Remembering her sister. Several weeks after her younger sister, Jackie Collins, passed away, Dynasty star Joan Collins opened up in a touching essay for the Daily Mail about the beloved author.
"I've never had a better girlfriend than Jackie, with whom I shared so much in common, and could enjoy gossiping away about everything when we were together, going to our favorite restaurants or to the movies, or on long distance phone calls," Joan wrote.
Noting that Jackie, who was privately battling breast cancer prior to her death on Sept. 19, hadn't told her about her seven-year struggle until recently, Joan said, "I used to nag my sister about getting mammograms, as our darling mother Elsa had succumbed to the disease in 1962 when she was in her early 50s. I was religious about doing mammograms regularly. Jackie, however, refused — she didn't even like going to doctors. She was needle-phobic."
Jackie, who was 77 at the time of her death, had kept Joan, 82, in the dark about her diagnosis, not wanting to "upset" her sister.
"In her inimitable way she had more concern for others than for herself to the end, and anyone who knew Jackie well will tell you how courageous and selfless she was," Joan wrote. "I therefore choose to remember her as the strong, independent, loyal, caring, maternal, fun-loving, witty, joyful woman she was."
The Golden Globe winner concluded the essay by expressing her sorrow over her sister's passing, writing, "I don’t think I will ever recover from the sadness of losing my beautiful baby sister… She will live on in the wonderful memories I have of her from our childhood and particularly from the last 15 years. I feel her spirit, I hear her wonderful laugh and I see her all the time in the hundreds of photos of her sprinkled around my home. She wasn’t just a star — to me she was an entire galaxy."
