Lady Boss was published by Simon & Schuster in 1990, the third novel in the Lucky Santangelo series and the one that brings Lucky into Collins’s other great territory: Hollywood. Lucky decides to buy Doolittle Panther Studios — a struggling movie studio — and run it herself, bringing her Las Vegas skills (deal-making, intimidation, charm, and ruthlessness) to bear on an industry that is even more sexist and more corrupt than the casino business.
The novel operates as both entertainment (Collins’s plotting is as propulsive as ever) and social commentary (the obstacles Lucky faces as a female studio head are drawn from the real experiences of women in Hollywood). Male executives assume she will fail; male stars refuse to take direction from a woman; male journalists treat her appointment as a joke. Lucky’s response is characteristically direct: she succeeds by being better, tougher, and more determined than anyone who opposes her.
Collins uses the studio setting to explore the entertainment industry with insider knowledge: the development process, the star system, the politics of production, and the sexual harassment that pervaded Hollywood long before it became a public scandal.
Collecting Lady Boss
First edition (Simon & Schuster, New York, 1990): Cloth binding, dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition in dust jacket: $10–$25
- Without jacket: $3–$8