THE actress Joan Collins said yesterday that she was "completely shattered" after facing what she described as "Nazi like" questioning by a lawyer on the third day of her case against publisher Random House.
Ms Collins (62) said she was "pretty stressed out" and "very, yery upset" after being cross examined by a lawyer for the publisher, which is seeking the return of an $800,000 advance it paid her for manuscripts it claims were unfinished and unpublishable.
She was not expecting to be attacked and asked if she had no shame, "as though you had just murdered three children", she said.
Ms Collins said she wished she had handled the questioning in New York's Supreme Court like Alexis Carrington Colby Dexter - the character she played in Dynasty. "I wish I was more like her so that when I am told have you no shame? I could have handled it a bit better than I did.
"I was completely shattered, and got very, very upset," she added.
The actress claims she completed two manuscripts for Random House and is counter suing the publisher for the £2.3 million she says it still owes her.
She was speaking after a courtroom confrontation with lawyer Mr Robert Callagy, who had accused her of admitting in an unrelated 1992 lawsuit that she did not finish two novels.
In court documents in the earlier case, Ms Collins said she had not finished the first novel, A Ruling Passion, or a second one because she was distraught over unauthorised photos published in a supermarket tabloid.
Two months after that case, she submitted a manuscript to Random, House which the publisher claims, was unusable but which she contends was perfectly good.
Mr Callagy had asked her during yesterday's hearing: "You tell the Globe one thing when you're suing them, and you say another thing here when you're suing Random House?"
She replied: "No, no."
"Don't you have any shame?" Mr Callagy asked before he was cut off by objections from the actress's lawyers.
Ms Collins refused to speculate on whether she would win her case. "I feel optimistic that justice is on, my side, but I am also superstitious, so I am not going to say that."