Meet And Greet With Jackie Collins: Part One

Yesterday, I headed over to Bar Seine at NYC’s swanky Hotel Plaza Athenee for a blogger meet and greet with author Jackie Collins.

A True Star: Jackie Collins and me with her latest page turner

Celebrating her new novel, “Poor Little Bitch Girl” -- in bookstores today -- the intimate gathering of about 15 people offered the opportunity to dish with the bestselling author about her work past and present and, of course, her experiences in Hollywood.

I’m happy to report that Jackie is as sassy, charming and fabulous as you would expect from reading her books.

A Hollywood insider since her adolescent days, Jackie says the inspiration for “Poor Little Bitch Girl” came from the pampered and privileged celebrity offspring she has encountered.

“The new accessory in Hollywood is a baby,” she said. “What happens when the baby becomes a grown child, and you don’t want to deal with the kid that becomes an adult?”

Still smitten with the entertainment world, Jackie shared some favorite stories -- from interviewing neighbor Al Pacino to receiving a handwritten note from Frank Sinatra after Kitty Kelly published an unauthorized biography about him.

“Kitty Kelly is fiction, yours is the truth,” he wrote of Jackie’s truthful take on life in the fast lane.

Though she’s a regular at A-list parties -- Clive Davis’ legendary annual pre-Grammy soiree among them -- Jackie admitted celebrity gossip sites are one of her guilty pleasures. A self-professed pop culture junkie, she raved about Paris Hilton’s album, “The Hurt Locker” and Neil Patrick Harris.

“I love Hollywood,” she said. “I’ve been there since I was a teenager and I still find it a fascinating place.”

Up next…Jackie shares her best dating advice for women and talks about whether sex really sells.

Best Friends Forever

One of my favorite sayings is friends are the family we choose for ourselves. That’s never been more true for me than with my best friend of 20+ years, Lisa.

Lisa and I first connected as pen pals back in 1987, bonding over our shared affection for the witty NBC soap opera “Santa Barbara.”

We clicked even more when we met in person several months later. And so began a friendship that has defied geographical odds (Lisa lives in Kansas City) to become the sisterhood closest to my heart.

Lisa and I during a girls getaway to L.A., Summer 1997

Lisa and I speak 3-4 times a week, and email and text each other daily. Over the years, we’ve shared everything -- celebrity gossip, love life highs and lows, job-related trials and triumphs and the seminal loss in each of our lives, that of our respective parents.

Though I wish with all of my heart we didn’t have this in common, there’s no denying that having each lost both of our parents has deepened the bond between us -- because we’re the only ones we know who’ve lived through this double tragedy as young, single women.

Though no two experiences of grief are the same, ours have both been filtered through the prism of having had parents we genuinely adored and respected. I cherish that I was able to know Lisa’s Mom and Dad and I know she feels the same way about mine.

Lisa is everything a best friend should be and more -- a trusted advisor, sympathetic ear and the person I think of first whenever something really great (or really terrible) happens.

I’m looking forward to many, many more decades of friendship with Lisa. And many more conversations about how much we still love watching our old VHS tapes of “Santa Barbara.”