Joan Collins

JOAN COLLINS OBE. English actress author and columnist. She grew up during WW2 and at the age of nine she made her stage debut in "A Dolls House" . She later trained as an actress at (RADA) in London. After eighteen months at the drama school, she was signed to an exclusive contract by the Rank Organisation and appeared in a number of British films. At the age of 22, she headed to Hollywood and landed sultry roles in several popular films including ; The Girl In The Red Velvet Swing (1955) and Rally Around The Flag Boys (1958). While she continued to make films in the United States and the United Kingdom throughout the 1960s, her career languished in the 1970s when she was reduced to roles in horror flicks. Near the end of the decade however, she starred in two films based on bestselling novels by her younger sister Jackie Collins ; The Stud (1978) and its sequel The Bitch (1979). In 1981, Collins landed her best known role as Alexis Carrington in the long running 1980s prime-time television soap opera Dynasty. By the time the soap opera had been cancelled, she followed in her sister's footsteps and published her first novel Prime Time (1988) which became a bestseller. After publication issues with Random House in 1996, she has since published many books : fictional / non-fictional and autobiographical. Flamboyant in her personal life and equally flamboyant in all the roles she pursues ; she continues to act in theatre film and television in a career that has spanned 60 years.