Lewis Collins: 1946 - 2013

We're having an extra beer tonight as we discuss the career, such as it was, of the late Lewis Collins; motorcyclist, actor, musician, judo man and TV tough guy (not necessarily in that order). Aged 67, he died on 27th November 2013.

We used to laugh (or at least smirk) our way through The Professionals, the TV series that made him a household name, and we enjoyed the improbabilities of the plotline, the corny acting and the often stilted dialogue. But for all its faults, The Professionals was eminently watchable, and compared to much of the tosh currently on the box (and isn't it all tosh when it's not part of your generation?), the show was pretty good harmless fun, all said and done, and drew a clear distinction between the guys in the white hats, and the stand-'em-up-and-knock-'em-down baddies.

Much of the show's appeal, mind, was simply that it was filmed during the turbulent years of the 1970s; an era that was as awful as it was wonderful, and as hopeful as it was hopeless. And today, Lewis Collins and TV partner Martin Shaw are still on the box in re-runs of the fictional CI5 adventures wearing over-tight trousers and over-sized collars and doing unnecessarily theatrical things in Ford Capris whilst popping-off bullets like Marlowesque one-liners, and we love 'em for it.

Collins (pictured left astride a KTN) was born in The Wirral, Merseyside. He trained as a hairdresser, spent some time as a musician, and gravitated into acting. He had a small part in The New Avengers, and was remembered by producer Brian Clemens and invited to try his hand at the part of Bodie, the brooding tough guy with a soft centre and an eye for the girls.

When The Professionals finished, the acting roles became fewer and further between. Collins played Peter Skellen, the undercover SAS man, in Who Dares Wins (1982) a movie that shamelessly cashed-in on the 1980 London Iranian Embassy Siege and was pretty much The Professionals sans Martin Collins and Gordon Jackson. He auditioned for the part of James Bond and, allegedly, was rejected for being "too aggressive". He took a few other acting roles, but nothing that could possibly have satisfied him. We last saw him in a new part on British screen in 2002 when he had a cameo role in The Bill.

He became well known as a biker and on at least one occasion attended the Isle on Man TT. He performed many, if not most, of his own stunts in The Professionals. And he loved his fast cars and fast women (on screen at least), which perhaps draws a few parallels with actor Steve McQueen.

Eventually he moved to Los Angeles with his family and lived a fairly quiet life in a quiet Californian neighbourhood. In 2008 his health fell into decline, and he fought a long battle (to coin a phrase) until he finally succumbed. We hear that he died peacefully with his family around him. He was 67 and is survived by wife Michelle and sons Oliver, Elliot and Cameron.

We figure that most of us probably won't be smirking at future re-runs of The Professionals—which is inappropriate really because Lewis Collins, for all his on-screen machismo, never really took himself that seriously anyway.

— Dexxion

Copyright Sump Publishing 2013