I've always been a fan of Collins, from first seeing him, like many, on The Professionals, to later work on movies like Who Dares Wins and his wonderful turn as George Godley in 1988's Jack The Ripper, which Luscious and I watched again only a couple of weeks ago as our unofficial marking of the 125th anniversary of the Ripper. It was his best performance, and encapsulated just how much warmth he was capable of bringing to what were, essentially hard-man roles, and just how clever he was at creating character with his face: Godley is a man of raised eyebrows, twitches of the lips, and shrugs, and Collins imbues him with depth that, it is easy to see, is not in the script. It's a facet he brought to all his roles, and one which made him, for me at least, immediately likeable, no matter how much of a bastard he played. Damned if I can remember who played The Comedian in the execrable Watchmen movie, but they missed a trick by not casting Collins. He'd been playing the role his entire career. He was made for it.
There was never as much of his work as there should have been-- it's well documented that he unsuccessfully tried out for the James Bond role in the 80s, and he would have brought a Daniel Craig sense of danger to the role thirty years before Craig arrived-- but what roles there are form some of my favourite TV and film memories of my 1970s and 1980s, and he is an important member of my karass: My first ever trip to the theatre was to see him in Deathtrap when it toured Perth in my teens. I've been a theatre lover, and a firm fan of the play, ever since, and again, it was Collins' combination of personable warmth and simmering danger that made the experience so magnetic.
Another piece of my past is chipped away, and I'm sad to see him go.
Charm and danger: magnetic qualities.
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