Jackie Collins. Photo: Brian Aris

JACKIE Collins created a world that, for her readers, was a both a glimpse into the unattainable but also an inspiration.

The author, who died in 2015 aged 77, sold more than 500 million books – and is now the subject of a feature-length documentary called Lady Boss, charting her remarkable success, and her equally remarkable place in post-60s feminism.

The film is co-produced by Lizzie Gillet, who lives in Parliament Hill Fields and is one of the team behind the Dartmouth Park Film Club. Her producing credits include The Age of Stupid – the groundbreaking piece on climate change, made 10 years ago and starring Pete Postlethwaite. She now works at Passion Pictures, and Lady Boss, which she co-produced with John Battsek, is her first film for the documentary company.

Battsek, whose credits include One Day In September, the Oscar-winning film about the 1972 Munich Olympics atrocity, has long inspired Lizzie and was a factor in her moving to London from her native New Zealand as a 20-year-old to pursue her dream of making movies.

“When I was 20, and growing up in a small town in New Zealand, I saw One Day In September at the cinema,” she recalls.

“From that moment, I thought that is what I want to do with my life. I saw this style of film as a form of telling an important story in an engaging and informative way.”

As the film describes, the content of Collins’ paperback page-turners created a new form of fiction, celebrating strong female leads, plenty of sex and fantastically glamorous locations. It had well-formed characters that were sketches of people Jackie knew. Her first book, The World Is Full Of Married Men, came out in 1968 and was a sensation. She had written the story partly as a way to past idle hours, but when husband Oscar Lerman read it, he thought it was brilliant.

Boosting her self-confidence, he insisted she show it to publishers. Described by Barbara Cartland as “nasty, filthy and disgusting”, Collins’ extraordinary, five-decade career was under way.

We follow Jackie’s life from being a child in wartime London and living in the shadow of her beautiful older sister Joan, following her to Hollywood, and then becoming the novelist she would earn fame for.

Lady Boss’s director Laura Fairrie (left) and co-producer Lizzie Gillet

Production began when Battsek was approached by Jackie’s three daughters, Tracy, Tiffany and Rory, who believed their mother had a story that would translate well on to screen.

“I had vaguely heard of Jackie, but really didn’t know anything about her,” admits Lizzie.

An extraordinary story emerged.

“Jackie was a strong and successful British woman – and I hadn’t seen many films about someone like this. You have to reframe what Jackie Collins means in your mind, and recognise this determined, brilliant woman, this fantastic fairytale, with a really tragic end. I fell in love with it.”

Director Laura Fairrie had some idea of what they were looking for.

“Laurie had read some of her books. She saw the film a little like I, Tonya meets Joy, with a host of batshit crazy characters and a brilliant lead.”

Lady Boss enjoys access to her sister Joan, who in a telling opening scene informs the crew she believes Jackie’s soul may have entered a fruit fly who appears from time to time. Other, less eccentric, family members join a revolving cast of people all claiming they were her best friend. But what makes the documentary so insightful is Jackie’s voice, provided by access to her personal archive.

The daughters told Lizzie and Laura their mother had saved papers, writings and film at her home in California – “but we didn’t realise quite how extensive until we got there,” says Lizzie.

“She had kept everything.”

These included her teenage diaries, describing in depth Jackie’s experiences growing up.

“The diaries were in her handwriting and cast a special light,” says Lizzie.

“And there were over 4,500 pieces for us to look at. It was a big job.”

What emerged is a multi-faceted story ranging from parent/sibling relationships, fame, sexist societal concepts of beauty and success, questions over what feminism means, and postwar Hollywood glamour slipping into a redefined idea of style in the 1980s.

“We felt there was more to it than the story she told the world,” says Lizzie.

“Jackie was explicitly saying women could take control, they could have fun, they could have sex how they wanted to have sex. It was not just a formula that was popular for readers, but a statement of new feminism. She was fabulous and strong but she was also at times unhappy and went through tough times. She had two very toxic relationships. She was laughed at and mocked, and many looked down at her. It shows the resilience she had.”

As the film reveals, Jackie developed a classic 1980s image – big hair with shoulder pads. It channelled the characters in her books – allowing her to protect a more private, family-oriented life.

“Our film has a radical and political foundation,” she says. “I want to make mainstream films because politics is most successful when it reaches in to somebody’s sitting room.

“We could see it was a commercial proposition, and we could also have made a straightforward TV puff piece. But instead, it holds within a statement on feminism. Her message was ‘you can have the life you want to have, and don’t let anyone else tell you what ‘type’ of feminist you are or subscribe to’.”

• Lady Boss: The Jackie Collins Story, directed by Laura Fairrie, is released on July 1.