A film, television, and theater star recounts stories not only about the legendary contemporaries with whom she has worked, but also her four marriages, numerous love affairs, and relationship with her sister, author Jackie Collins Dynasty's femme fatale tells of a life in Hollywood. Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. Having had a rough time as a fiction writer lately, Collins has decided to mine her own life for publishable material. Of course, she did that once, in her first auotbiography, Past Imperfect (1984), which does overlap this "second act." The book gets off to an unsettling start with Collins in the courtroom defending her writing prowess against Random House. Unfortunately, this chapter is so choppily written that readers may sympathize with Random's case. After that, the book flows more smoothly, though it never does more than skim the surface of a life that, one hopes, has had more depth than Collins gives it here. Throughout, even when the author is talking about her daughter's life-threatening accident or one of her own divorces, the tone is chatty, arch, and at times, bitchily funny. Collins is a name-dropper extraordinaire, and the book is at its best when she is dishing the likes of Warren Beatty (boyfriend), Elizabeth Taylor (friendly competitor), and Charleton Heston (costar and toupee wearer). As with so many other aspects of Collins' career, good or bad doesn't seem to matter much when it comes to Joan Collins' writing. As always, she'll be laughing all the way to the bank. Ilene Cooper A gaudy second installment of memoirs. Collins (Past Imperfect, 1984) is a survivor. For almost 50 years, she has cobbled together a career in mass-market culture- -including TV shows, pulp fiction, and scores of mostly forgettable movies--happily sporting the doe eyes, pancake makeup, and slash of red lipstick they taught her to wear at Fox, where she went to work for Darryl Zanuck in the '50s. Among the events she recollects here are: being touted as a ``vestpocket Ava Gardner''; being picketed by an estranged husband with a sign reading, ``Joan, you have our $2.5 million, 13,000 sq. ft. home. . . . I am now homeless. Help!''; and chatting with Jayne Mansfield, who made small talk as a makeup man shaved her pubic hair into a heart shape. She's had four husbands, younger lovers, and was propositioned by Robert Kennedy (she heroically declined). Though Collins philosophizes about this-and-that (``Fidelity seems to be a trait in short supply with most men, male `equipment' being able to rise to stimulating opportunities with alacrity''), there's not much introspection here. Of Peter Holm, her much publicized third husband, she says simply, ``His tyranny, dual personality and definite sociopathic tendencies were making me feel as though I was playing Ingrid Bergman's role in Gaslight.'' But Collins matter-of-factly describes her life's challenges: Her daughter Katy was hit by a car and badly injured, and Collins spent years as her family's breadwinner, making quickie movies in order to pay the bills. She rarely complains, though like Dynasty's Alexis Carrington, she can be bitchy. Describing her former editor Joni Evans, who testified against Collins in her lawsuit against Random House: ``I was surprised by her raddled appearance and how much older she looked since last we'd met.'' In an earlier age, this would have been perfect reading for under the hairdryer. (photos, not seen) (TV satellite tour) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.