Joan Collins Biography

Joan Collins played conniving glamourpuss Alexis Carrington Colby on the TV soap opera Dynasty (1981-89), along with many other roles in a long career.

Joan Collins began acting in low-budget British movies in 1951, then caught the attention of Hollywood when she appeared in the Howard Hawks epic Land of the Pharaohs (1955). Often cast as a sultry, brunette bad girl, she was in several films in the late 1950s, including The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing (1955) and Rally ‘Round the Flag, Boys! (1958, starring Paul Newman).

In the 1960s and 1970s she worked mostly in low-budget horror movies and in television. Most notably, she played the kind-hearted social worker that Capt. Kirk falls in love with in 1967’s “City on the Edge of Forever,” one of the most celebrated episodes of the original Star Trek series. As the years went by, she became a symbol of a sort of determined ageless Hollywood glamour; somewhat like like Elizabeth Taylor, Collins managed to stay in the public eye into the 21st century.

Joan Collins has also written novels, books on beauty tips, and the memoirs Past Imperfect (1978), Second Act (1996), Passion for Life (2013) and My Unapologetic Diaries (2021). In 2002, at age 68, she married her 36 year-old boyfriend Percy Gibson.