Joan Collins

Joan Collins has been married five times. Her husbands were actor Maxwell Reed, actor and singer Anthony Newley, businessman Ron Kass, singer Peter Holm and producer Percy Gibson. She has been married to Gibson since 2002, after they met when he produced a performance of Love Letters in San Francisco.

Collins has three children. She had Tara and Alexander with Anthony Newley, and Katyana, known as Katy, with Ron Kass. Katy suffered severe head and brain injuries after being hit by a car in 1980 and later recovered. Collins wrote about the experience in her memoir Katy: A Fight for Life.

Her younger sister was novelist Jackie Collins, whose novel The Stud was adapted into the 1978 film starring Joan. Collins also has a younger brother, Bill.

Collins made her stage debut in a 1946 production of Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House and trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. At 17, she signed with the Rank Organisation, appearing in British films including Lady Godiva Rides Again, The Woman's Angle, Judgment Deferred and I Believe in You. Her performance as juvenile delinquent Norma Hart in I Believe in You led to her being promoted as Britain's Bad Girl.

Her role as Princess Nellifer in Howard Hawks's Land of the Pharaohs brought Collins to the attention of 20th Century Fox executive Darryl F. Zanuck. She subsequently appeared in The Virgin Queen alongside Bette Davis and Richard Todd, and played Evelyn Nesbit in The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing.

During the late 1950s and early 1960s, Collins appeared in The Opposite Sex, Sea Wife, Island in the Sun, The Wayward Bus, Stopover Tokyo, The Bravados, Rally 'Round the Flag, Boys! and Seven Thieves. She left her 20th Century Fox contract after the studio cast Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra, a role Collins had sought.

After returning to Britain in the 1970s, Collins appeared in a series of thrillers and horror films, including Revenge, Tales from the Crypt, Fear in the Night, Dark Places, Tales That Witness Madness and Empire of the Ants. Her career regained major attention with The Stud in 1978, in which she played nightclub owner Fontaine Khaled. The film was adapted from Jackie Collins's novel, and Joan returned as Fontaine in the sequel, The Bitch, in 1979.

Collins's defining television role came in 1981, when she joined the second season of Dynasty as Alexis Colby, the glamorous and vengeful former wife of Blake Carrington, played by John Forsythe. The series became a major international success, and Alexis's conflict with Krystle Carrington, played by Linda Evans, became one of the show's central storylines.

For her performance, Collins received six Golden Globe nominations and won the award for Best Actress in a Television Series, Drama, in 1983. She also received a Primetime Emmy nomination and won Soap Opera Digest Awards for Outstanding Villainess. She played Alexis in 195 episodes of Dynasty and reprised the role in Dynasty: The Reunion in 1991.

After Dynasty, Collins returned to the stage and made her Broadway debut as Amanda in Noël Coward's Private Lives in 1992. She also toured with productions including Legends! and presented the one-woman shows An Evening with Joan Collins and Joan Collins Unscripted, which combined recollections of her career with personal stories.

Her later screen work included The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas, These Old Broads, Footballers' Wives, Hotel Babylon, Benidorm and The Royals. In American Horror Story: Apocalypse, she played both Evie Gallant and Bubbles McGee. She also starred in The Time of Their Lives, appeared in the short film Gerry, and had roles in The Loss Adjuster, Tomorrow Morning and Glow and Darkness.

Collins has written novels, memoirs, beauty books and newspaper columns. Her books include Past Imperfect, Prime Time, Love and Desire and Hate, The World According to Joan and Behind the Shoulder Pads. She was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1997 and became a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2015 for charitable services, particularly her support for children's causes.