Dame Joan Henrietta Collins was born on 23 May 1933 and is an English actress, author and columnist.
70 Facts About Joan Collins
2.
Joan Collins is one of the last surviving stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood cinema.
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Joan Collins has been recognised for her philanthropy, particularly her advocacy towards causes relating to children, which has earned her many honours.
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Joan Collins was born in Paddington, London and trained as an actress in her teens at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.
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Joan Collins signed to The Rank Organisation at the age of 17 and had small roles in the British films Lady Godiva Rides Again and The Woman's Angle before taking on a supporting role in Judgment Deferred.
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Joan Collins went under contract to 20th Century Fox in 1955, and in that same year she starred as Evelyn Nesbit in The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing, Elizabeth Raleigh in The Virgin Queen and Princess Nellifer in Land of the Pharaohs, the latter garnering a cult following.
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Joan Collins appeared only in a few film roles in the 1960s, notably starring in The Road to Hong Kong, and Warning Shot.
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Joan Collins appeared on Star Trek episode the City on the Edge of Forever as Edith Keeler, and Subterfuge.
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Joan Collins began to take on local roles again back in Britain in the 1970s, appearing in the films Revenge, Quest for Love, Tales from the Crypt Fear in the Night and Dark Places, as well as Tales That Witness Madness, Empire of the Ants, which earned her a Saturn Award nomination, The Stud, Zero to Sixty, Game for Vultures and The Bitch.
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Joan Collins took fewer film roles, most notably appearing in The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas and the TV movie These Old Broads alongside Elizabeth Taylor, Debbie Reynolds and Shirley MacLaine.
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Joan Collins made her comeback to mainstream television in the 2010s, taking on recurring roles in the series Happily Divorced, The Royals, Benidorm and American Horror Story: Apocalypse.
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Joan Collins's first starring film role since the 1980s was The Time of Their Lives, and she has appeared in various independent films, which includes the critically-acclaimed Gerry.
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Joan Collins had two younger siblings, Jackie, a novelist, and Bill, a property agent.
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Joan Collins was educated at the Francis Holland School, an independent day school for girls in London.
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Joan Collins made her stage debut in the Henrik Ibsen play A Doll's House at the age of nine, and at the age of 16 trained as an actress at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London.
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At the age of 17, Joan Collins was signed to the Rank Organisation, a British film studio.
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Joan Collins followed up with The Woman's Angle a minor role as a Greek maid.
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Joan Collins was top-billed in the desert island comedy Our Girl Friday, co starring Kenneth More.
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Joan Collins was directed again by Lewis Gilbert in The Good Die Young with Laurence Harvey and Gloria Grahame.
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In 1954, Joan Collins was chosen by American director Howard Hawks to star as the scheming Princess Nellifer in her first international production, Land of the Pharaohs.
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Joan Collins made her Hollywood film debut in the lavish historical drama The Virgin Queen.
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The part had originally been intended for Marilyn Monroe, however problems between Monroe and Fox led to Joan Collins gaining the role.
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Joan Collins then starred as a young nun in Sea Wife, top-billed over co-star Richard Burton, followed by the all-star Island in the Sun, which was a major box-office success.
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Joan Collins then starred opposite Robert Wagner in the espionage thriller Stopover Tokyo, and was Gregory Peck's leading lady in the Western drama The Bravados.
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In 1960, Joan Collins became increasingly disillusioned with 20th Century Fox when, having been the original choice to play the title role in Cleopatra, the part went instead to Elizabeth Taylor.
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Joan Collins withdrew from the studio's production of Sons and Lovers, and requested a release from her contract, however she agreed to star in one last film for Fox, top-billed again in the biblical epic Esther and the King.
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Joan Collins starred in the TV movies The Man Who Came to Dinner with Orson Welles and Lee Remick, and Drive Hard, Drive Fast opposite Brian Kelly.
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Joan Collins rounded off the decade playing Cleopatra in an episode of Aaron Spelling's Fantasy Island.
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In 1970, Joan Collins returned to Britain and starred in several films, mostly thrillers and horror films: Revenge, as the vengeance-seeking mother of a murdered child; Quest for Love, a romantic science-fiction piece; Tales from the Crypt, a highly successful horror anthology; Fear in the Night, a psychological horror from Jimmy Sangster; Dark Places, a thriller with Christopher Lee; and Tales That Witness Madness, another horror anthology.
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Joan Collins went to Italy for the football-themed comedy L'arbitro, to Spain for The Great Adventure opposite Jack Palance and returned to England for yet another horror, playing the mother of a murderous infant in I Don't Want to Be Born.
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In 1978, Joan Collins was catapulted back to major stardom in the UK when she starred in the film version of her sister Jackie Joan Collins's racy novel The Stud.
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In 1981 Joan Collins accepted a role in the second season of the then-struggling soap opera Dynasty, as Alexis Colby, the beautiful and vengeful ex-wife of oil tycoon Blake Carrington.
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Joan Collins's performance is generally credited as the chief factor in the fledgling show's subsequent rise in the Nielsen ratings to a hit rivalling Dallas.
