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Joan Henrietta Collins (born May 23, 1933) is a
United Kingdom|British Actor|actress who was born
in London, England. 

Collins was trained at the Royal Academy of
Dramatic Art (RADA) with others actors such as
Roger Moore and Michael Caine. In the early 1950s,
she did double duty by posing for pin-up photos
and acting in B-movies in Britain. After mild
success, she was signed by 20th Century Fox as
their answer to Elizabeth Taylor. However, after
her youthful and highly splashy career as a sultry
starlet, Collins became known more for her
personal affairs with leading men such as Warren
Beatty than her on-screen achievements. After
losing such high-profile roles as Cleopatra
(movie)|Cleopatra (Collins was cast when Elizabeth
Taylor fell ill, then dumped upon Taylor's
recovery), Collins turned to other ventures.
Notable guest appearances on American TV during
the 1960s included Star Trek: The original
series|Star Trek and Batman (TV series)|Batman. In
the mid-to-late 1970s, while in a career slump
that included guest-starring on several
forgettable television series, Collins starred in
the film versions of her romantic novelist sister
Jackie Collins' novels The Bitch and The Stud. The
films, like the books which inspired them, were
trashy, full of nudity and raunchy sex scenes.
Both films were smash hits in England, becoming
the most profitable films since the James Bond
series.  Aside from this brief camp notoriety,
Collins was again a back number until she was
successfully relaunched as a powerful sex symbol
and icon of independence in her late 40s with her
role as Alexis Carrington on the prime time
television|TV soap opera Dynasty (TV
series)|Dynasty (1981 - 1989). Her performance
helped the show beat main rival Dallas (TV
series)|Dallas to become the No. 1 U.S. TV show in
the early 1980s, and she became the highest-paid
actress on television at the time. She was
nominated for an Emmy award and won a Golden Globe
award. Apart from many guest-starring roles in
television programs, she appeared regularly on the
short-lived primetime drama Pacific Pallisades in
1997 and the famous soap opera Guiding Light in
2002.

Collins made her Broadway theatre|Broadway debut
in 1992 in an adaptation of Noel Coward's Private
Lives, and in 2004 she toured the United Kingdom
with a revival of the play Full Circle.

Collins has had a number of widely-covered court
cases, including a 1985 divorce trial with her
fourth husband, Swedish singer Peter Holm. At one
point her lawyers called his mistress to the
stand; she proceeded to accidentally burst out of
her tight-fitting blouse. That case ended with the
courts siding with Collins and her ironclad
prenuptial agreement. On February 29, 1996,
Collins won a U.S. $2 million suit with Random
House for breach of contract. Humiliated by the
claims that she was over the hill and not a
talented writer, Collins felt she was on the
losing end of the case until, on the advice of her
loved ones, she became highly confrontational and
emotional on the witness stand, newspapers around
the globe hailed the court case as "her finest
performance." 

Her two best-selling memoirs are Past Imperfect
(1978) and Second Act (1996). She has also written
several best-selling novels: Prime Time, Love &
Desire & Hate, Infamous, Star Quality and
Misfortune's Daughters. In addition, she has
written several best-selling lifestyle books, The
Joan Collins Beauty Book, My Secrets, My Friends
Secrets and Joan's Way. 

In 1996, she was awarded an Order of the British
Empire|OBE by the British government and Queen
Elizabeth II for her lifetime contribution to the
arts and ongoing charity work.

In October of 2003 Collins, British Airways most
frequent flyer of first class, was honoured with
an invitation to fly on the last Concorde flight
from New York to London. She declared the end of
the Concorde as "the end of an era for
international travel." Vanity Fair referred to
Collins as the most ardent supporter and defender
of the Concorde, a title she relished. 

After decades of flirting with British politics on
May 24, 2004, Collins joined the UK Independence
Party.
http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=2971850 In
October 2004, Collins stated she was not a
supporter, but rather a patron of the party. In
early 2005, Collins comented that she had rejoined
the Conservative Party, stating, "The Labour Party
doesn't care about the British people."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/396415
1.stm In addition, after writing several articles
for the UK newspaper The Daily Mail in 2005, it
has been rumoured that Collins was  approached by
several members of the Conservative Party in hopes
of luring her to run for Parliament. 

