Dame Joan Collins was given diet pills as a young actress trying to make it in Hollywood.
The legendary 83-year-old English actress – who has her own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame – has revealed she was put on a course of drugs by big wig film executives and ordered to shed the pounds if she wanted to make it in Tinseltown back in the 1950s.
Speaking about the drastic measures actresses went through to make it back then, she spilled on ‘This Morning’: "When I first went there I was about nine stone (126lbs) and the studio said, ‘You’re too fat, you have to lose weight.’ But it was hard to do, I was 20, and I loved my food, so they gave me these little green pills. I took them every morning. Goodness, I didn’t want to eat – I didn’t sleep much either! A friend came over and said, ‘What are you taking, you never eat when we go out. He said, ‘You can’t take these, they’re Dexedrine, that’s what hooked Judi Garland!’ "
Over 60 years later, Joan insists nothing has really changed and actresses are under just as much pressure now to stay slim to land roles as they were back then.
Speaking to hosts Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield, she said: "In my apartment in LA there is a gym and I go there sometimes with a young actress, she’s about 25. She’s so thin, she must weigh 98lbs. I asked, ‘Why are you so thin? She says, ‘I have to be! Not only to fit into the dresses they put you in on the red carpet but also because that’s what the producers want.’ "
Joan appeared on the daytime chat show to talk about her new movie ‘The Time Of Their Lives’ with her 76-year-old co-star Pauline Collins, who also admitted she had taken Dexadrine and was surprised by the side-effects.
The ‘Shirley Temple’ actress said: "They were great. I have taken them to slim. And I wrote a play in a night on Dextradine. Quite good!"
Dame Joan Collins was told to take diet pills to make it in Hollywood
