FROM THE ARCHIVE
21 Things We Love About Dynasty
To celebrate the release of Dynasty Seasons 1 & 2 on DVD on March 6, here's 21 super shoulder-padded facts about the fabulously camp Colby Carringtons!
1. Alexis Morrell Carrington Colby Dexter Rowan
Krystle Carrington once said about Alexis: "You either love her or hate her. And she seems to enjoy it either way." The greatest bitch of '80s TV, Alexis was a drag queen personification to rival Ab Fab's Patsy. Her clothes and her talons were overblown and overgrown, and she delivered the show's bitchiest one-liners time and time again. Joan Collins has never lived her down.
2. Samantha Josephine Reece Carrington Fallmont
When she arrived in Denver, Sammy Jo, Krystle's niece, fell in love with her gay second cousin, Steven, mainly because of the Carrington money, but also because she liked him a bit. When their marriage ended in divorce, she turned into a selfish, rude girl who hated the Carrington's guts and did everything in her power to bring them down. Heather Locklear, we're not worthy. We're not worthy.
3. Stephen Daniel Carrington
Stephen's own father tried to kill him because he couldn't stand the fact that his favourite son was the first gay character on a primetime soap. As a result Stephen became heterosexual and married his second-cousin, Sammy Jo. Then he went off to work on an oilrig, got trapped in a fire, had extensive plastic surgery and returned to Denver as another actor. His second marriage, to suicidal Claudia Blaisdel, was another abject failure, and then he fell in love with his ex-wife's second husband, Bart Fallmont. They lived happily ever after.
4. Krystle Grant Jennings Carrington
Krystle was one of those secretaries lucky enough to marry their millionaire bosses, but she was always an uncomfortable shop-girl at heart. She suffered through kidnappings (while her evil twin bedded her husband), sickness, miscarriages, endless family strife and countless catfights with Alexis. In 1988, she got a brain tumour, resulting from a fall three years earlier (caused by Alexis). She was in a coma for a long time, but luckily woke up in 1991 for Dynasty: The Reunion. She was truly a beautiful human being.
5. Daniel Reece
In what was to be his last screen role, Rock Hudson played Daniel Reece, Sammy Jo's enigmatic, bachelor father. By the time he appeared on the show, it was a whispered rumour that Rock had AIDS, which made his screen kiss with Krystle the most controversial moment of Dynasty's run.
6. The Shoulder Pads
Dynasty was modelled on the Hollywood studio films of the '40s, with Joan Collins at its apex like a reinvented Joan Crawford, complete with shoulder pads and a smoking gun. As the show took off, square shoulders the size of an American football player's became a de rigueur fashion statement for any female worth her salt across the globe.
7. The Hair
Let's face it; huge shoulders don't look good with a tiny, pinhead stuck on top of them. For this reason, the Dynasty 'look' was topped off with hair the size of the Grand Canyon. Krystle's feather-flick was a dry reminder of Farrah in the '70s, while Alexis piled the curls on like nobody's business. Of all the hair in Dynasty through the years, however, the best belonged to Blake's and Alexis' daughter, Amanda. We're talking B-I-G. As in large. As in mine is better than yours.
8. The Cat Fights
Central to Dynasty's appeal was the fierce hatred between Krystle and Alexis, who battled each other with wild abandon through lily ponds, hotel receptions and puddles of muck. The rule of thumb was one catfight per season, and fur was to fly every time. The best one happened in Alexis' studio in Season Two, complete with a pillow feather storm.
9. The Colbys
The late gun-lover Charlton Heston headed up the cast of Dynasty II: The Colbys, a spin-off that began when Fallon and Jeff left Denver to live in LA with Jeff's family. The best things about The Colbys were Miles, the selfish playboy son of Jason Colby, played with a deliciously curling lip by dishy Maxwell Caufield (Michelle Pfieffer's love-interest in Grease 2), and screen legend, Barbra Stanwyck, who joined the show for one season to play rich bitch, Aunt Constance.
10. Stephanie Beecham
Of course, the other reason to watch The Colbys was Stephanie Beecham, who played Alexis' hated cousin, Sable. She was so popular that when The Colbys died a death after only two seasons, Sable transferred over to Dynasty, to continue her rivalry with Alexis at closer quarters. Sable was a bitch, but she had a heart of gold. She used her evil for good, if that's not a contradiction in terms.
