The world needs more great broads like Jackie Collins

We are losing our great broads – the Liz Taylors, the Joan Riverses, even the Cilla Blacks. Now Jackie Collins has passed on. God knows, we need a few more to replace them.

The world of entertainment was once rich with broads – those smart-mouthed, high-gloss women who eye the world with an amused smile and take no crap from anyone. Collins was a broad until she died: just days ago she was giving television interviews about sex and partying, her face as made up as if she was bound for New York’s Studio 54, her manner giving no clue to what she must have known was her impending death.

She was funny, sexy and glamorous. She was still lunching journalists, one of whom commented that she looked a little older, “but still much younger than her 77 years”. She chose to retain control of that image until after her death, at which point People Magazine ran a prearranged interview in which she explained the facts of an illness she had fought privately for six years. And in doing so, she protected her family from the kind of faux-concerned scrutiny that a public cancer diagnosis would involve. She put on her makeup and completed her book tour, and was as sharp and funny and glamorous as she had ever been. She did it, she said, “my way”.

When Cilla Black died recently I felt the same sense of despond; you didn’t have to love primetime television to admire the fact that here was a woman who didn’t have to sport a plunging decolletage, or feign a girlish admiration of some older male presenter. She didn’t care if she was liked – she just demanded respect. And this is the fundamental characteristic of the broad – she might crack a dirty joke, tell a story against herself, acknowledge the game with a sly wink. But it’s her game.

There are so few broads left – Madonna and Lady Gaga, perhaps (though the message gets a bit confused under all the underwear and raw bacon). So many high-profile women display that undercurrent of self-loathing that seems to come as standard. It’s as if we are too afraid to be seen to have it all – I’m going to make a joke about myself before you do! Yes, I make millions, and I’m at the top of my game, but I’m going to share my weaknesses so that you will still love me!

To be a woman in public these days is to be judged so hard, so instantly, is it any wonder we roll over? I’m guilty – I want to kick myself every time I hear myself downplaying my work as, “oh, you know, women’s fiction”. But in a world of social media the kick is faster, and the comments are harder to hide from, as from a purse-mouthed digital aunt who mutters: “Who do you think you are?”

I know that sharing can be helpful. I know that understanding you are not alone with your anxiety/unfaithful husband/unsightly nostril hair can be a huge psychological prop. But sometimes I wish for more like Jackie: a role model with a steady gaze who barks a laugh at the vicissitudes of life, simply pours a stiff drink and reapplies her lipgloss instead.

It’s why so many women retain a soft spot for Kate Moss. She shares the balls-out “never complain, never explain” attitude that marks out a true broad. Jennifer Lawrence also has the sharp wit, glamour, and sense of a life lived on her own terms. And there are others: Amy Poehler gets it, while Miley Cyrus is showing potential (we’ll draw a youth-related veil over that Robin Thicke episode). They are hardworking, successful, smart. Like all broads, they do not alienate men – they adore them – but it’s other women who really love their company.

One suspects that if faced with an unwanted advance, Jackie Collins would not have gone the Charlotte Proudman route. At 15, confronted by a local flasher, she simply responded: “Cold day today, isn’t it?” She greeted the po-faced failure of guests to consume anything but water at her first LA cocktail party by drinking her way through the entire tray of Martinis.

A broad understands that life is basically ridiculous. And the only human response to it is to put on a pair of heels, do your hair, and meet it with a smart comment. As she put it: “Barbara Cartland said, ‘Oh, Miss Collins, your books are filthy and disgusting and you are responsible for all the perverts in England.’ I paused for a few moments and said, ‘Thank you.’” Godspeed, Jackie. We need more like you.