Stephen Collins Biography

STEPHEN COLLINS

Date of Birth: October 1, 1947

Stephen Weaver Collins was born in Des Moines, Iowa. His middle name pays homage to his American ancestry, for his great-great grandfather, James Baird Weaver, was a Presidential candidate in 1892. Stephen attended Hastings High School in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York. Soon after, he attended Amherst College and graduated in 1969 with a Bachelor of Arts degree. While in school, he developed a passion for playing the bass and rhythm guitar, a hobby he continued well into adulthood.

The seventies were quite eventful for the young man—he met and married writer Majorie Weinman while landing small roles in television series and TV movies. His big break came in 1976 where he shared the big screen with Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman in All the President’s Men. The film gained him the acclaim he needed and in the latter part of the decade, his career was gaining steady momentum. However, as his professional life succeeded, his personal life was suffering. In 1978 Stephen and Majorie divorced.

In 1979 Stephen starred as Decker in Star Trek: The Motion Picture. On the small screen he also worked steadily, even landing the starring role on the ABC-TV adventure drama series Tales of the Gold Monkey. On the set of this short-lived television series, Stephen met Faye Grant and after a two-year courtship, the couple married in 1985 and became parents to a daughter.

Following starring roles in three more primetime series, Stephen starred alongside Goldie Hawn, Better Midler, Diane Keaton, Maggie Smith and Sarah Jessica Parker in the major motion picture The First Wives Club (1996). Also in 1996, Stephen landed his most recognized role, as the kind-hearted Reverend Eric Camden in the long-running television series 7th Heaven. Stephen thrived as an upstanding minister and often mentored the show’s young actors who played his numerous children, including Jessica Biel and Beverley Mitchell, as a result. He publically chastised Biel for posing on the cover of Gear Magazine nearly nude; calling it “child pornography.” His character also encouraged a religious change in his personal life when he began serving as a lay Eucharistic minister at All Saints Church.

Despite his clean image, Stephen wrote a psychosexual thriller called Double Exposure that was published in 1998, saying that he has an acute interest in sex and a desire to write about it.

In 2012, Stephen filed for divorce from Faye. The divorce came as a shock to many, because of the unusual longevity of their Hollywood marriage. Unhappy with the divorce settlement, Faye claimed Stephen had “sociopathic tendencies” and she gave a tape she secretly made during a counseling session of Stephen admitting to inappropriate touching of a young girl, to the police.

Following the allegations, which have not yet been proven, Stephen was fired from a number of projects.

Filmography:

The Three Stooges (2012)
Because I Said So (2007)
Blood Diamond (2006)
The Commission (2003)
Drive Me Crazy (1999)
The First Wives Club (1996)
My New Gun (1992)
Stella (1990)
The Big Picture (1989)
Jumpin’ Jack Fish (1986)
Choke Canyon (1986)
Brewster’s Millions (1985)
Loving Couples (1980)
Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)
The Promise (1979)
Fedora (1978)
Between the Lines (1977)
All the President’s Men (1976)