Collins has been married five times, to actor
Maxwell Reed, award winning composer and actor
Anthony Newley, record executive Ron Kass, Swedish
pop singer Peter Holm, and theatrical manager
Percy Gibson. She has a son, Sacha, an artist, and
two daughters; Tara Newley, a British television
broadcaster, by Anthony Newley, and Katie, a
photographer, by Ron Kass.

A woman in perpetual motion, Joan Collins lives
happily between her luxury homes in London, New
York, and the south of France.



==Filmography==
*Lady Godiva Rides Again (1951)
*The Woman's Angle (1952)
*Judgment Deferred (1952)
*The Slasher (1952)
*I Believe in You (1952)
*The Square Ring (1953)
*Turn the Key Softly (1953)
*Decameron Nights (1953)
*The Adventures of Sadie (1954)
*The Good Die Young (1954)
*Land of the Pharaohs (1955)
*The Virgin Queen (1955)
*The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing (1955)
*The Opposite Sex (1956)
*The Wayward Bus (1957)
*Island in the Sun (1957)
*Stopover Tokyo (1957)
*Sea Wife (1957)
*The Bravados (1958)
*Rally 'Round the Flag, Boys! (1958)
*Seven Thieves (1960)
*Esther and the King (1960)
*The Road to Hong Kong (1962)
*Hard Time for Princes (1965)
*Warning Shot (1967)
*Wedding of the Doll (1968) (documentary)
*Besieged (1969)
*Can Hieronymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe
and Find True Happiness? (1969)
*It It's Tuesday, It Must Be Belgium (1969)
(Cameo)
*Subterfuge (1969)
*The Executioner (1970)
*Up in the Cellar (1970)
*Inn of the Frightened People (1971)
*Quest for Love (1971)
*Tales from the Crypt (1972)
*Fear in the Night (1972)
*Dark Places (1973)
*Tales That Witness Madness (1973)
*Football Crazy (1974)
*The Devil Within Her (1975)
*Alfie Darling (1975)
*The Cry of the Wolf (1975)
*The Promise (1976)
*The Bawdy Adventures of Tom Jones (1976)
*Magnum Cop (1977)
*Empire of the Ants (1977)
*The Stud (1978)
*The Big Sleep (1978)
*Zero to Sixty (1978)
*A Game for Vultures (1979)
*The Bitch (1979)
*Sunburn (1979)
*Nutcracker (1982)
*Homework (1982)
*Decadence (1994)
*In the Bleak Midwinter (1995)
*The Clandestine Marriage (1999)
*The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas (2000)
*Ozzie (2001)
*Ellis in Glamourland (2004)

==TV Work==
*The Man Who Came to Dinner (1972)
*Drive Hard, Drive Fast (1973)
*Arthur Hailey's the Moneychangers (1976)
(miniseries)
*Dynasty (TV series)|Dynasty (1981-1989)
*Paper Dolls (1982)
*The Wild Women of Chastity Gulch (1982)
*Making of a Male Model (1983)
*Her Life as a Man (1984)
*The Cartier Affair (1984)
*Sins (1986) (miniseries)
*Monte Carlo (1986) (also executive producer)
*Red Peppers (1991)
*Dynasty: The Reunion (1991)
*Annie: A Royal Adventure! (1995)
*Hart to Hart: Two Harts in Three-Quarters Time
(1995)
*Pacific Palisades (1997) (canceled after 13
episodes)
*Sweet Deception (1998)
*Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
(1999)
*These Old Broads (2001)
*Guiding Light (cast member in 2002)


==External links==
* http://www.Joancollins.net Official Website
* imdb name|id=0001058|name=Joan Collins
* http://groups.yahoo.com/group/joancollinslinks/
Joan Collins links