, and a friend of mine, Cappy Badrutt, who was a very, very glamorous woman about town, very clever. So I wanted to have a mixture of them.” “So you did sort of base it on him?,” Louis asked, to which Joan said, “Well, yes. Of course.” When asked by the journalist what specific quality of Trump influenced the character of Alexis, Joan replied: “Ruthlessness.”

However, she refused to engage in a conversation about the Trump’s beliefs and policies, insisting: “I am trying not to get involved politically. I am an actress, so I don’t think we should spout our political opinions.” As well as the shoulder pads and big hair synonymous with the Eighties, Dynasty – which was billed as a rival to popular TV show Dallas – also brought viewers some of the most outrageous storylines that have ever been on TV.

From characters being abducted by aliens to ‘fembot’ programming and a secret cave of Nazi secrets, one thing is for sure, Dynasty was never boring. And who can forget the iconic cat fights. A remake of the show aired on Netflix from 2017 to 2022, but as yet there is no word on series six of the newer episodes…