Joan Collins is an English actress, author, and columnist. Appearing in a variety of different feature films, Collins is perhaps widely known for her portrayal of Alexis in the 1980’s drama “Dynasty”. She has guest starred on a number of American and British television series, as well as appearing on Broadway.
Collins was born in Paddington, London, England in 1933. Her mother was a dance instructor and a nightclub hostess, while her father was a talent agent who would go on to have such clients as Shirley Bassey, Tom Jones, and the Beatles. Her sister is novelist Jackie Collins and the two have a younger brother. Collins has stated that her childhood was a happy one, however her father was a strict disciplinarian, which sometimes caused her and her siblings to rebel. At the age of seventeen, she was signed to the very profitable British studio of the J Arthur Rank Film Company, a company that has launched the careers of Dirk Bogarde and Christopher Lee.
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Collins would make her first film in 1952 and in two years was signed to 20th Century Fox as the studio’s answer to Elizabeth Taylor, who was the new rising star at MGM. She had various parts, including some starring roles such as “Our Girl Friday” , “The Good Die Young” , and “The Opposite Sex” throughout the 1950s and 1960s. She would also appear in many American television series, like "Batman" , "Mission: Impossible" , and "Star Trek" . Through the early 1970s, Collins would star in two made for television movies based on her sister’s novels that proved to be big hits in her native England.
Though she had been making a name for herself and had starred with many of Hollywood’s biggest stars, Collins would find her biggest success when she was cast as Alexis Carrington on the prime time soap opera, “Dynasty” . The show had been struggling in the ratings against powerhouse soap, “Dallas” and with Collins’ addition, “Dynasty” would quickly become the number prime time show in the US in 1985. Collins would be nominated six times for a Golden Globe Award and would walk away with one in 1983. The catfights that Alexis would start with rival Krystle (Linda Evans’) were always eagerly awaited by audiences and are considered classic in regards to famous television moments.
After her run on “Dynasty” , Collins took some time off to spend with her family. In the late 80’s and early 90’s, she began to appear on stage in England and on Broadway and throughout early 2000’s, Collins was back on television doing guest appearances and limited character runs on such shows as “Guiding Light” , “Footballer’s Wives” , and “Hotel Babylon” . In her free time, the actress supports a number of charities in both America and England, including the International Foundation for Children with Learning Disabilities, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, and the Association of Breast Cancer Studies in Great Britain. She also has her own wing within the Children’s Hospital of Michigan.
In addition to working both stage, full, and small screens, Collins is also a bestselling novelist, selling over 50 million copies of all of her novels to date and having them translated into 30 different languages. She even holds the Guinness Book of World records title for the world’s largest unreturned payment for an unpublished manuscript, due to her case against Random House for not publishing the novels she had sent in. She became a heroine to many authors who had been treated unfairly by their publishers.
In 1997, Queen Elizabeth II granted Collins the title of Officer of the Order of the British Empire.
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