Hollywood Wives was published by Simon & Schuster in 1983, and it was the book that transformed Collins from a bestselling novelist into a global brand. The novel follows several women — wives of producers, directors, and stars — through the world of Hollywood power: the parties, the deals, the affairs, the betrayals, and the constant anxiety of maintaining status in a world where youth and beauty are the only currencies that count.
Collins’s Hollywood is a matriarchy disguised as a patriarchy: the men hold the official power (the studios, the money, the decisions), but the women — through sexuality, manipulation, alliances, and sheer survival instinct — exercise real influence. The wives are not victims; they are players in a game whose rules they understand better than their husbands, and their strategies for maintaining power within marriage are as complex and as ruthless as any corporate takeover.
The novel’s commercial success was extraordinary: it spent weeks at the top of bestseller lists in multiple countries, was adapted into a successful television miniseries (1985), and spawned a sequel (Hollywood Husbands, 1986). More importantly, it established Collins’s position as the novelist of Hollywood — the writer who could tell the truth about the entertainment industry because she knew it from inside.
Collecting Hollywood Wives
First edition (Simon & Schuster, New York, 1983): Cloth binding, dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition in dust jacket: $20–$60
- Without jacket: $5–$15
- Signed copies: $40–$100