Early Life
Collins was born in Paddington, London, the daughter of Elsa Collins (née Bessant), a dance teacher and nightclub hostess, and Joseph William Collins (died 1988), an agent whose clients would later include Shirley Bassey, the Beatles and Tom Jones. Her father, a native of South Africa, was Jewish, and her British mother was Anglican. She has one sister, author Jackie Collins, and one brother, Bill Collins. Collins was educated at the Francis Holland School and then trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA).
At the age of 17, Collins was signed to the J. Arthur Rank Film Company, a British film studio. She trained at the Rank Organisation's "charm school".
Read more about this topic: Joan Collins
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“Even today . . . experts, usually male, tell women how to be mothers and warn them that they should not have children if they have any intention of leaving their side in their early years. . . . Children don’t need parents’ full-time attendance or attention at any stage of their development. Many people will help take care of their needs, depending on who their parents are and how they chose to fulfill their roles.”
—Stella Chess (20th century)
“The city is always recruited from the country. The men in cities who are the centres of energy, the driving-wheels of trade, politics or practical arts, and the women of beauty and genius, are the children or grandchildren of farmers, and are spending the energies which their fathers’ hardy, silent life accumulated in frosty furrows in poverty, necessity and darkness.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)