11. Prince Michael of Moldavia
Once upon a time there was a long-haired hottie called Michael Praed, who became a British pin-up playing Robin of Sherwood. Sick of prancing about forests in tights, he decided to leave that show and fall in love with Dynasty's Amanda in the guise of Prince Michael, heir to the throne of an uncharted European country called Moldavia. It was a doomed relationship, and an even more doomed career move, but his hair stayed good.
12. The Moldavian Massacre
Prince Michael may have brought good man-hair to the Dynasty set, but he also brought levels of death and destruction not seen since a plane crashed into Emmerdale, sort off. In the 1985 end-of-season cliffhanger, nasty Moldavian terrorists gunned down the cast at Amanda and Prince Michael's wedding. 15 people were killed, but none of them were contracted players. As one by one the Carringtons awoke, crawled away and escaped the gunmen to arrive back in Denver, audiences worldwide began to switch off.
13. The Seasonal Cliffhangers
The writers of Dynasty perfected the seasonal cliffhanger, designed to keep audiences waiting with baited breath the whole summer long for the show to resume in Autumn. Our favourites include Alexis' veiled court entrance while Blake is being tried for his first murder (she takes the stand, removes her gloves finger-by-finger, cue: credits), Alexis and Krystle locked in a burning cabin (smoke billowing under the door as they desperately fight try to get out); and Blake's attempted strangling of Alexis (fade out with his hands 'round her neck).
14. Pamela Sue Martin
Before Pamela Sue Martin became Blake Carrington's princess daughter, Fallon, she was already famous (and a bit of a gay icon) for playing Nancy Drew on TV. She opted out of Dynasty in 1984 because of difficulties with how her character was being developed and was replaced by Emma Samms.
16. The Alien Abduction
Originally used as a cliffhanger to end the second season of The Colbys, Fallon's abduction by aliens flipped back into Dynasty after The Colbys was suddenly cancelled. While taking a stroll in the desert, Fallon was picked up by a passing UFO. Although her experience was traumatic, it left her with no visible disorders, apart from the fact that it destroyed her marriage to Jeff. The dirty bastard had trouble believing her.
5. Adam Carrington
To say Blake and Alexis' oldest son, Adam, was 'disturbed' would be an understatement the size of Colorado. He inherited his mother's 'you hurt me and I'll kill you' attitude to life, but couldn't quite manage it with such charm. His biggest dream was to gain Blake's trust and one day take over Denver-Carrington, and then run it and pass it on to a son of his own. The fact that he raped his gay brother's first wife, Claudia Blaisdel Carrington, didn't help his case.
17. Caress
Producers denied that the role of Cassandra 'Caress' Morrell (Alexis' scheming sister, who wrote a tell-all bestselling novel about Alexis) was based on Joan Collins' real-life sister, novelist Jackie Collins. Played by Kate O'Mara, Caress spent most of her time padding around the set like a tiger waiting for the kill.
18. Dominque Deveraux Lloyd
Jazz chanteuse, Diahann Carroll made history when she joined the cast of Dynasty to play Dominique, Blake's illegitimate cousin. She was the first African American woman to play a major role in a primetime American soap opera. If Alexis was a drag trash Annie Balls, Dominique was Davina Devine.
19. Behind the Scenes
Dynasty was America's most popular soap opera for much of the '80s, but behind the scenes was the action was so juicy, there's a movie currently being made about it. The show's creators, Esther and Richard Shapiro, initially set out on a noble mission to explore the effect of wealth on the American family and other important social issues (yeah, right), yet behind-the-scenes the show's stars began demanding bigger and bigger salaries, fighting with each other over who got what, making Dynasty one the most expensive and ridiculously overblown TV shows of all time.
20. Dex Dexter
Dex Dexter may have loved Alexis like no other man could do, but we
loved him because he unwittingly saved her life, allowing her to return
for Dynasty: The Reunion. When in the final episode of Dynasty both he and Alexis accidentally plunged to their certain deaths from a
hotel balcony, it seems he cushioned her fall, thereby giving his life
so the bitch queen could survive. God bless him.
21. The Reunion
In 1991 most of Dynasty's major cast came back to make a two-part mini-series with a plot more convoluted than any that went before it. Acquitted of murder, Blake had just been released from prison and was trying to reclaim his empire. His suspicions that a foreign consortium were behind his downfall were all proven true when a brainwashed Krystle, who had miraculously come out of a two-year coma, tried to viciously kill him. And so on and so forth.
Dynasty Seasons 1 & 2 are released on DVD on March 6