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Whilst filming Dynasty, Joan Collins starred in the feature film Nutcracker and the TV movies Paper Dolls, The Wild Women of Chastity Gulch, Making of a Male Model with Jon-Erik Hexum, Her Life as a Man, and The Cartier Affair with David Hasselhoff.
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Joan Collins made guest star appearances in The Love Boat and Faerie Tale Theatre, and co-hosted an ABC-TV special created for her, Blondes vs Brunettes.
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At the age of 50, Joan Collins appeared in a 12-page photo layout for Playboy magazine shot by George Hurrell.
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When Dynasty ended in 1989, Joan Collins began rehearsals for her Broadway stage debut, as Amanda in a successful revival of Noel Coward's Private Lives.
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Joan Collins subsequently toured the US in the same play and starred as Amanda in a production in London's West End.
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In 1991, Joan Collins rejoined her co-stars for Dynasty: The Reunion, a miniseries that concluded the cliffhanger ending left after the show's abrupt 1989 cancellation.
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In 1999, Joan Collins was cast in the film version of the musical theatre show Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, with Donny Osmond.
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Joan Collins then starred opposite Nigel Hawthorne in the film The Clandestine Marriage, which she co-produced.
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In 2002, Joan Collins returned to soap operas in a limited guest run on the American daytime soap Guiding Light.
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Joan Collins has continued to tour the world with the show and its sequel Joan Collins Unscripted ever since, including appearances in New York, Las Vegas, Dubai, Sydney, and twice at the London Palladium.
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Joan Collins guest-starred in They Do It with Mirrors, a two-hour episode of the murder-mystery drama Marple in 2009, as Ruth Van Rydock, a friend of detective Miss Jane Marple.
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In 2010 she joined the cast of the German soap opera Verbotene Liebe for a short run, playing an aristocratic British woman, Lady Joan Collins, who takes a young German prince in tow.
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Joan Collins lent her voice to the animated feature film Saving Santa.
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From 2013 to 2017, Joan Collins had a recurring guest role in the British sitcom Benidorm as Crystal Hennessy-Vass, the fierce CEO of the fictional Solana Hotel Group.
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In June 2015, Collins backed the children's fairytales app GivingTales in aid of UNICEF, together with others such as Roger Moore, Ewan McGregor, Stephen Fry, Joanna Lumley, and Michael Caine.
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In 2016, Joan Collins made a cameo appearance as herself in Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie.
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Joan Collins first portrayed Evie Gallant, the glamorous and rich grandmother of Evan Peters' character, and later portrayed witch actress Bubbles McGee.
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In 2021, Joan Collins appeared in a short comedy spoof for Comic Relief entitled 2020: The Movie, in which she played Maggie Keenan, the first person to receive a COVID-19 vaccination.
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Joan Collins was set to star as Adelaide of Maurienne in the historical drama television series Glow and Darkness, alongside Jane Seymour and Denise Richards which she began filming for in 2020; it was set to be released in late 2021.
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In May 2021, it was announced that Joan Collins would have a role in the musical film Tomorrow Morning, based on the acclaimed musical play of the same name; the film was released in September 2022.
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In 1982, Joan Collins spoke before the US Congress about increasing funding for neurological research.
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In 1994, Joan Collins was awarded the lifetime achievement award from the Association of Breast Cancer Studies in Great Britain for her contribution to breast cancer awareness in the UK.
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Joan Collins is patron of Fight for Sight; in 2003, she became a patron of the Shooting Star Chase Children's Hospice in Great Britain, while continuing to support several foster children in India, something she has done for the past 35 years.
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Joan Collins serves her former school, the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, as the Honorary President of the RADA Associates.
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Since the late 1990s, Joan Collins has been a regular guest diarist for The Spectator.
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Joan Collins continues to write occasionally for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Daily Telegraph and The Lady in the United Kingdom, and Harper's Bazaar in the United States.
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In 1959, Joan Collins began a relationship with the then-unknown actor Warren Beatty.
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Joan Collins revealed in her 1978 autobiography that she became pregnant by Beatty but had an abortion to avoid a scandal that at the time could have seriously damaged their careers.
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Joan Collins wed her third husband, American businessman Ron Kass in 1972, and the couple had a daughter.
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Joan Collins married her fifth and current husband Percy Gibson, who is 31 years her junior, on 17 February 2002 at Claridge's Hotel in London.
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Joan Collins was informed only two weeks before her sister's death about the breast cancer Jackie had suffered from for over six years.
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Joan Collins maintains residences in London, Los Angeles, New York City, and France, describing her life in 2010 as being "that of a gypsy".
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Joan Collins was treated for smoke inhalation but was otherwise unharmed and thanked the emergency response crews on social media.
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Joan Collins was a supporter of the late Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, and was invited to attend her funeral on 17 April 2013.
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In 2013 Joan Collins supported British withdrawal from the European Union.
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Joan Collins was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 1997 New Year Honours for services to drama.
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Joan Collins was advanced to Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2015 New Year Honours for services to charity.