Grand dame of the bonkbuster Jackie Collins knows a thing or two about what goes on between the sheets – and what’s going down in the no boundaries vice den that is Hollywood! ‘A very famous movie star was notorious for banging everything that moved.’ Jackie tells us from her Beverly Hills office. ‘But his wife had no idea. She read my book and said: “Jackie, I don’t understand – how could these people be doing these things?” I thought, you should know, your husband was the biggest horn dog of all time!’

Here, the minxy temptress gives us the rundown on how to write a racy read, spills the beans on Tinseltown’s greatest lovers and gives her tips on how to get better sex…

How do you sit down to create a spicy page-turner?
I like to create really sexy characters that I would like to meet in real life. The men you want to sleep with, they are always very interesting but slightly flawed. The women are strong and can definitely sort the guy out.

What about the sex?
You don’t plan it. Writing sex happens like it happens in life – organically. I write in long hand, I can’t write any other way because the characters come at me through my pen. The sex that I write screams sexual equality. There are no double standards when it comes to my females. Lucky Santangelo, for instance, married at 16 and then had affairs until she managed to get our of the marriage – but she’s not a slut or a slag. She likes sex and does it on her own terms – ‘Don’t call me, I’ll call you.’ Wouldn’t we all like to be like that?

How do you know what women like?
I have a lot of young readers, 18 year olds who come to me and say: ‘You taught me everything I know about sex – I got my mother’s book and took it under the covers.’ Then I say: ‘How does your boyfriend feel about that?’ And they say: ‘He’s got no complaints.’ I think I’ve given a lot of women some good tips.

We don’t doubt that! Did you read original saucy books like Lady Chatterley’s Lover?
My father had Lady Chatterley’s Lover in a brown paper wrapper. It was the only book in our house and I got hold of it and read the whole thing. If you read it now, it’s incredibly tame, but when you’re 11 or 12 you think, God this is horny. And then with Henry Miller and Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn – they were very graphic. People were writing Fifty Shades of Grey stuff way back but things capture the public imagination and that’s great – EL James has sold a ton of books and has brought more people into the bookstores.

What does it say about the state of women’s love lives?
I think it’s a bit pathetic if your husband can’t get it up without tying you up. The problem with fetishes is that you start a fetish then you’re stuck. If you’ve got to be tied up and spanked, I don’t think that says a lot for women’s sex lives. Isn’t that boring? Don’t you want to be able to have sex wherever and whenever you want it?

So how has erotica changed?
Sex doesn’t change – you either have a great sexual experience with someone or you don’t. But I’ve noticed on television now there’s a lot of graphic goings-on. When I started to write, that was taboo. Now, you put on a TV show and everyone is going at it.

Do you ask women for stories just as much as they ask you for bedroom advice?
I had this one single girlfriend and she would go on a dating frenzy. She’d say: ‘Last night we had sex in the elevator – because you never know when the doors will open and people will be standing there.’ So I used that story in The Power Trip. Her stories were great – she was doing what men have always done. Good for her.

How do you stop it from just becoming porn?
I don’t write porn. I write erotica. If you have no interest in the characters, what do you care what they do in bed? Otherwise, buy Hustler or Playboy and read the letters pages at the back which are full of guys’ stupid fantasies. To write erotic sex you have to be very careful not to write it like a gynecologist.

You base your characters on well-known movie stars – has that ever got you in trouble?
I wrote a book called Lovers & Gamblers and I think Tom Jones thought that was him. I wrote a book called The Stud and everyone thought that was them because they loved the title! I wrote a book called The Hollywood Zoo – I know Peter Sellers thought is was him and that was true! A rock star once told me about a sexual experience in a lake in Chicago with triplets so I wrote abou it, but I wrote about twins. The next time I saw him he said: ‘What the hell, where was the third girl.’ I said: ‘Nobody would believe it!’ Often I have to tone sex down in order for it to be believable.

Are men intimidated by you?
No, they kind of enjoy me. There was another big movie star I sat next to at a dinner party I said: ‘You screw around all the time, I hope you use a condom.’ He looked at me and said no. I said: ‘Are you crazy?’ and he said: ‘It’s worth the risk.’ These are true stories, I couldn’t make them up!

Where’s the weirdest place you’ve seen someone reading your book?
My friends who travel a lot aways send me pictures. The best was this bald guy naked and bronzed on Ipanema beach and was reading Lucky. I thought, you’re about to get lucky!

Jackie’s tips to spice up your sex life!
Men don’t need to be well-endowed. I find sex to be a mental thing – you have to be turned on mentally before you’re turned on physically. Unless you’re having a one-night stand and using somebody, which isn’t really that satisfying in the end.

I’m very much a believer in if you’re married, be faithful. If you’re not married do whatever you want to do – swing from the chandeliers!

Role playing is where it’s at for marriages. She needs two different wigs, he needs two different outfits. Pretending to be someone else is very sexy. I gave instructions to my gay friends and they came down for breakfast the next morning, tails wagging – he was the fireman, and the other was the trapped victim.

Women should be kick-ass heroines, not submissive saps. Sex has to be equal to be really good. A lot of women give in to what a man might want, then they end up in a stale marriage. You have to be a little aggressive in the bedroom. You want to do what pleases each other.

We all have this dream that men out there have integrity – not a lot of them exist but there are some. Go find them!