Phelps to adapt Jackie Collins' Lovers & Gamblers for TV

Sarah Phelps will adapt Jackie Collins’ Lovers & Gamblers (S&S) as a major new television series.

Phelps will executive produce alongside FederationUK’s Polly Williams and Arielle Gottlieb. It will be co-produced with eOne. UTA negotiated the deal representing The Jackie Collins Estate, while Phelps is represented by United. FederationUK will handle international sales.

Lovers & Gamblers was originally released in 1977, and has been published by Simon & Schuster UK since 2012. The novel examines greed and complex ideas around self-determination, success, fame, independence and intimacy. 

Phelps said: “Lovers & Gamblers is a searing, scabrous masterpiece. It tells a story of roadside zoos, cults, beauty pageants, poverty and exploitation, sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll. Jackie Collins was ahead of her time, her unflinching eye trained mercilessly on the filthy machinations of politics and power and how the seeds are sown for our own post-truth chaos. Lovers & Gamblers is about flawed, damaged people who will do anything, absolutely anything, to get to the top, and asks what the hell happens to you once you’ve got there. It’s dark, it’s shocking, it is brutally, savagely funny, but ultimately it’s a story about redemption and love.”

Williams and Gottlieb added: “We both devoured Jackie Collins’ books when we were young women, so when Sarah Phelps told us Lovers & Gamblers was one of her favourite novels, the idea of bringing these two extraordinary female creators together was absolutely thrilling. It finally feels like it’s the right time for people to take Jackie Collins and women’s popular fiction seriously. We can’t wait for Sarah to breathe fresh life into an extraordinary cast of characters and we can’t think of anyone more perfect than Sarah to show the world how smart, perceptive and still relevant Lovers & Gamblers is.” 

Rory Green, Jackie Collins’ daughter, added: “When we first met Sarah Phelps, my sisters and I were completely blown away by the ferocity of her passion for Lovers & Gamblers, one of our mother’s most epic and exciting sagas. Together with Polly Williams and Arielle Gottlieb at FederationUK, these three formidable women share our vision of taking the Jackie Collins experience from the page to the screen, with all the thrill, fabulousness and forward feminist thinking that epitomises our mother’s narrative power.”