Dame Joan Collins got her start in British films before making her way to Hollywood stardom during the Golden Age of cinema.
Collins made her big break with a role in 1952’s I Believe in You which led to roles in Cosh Boy and Our Girl Friday the following year. She subsequently secured Hollywood roles in The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing (1955), Sea Wife (1956), Island in the Sun (1957), Rally round the Flag, Boys (1958) and more before returning to the U.K. when she was replaced by Elizabeth Taylor for the title role in 1963’s Cleopatra.
In a CBS interview in 2019, Collins alleged that she had walked away from the film after a studio exec promised her the role if she would sleep with him.
“I was never ever, ever, going to settle for giving my body to some old man for the role — or even young man, or anybody,” Collins said at the time. “I would never do that, ever, ever.”
Collins eventually returned to Hollywood, bouncing between California and the U.K. for television and film roles. While she starred on several TV series through the years — from Roseanne and The Nanny to Will & Grace — she’s best known for her role on Dynasty. She earned multiple Golden Globe nominations for her performance, winning in 1983, and was up for an Emmy Award in 1984.
Off screen, Collins was married four times before finding love with producer Percy Gibson, whom she met while starring in the 2000 play Love Letters.
“I had declared that I never wanted to marry again,” Collins wrote in a 2018 essay for the Daily Mail. “I kept to that promise until I met Percy.”
The couple tied the knot in 2002, and their marriage has lasted longer than any of Collins’ previous trips down the aisle.
“I kissed a lot of frogs before I found my prince,” Collins wrote in her 2011 memoir, The World According to Joan. “For those women who are looking for a life partner, that old saying that men are like buses and ‘if you wait long enough the right one will come along’ is true for a reason.”
Keep scrolling to see a timeline of Collins’ career in photos:
